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Title: Toshi Nagamori Ito Interview
Narrator: Toshi Nagamori Ito
Interviewer: Martha Nakagawa
Location: Laguna Woods, California
Date: November 9, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-itoshi-01-0015

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MN: Now, what sort of jobs did your parents find at the assembly center?

TI: Well, my father didn't have any job, and neither did my mother.

MN: How about yourself?

TI: I was a gopher, which means I worked in the mess hall, and whenever the bread bowl was empty, I would go for some more bread. And if the apple butter was empty, the can, then I would go and get some more. So I was euphemistically called a "gopher." [Laughs]

MN: Now, you also later had another job circling clothing?

TI: Yes.

MN: Can you share --

TI: I had a brief job of circling clothing in the Sears Roebuck catalog. And I circled thermal underwear. So I told my dad, and he said, "See? We're gonna be sent to a cold place."

MN: So is that the WRA told you, "These are things you're supposed to -- "

TI: "You can order," and we had to circle them. "Turn to page so and so, circle this and this and this," that was our brief job that we did.

MN: And then you gave these catalogs to everybody in the assembly...

TI: Yes, and everybody could come and, you know, order these things without paying for them.

MN: That was part of the clothing allowance?

TI: Yeah.

MN: Now, was there any Sunday services held at Santa Anita?

TI: Yes, uh-huh, in the grandstand. And I suppose the bible readings and the hymns have never been sung there since. [Laughs]

MN: I was talking to Reverend George Aki, he's a chaplain of the 442nd.

TI: Yes, I know him.

MN: And he said one time there was a brief period where he sort of questioned God about all of this. Did you ever have that issue with you questioning God, and, "Why is this happening?"

TI: No, I did not.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.