<Begin Segment 21>

MN: Now, when did you start helping your father at Manzanar?

AM: When I was going to school I was helping him part time after school.

MN: And so the, are we talking about, let's see, when did your father get the approval to open a studio?

AM: Oh, let's see, I must've been in my junior year or something in high school. And then --

MN: So would that be 1944?

AM: Probably, yeah.

MN: Is when your father opened a, officially opened a studio.

AM: No, no. Forty... yeah, '44. And then right about that time the high school teacher decided maybe we should try to, the class should try to make a school annual because my father was there to take pictures. So this teacher decided to put out a high school annual, so the kids were very pleased with that idea, to have a high school annual, so the class of '44 had a high school annual.

MN: Thanks to your father.

AM: Yeah. And I was a graduate of the class of '44, too.

MN: Now, how long did your father use this camera that was made in camp?

AM: Okay, he used this camera at the very beginning, before the studio was open, and after the studio was open he couldn't use this picture for taking family pictures and things, so he told the photographer, the Caucasian guy, to go to Los Angeles and go to this dealer where my father used to buy things and buy all the necessary things that you have to get for the portrait studio, so he did. Well, it was just enough to get by. It wasn't the very, well, my father wasn't that satisfied with the equipment, but what else could he do, so that's, he was using that until one day this fellow was helping my father take a big group picture of the people of the one whole block, which meant about two hundred people. And he, my father set up the camera, had this fellow click the shutter and took the picture. And then after the picture was taken, he was in a hurry to hurry up and go home, so he took the lens off the camera before the film was taken out, so he ruined the picture. And my father got real mad at him and really chewed him out, so after that this fellow quit, so my father went to the camp director and told him the situation. And the camp director thought and thought, says, "I need to find another photographer to take picture," for my father, "it's gonna be hard." So he thought and thought and told my father, "Tell you what. Only thing I could think of is to have a, one of the housewife of the Caucasian worker sit at the studio, and as long as she's there you can take the picture yourself." And my father thought that was great. So at the end of the day this lady would take the lens home with her so my father won't have any access to a camera, so with that understanding my father says sure. He was very happy with it. Well these ladies, they'd just sit eight hours a day at the studio doing nothing, so after a few, few weeks or a month they would get tired and just say they want to quit. So each time they quit my father had to go to the camp director to find another lady. And it worked out for a while, maybe five or six times. After that the camp director told my father, "You know, it's hard to find somebody to do that kind of thing, so Toyo," he says, "I can't see anything going on the left side of me." So from then on everything that happened at the studio was left side of the camp director, so it was okay for him to take the picture. So...

MN: I'm going to go back a little bit. This first Caucasian fellow, when he went to, when your father asked him to get some of the equipment, did your father not have equipment in the garage or in storage that this fellow could go and get?

AM: He did. But he thought it'd be better if he got all the equipment and make it look like he got it and then brought it to the internment camp instead of sneaking in, sneaking in my father's equipment, because it would be illegal to.

MN: No, I mean the, after Ralph Merritt allowed him to get his equipment, or get...

AM: Well, after my father had to get rid of this Caucasian fellow --

MN: And was his name Alan?

AM: -- he kept using some of the stuff that his fellow got for him, but it was so difficult that he decided to, he had all this equipment in storage and stuff, so he went to the evacuee property head person and told him, "You know, I have a lot of equipment in storage, so if I could get that, those things to the camp, into the camp it'd be a great help" for him. So this head guy thought and thought, and he thought of an idea. He says, he told, he wrote to Washington, D.C., the headquarters for the War Relocation Authority, and told them, "Toyo has all this equipment in the storage in Los Angeles and the storage company is about to go bankrupt, so we have to take everything out of there so Toyo won't lose his equipment." So that's how he got all of his equipment to Manzanar. So from then on it was so much easier for my father. He had his own camera and lights and things.

MN: And this is probably 1944?

AM: Yeah.

MN: So he had his equipment, all of his equipment, when you folks had the annual, school annual?

AM: Yes.

MN: And then was it 1944 that you started to help your father part time?

AM: Yes.

MN: What did you do for your father?

AM: Well, all I did was, like, assistant work, like helping him when he was setting up to take pictures. I would help him with equipment. Or such thing as taking some pictures with a small camera, unposed pictures and things. If it's a wedding picture, it's candid pictures where I would take pictures where bride and groom is doing something, not a portrait. So portrait, my father was doing all the portrait work and I would just do that kind of thing where he wouldn't have to do it. And so that's how I got started. And then back in the studio I would help with spotting the picture or trimming the pictures and putting it into folders and thing like that. And then I started to do some film developing and printing and thing like that. In that way I was his assistant.

MN: Was this the first time you helped your father?

AM: Yes.

MN: Sometimes it's, parent-son relationships are kind of hard, but how was your father as a teacher?

AM: Well, he was very good that way. He was very understanding and he didn't treat me like what I, what most Issei people would treat young people, very demanding and things like that, but he would just, just like a regular person. And it was very easy to work for him.

MN: So your father wasn't one of those people that shouted and screamed at you?

AM: No.

MN: Was this the first time you thought about going into photography?

AM: Well, I went into it without even knowing it. That's, let's put it that way, because there was nothing else for me to do during the camp and then I thought, well, maybe as an oldest son maybe I should try to be a help to him so in case of anything I can be there for him. So with that kind of thinking I went into it. And I never went to a photography school or anything, because I was in internment camp, and I learned everything from him, how he was doing it.

MN: What was your mother doing in Manzanar?

AM: She was more like, well, she started to work at the studio a little bit, by helping as a receptionist and things like that, but most of the time she was at, in the apartment doing housework, doing laundry and things like that.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.