Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Fred Tadashi Shingu Interview
Narrator: Fred Tadashi Shingu
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda, Martha Nakagawa
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: July 29, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-sfred_2-01-0020

<Begin Segment 20>

TI: Earlier you mentioned a hunger strike, so describe that. How did that come about?

FS: It was, I forgot what it was about, but maybe they said, "Get us out of here," or something like that and then they wouldn't do it, so maybe that's, that's what the hunger strike was about. I'm not sure, but it, but anyway, for sure that we had a hunger strike. Two weeks, two weeks of not eating anything.

TI: And so this is everybody in the stockade?

FS: Yeah, the whole, everybody in the stockade.

TI: And what did the administration do when you guys were doing a hunger strike, like when you decided, what happened?

FS: You mean the people outside?

TI: Yeah.

FS: They didn't do anything.

TI: So they just quit sending you guys food because you wouldn't eat it? Or would they still serve food and you just wouldn't go?

FS: Well, after the two weeks there was, then we, then they start, they started cooking, the people in the whatchamacall, they start cooking and we start eating, so I don't know what happened after the two weeks. I don't know what happened, really.

TI: Now, did any of the men in the stockade get really sick from the hunger strike?

FS: No, not that I know of, no.

TI: Two weeks is a long time, so just, just drinking water...

FS: It is, yeah. I know it is.

TI: And you mentioned vitamins, too, sometimes vitamins.

FS: Yeah.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.