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TI: Okay, so let's talk about, so you have to leave, so where, where does your family go?

BS: We were taken by our workers to this park nearby. That was the assembly point where there were many Japanese there, and then we were taken by bus to this nearby Pomona Assembly Center.

TI: So how close was the Pomona Assembly Center to your farm?

BS: It was just over the hill, six, seven miles away.

TI: Okay, so not very far. Six, seven miles away, you go to the Pomona Assembly Center. And what was it like there? What was, how many Japanese were there?

BS: Well, there were fifty-five hundred of us there. It was, it was a fairground, Los Angeles County fairgrounds, and I remember it had high fences surrounding the place and there were guard towers, and just... we had these barracks. I guess they were something like twenty feet by hundred feet. I don't know how many rooms, there must've been four or five rooms in those barracks. Oh, the first day that we got there, we were given these canvas bags to fill them with straw and that was our mattress.

TI: And you were, like, twelve years old when this was all happening, so for you at twelve, what was it, was it like an adventure almost? Or what, how was it --

BS: Yeah, it, that's the word. It was a big adventure because I was not told I committed any kind of crime, so I'm just tagging along. I'm just, the group's going, so I went with them and... [laughs] just tagging along with the group.

TI: And so describe some of the, the things that you would do at Pomona. I mean, here you are, twelve years old, did you hang out with other boys your age or what, what did you do?

BS: Yes, I got together with my friends from where we came from and we used to just, well, there was nothing to do. We just got together and talked together and maybe roamed around the camp, and pretty soon they formed a softball team and so I got on the team and was able to play softball for the first time and that was a lot of fun. But I think the, the thing I remember a lot is the mess hall line. The mess hall was the cafeteria where we were fed three times a day and there were only three mess halls for fifty-five hundred of us, and so, you know, couple thousand people for each mess hall, so there'd be a long line for each of the three meals, and so one hour ahead before it was to open people were lining up, so it seemed like we spent all of our time there lining up for something.

TI: So they didn't do things like have people eat in shifts, like you have early shift, mid shift, late shift or anything like that?

BS: No. They didn't, they were not organized, and so at the very beginning we just lined up and if we didn't have enough to eat or didn't like the food that we were fed, then we would get in line at another mess hall. And I tried that several times, but then the authorities got wise to that so they issued us a little tag that we had to have to enter the mess hall.

TI: Now, when you were waiting in line and ate, did you do this with your family or with your friends?

BS: I guess at the beginning I ate with the family. At the, short time, then just all, you ate with your friends. You don't want to be caught with your parents. [Laughs]

TI: And so how did that affect the family when you and probably your older brothers also probably start eating with friends? I mean, how did that affect your, your mother at this point? Did she want the family to eat together?

BS: Well, maybe she did, but we all went our separate ways because we were old enough. People who were old enough to go around with groups of friends and that's what they did all day long, and so it was a big adventure. And I might mention the, another thing that was really enjoyable was the weekly talent show. They got all these musicians and singers and performers and they would put on these weekly talent shows and, oh, it was very good. There were many talented people. And so that was highly enjoyable. Of course, we're sitting in an open field on dirt ground, but overlooking all those kind of things, having to stay in a room twenty feet by twenty feet and sleeping on straw mattresses, there was some things that were enjoyable. Well, most of the things were bad, but a few things were enjoyable.

TI: And so when you say bad, what were some of the hard things about living there?

BS: Well, I mean, first of all it's the room. Just a room with our cots and nothing else. I don't think we even had a stove because it was summertime, and so with only one light bulb, no screens on the window, open ceilings where you could hear the noise of your neighbors, and in fact, they had those boards that you could see through to your neighbor. And there were no water or bathroom or anything like that in the room, and so I think that was probably the worst thing of that camp. And another thing it was we were confined in this small area with guards around the place, and so we had that loss of freedom. But despite that, I played softball, had fun doing that, enjoyed the talent show, and then all the adults had a softball league. They were amazing, the, the softball that they played, so it was really nice to watch all these very good ballplayers play softball. It was a first-time experience for a farm boy to get in this kind of situation, but of course, we had no money to buy things or no bicycles or nothing like that.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.