<Begin Segment 5>

MN: So what do you remember of other, how did you spend your time at Tanforan? You didn't start school yet at Tanforan?

TS: No. I didn't start the first grade until we went to Topaz, but in Tanforan there were, this is interesting you mention that, it was a horse track, racetrack for horses, and the bleachers where the betters sat, we would climb up those places and play up there, and I remember there was these piles of chocolate powder. Why it's up there I have no idea. So we used to lick our fingers and it was, it was powdered chocolate, and I remember going up there and doing that, 'cause we didn't have any money, we didn't have no candy, had nothing, and we played in the bleachers. We went to where the Japanese garden was being built. We went to eat at the mess hall, and the latrines were there and I remember, one of my clear memory is when we went to the bathroom, the washbasin was sheet metal. It was a trough and they had these hot and cold water, like a laundry spigot, right? So you're brushing your teeth and somebody upstream spits out all this toothpowder and it comes floatin' down, and I go, I remember seeing that and going, oh my god, you know. It was primitive. It was very primitive. And I remember that distinctly, thinking, oh my God, how, what a, what a horrible way to live. And I didn't know shit in those days; I was just a kid. But I remember that distinctly.

MN: What about, now you're in this public, you have to do all your private things, the bathroom and everything, in a very public arena, how did that make you feel?

TS: That's a good question. Because we had no father, well, my father always absent, and we had to go to the women's latrine with my mother or my older sister, Mae, 'cause, so we never went to the men's bathroom. And I remember later on some of the women were complaining to my mother they didn't want these boys in there, the women's latrine. But it was, it was a gradual orientation to prison life. Not that we realized we were in prison. We saw the guards behind the barbed wire fences and we were told to stay away, but I guess it didn't sink into little four year old kids. We were just trying to be kids, so we didn't realize, it wasn't 'til later that I learned the ramifications of what they did to us and that really pissed me, I'm still pissed off today, because I believe, I believe in fairness, if you're gonna, if you're gonna say you're gonna be true to me and say all that stuff and I find you cheatin' on me, you think I'm gonna sit there and say, "Oh my god, oh well, those things happened"? Fuck you. You don't lie to me and sit there with your, with your bare face hangin' out and expect me to say, oh well, I'll make excuses for you. Not me. That's bullshit, you know? So if you're gonna, if you're gonna have a constitution, why the hell didn't our government stand up for it? And so that's what to me really is a pain in the, pain in the ass to me today, to realize in retrospect how they screwed us and none of us knew any better to protest or rebel. We just went along with it because people were scared to death. And to take advantage of good citizens, you know, Japanese were good people. We obey the laws. I don't know if I told you, I worked in three county jails, Alameda County, Marin County, and the Napa County jail. Never had a Japanese male in jail. I had all different other kinds of people. Never a Japanese American in jail, because we obey the laws. We're good citizens. We're good people. We do good things. And we're treated like this? Hell of an insult. I cannot, I cannot for, in good conscience make excuses and say this bullshit. Well, it's shikata ga nai, can't be helped. Bullshit, it can't be helped. The people who did it didn't give a shit about us. I can't forget that kind of bullshit. I really can't. And to this day, I'll tell you that, tell you this, when I went to Topaz we had to say the pledge of allegiance to the flag, but since I left camp I cannot make, I cannot make myself say those words. They just can't come out. I feel like I'm tellin' a bold faced lie. "With liberty and justice for all," what a bunch of bullshit. And you're gonna make me say that and act like I believe it and it's coming from my heart? Can't do it.

MN: How did you feel saying that in Topaz?

TS: Well, in Topaz I was just a four year old kid. I went to first grade when I was five. We had to stand there and salute, say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, flag was hanging by the door. We didn't know what the hell we were saying. We just said what they told us to say, you know? But again, in retrospect, I feel like, my goodness. "With liberty and justice for all"? You know, if I, you look up the word "liberty" in the dictionary, it says freedom from oppression, freedom from control and blah blah blah, so "with liberty and justice for all"? I was born in San Francisco; I'm just as much a citizen as any other hakujin or whoever. And they pick us out, single us out and then they deny our constitutional rights and our civil rights, our human rights, and I'm gonna sit here and say, oh well, it can't be helped? Bullshit. I don't see how the hell people can say that, by the way, in good conscience, unless they just, they don't want to make waves, they just want to keep everything as quiet as can be. But you know something? I don't give a shit what people think of me. This is me, this is how I feel. I can't change my feelings. I can bullshit you and tell you, oh, it was la-di-da, but then I wouldn't be real. I'm trying to give you the real me. If you want the real Toru, that's what you're getting. If you want the phony Toru, find somebody else.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.