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TI: This is really interesting. So like before the war, it seemed like there was a system where certain people got, in some ways, almost preferential treatment or got more.

JY: Yes.

TI: And then after the war, you promoted this idea of more equality. And I was kind of thinking about the camp experience where, where if that kind of aided in this transition. Because I'm thinking, before the war, there were some people who had more money and some people who didn't. But when they came to the camp, everyone had to eat the same food and eat in the same place. Do you kind of think that sense of equality was aided in the camps?

JY: No, that part of the camp equality as far as my experience as growing up in camp, my block, the Block 27, I lived in there. As you know, there's approximately about 250 to 300 people per block, depends on the way the buildings are chopped up. There was four families in our block that never ate in the mess hall. They bought half their food from the canteen. The canteen had anything you wanted. You name it, you got, the manager of the store lived in our block, Block 27, Tsujimura, and he would tell them, "Hey, sashimi's gonna come in. Tofu's gonna come in, beef's gonna come in. You want some?" My dad told him, says, "We eat what everybody else eat." In the meantime, you hear the kids talk about it, like this one family from Seattle -- I won't name the man's name, because I don't want to influence you -- but anyway, they lived on an end barrack room, and the kids on the far end there, it was a block manager's kids, block manager didn't have too much. He was on the, what you say, on the low income side. And everybody asked the kids' dad, said, "Can we eat what they're cooking?" They're on the last, hundred feet away, the smell, no ceiling right? The smell travels, and whatever they're cooking, chicken or eggs or bacon or ham, whatever it may be, on the stove, it smells good regardless of what it is. So the father, how the father's gonna tell the kids, "We don't have no money. We don't have enough money, like they must have more money that we could to go to the canteen and buy all this stuff." I mean, you hear those kind of things, 'cause he told my dad, says -- he was a Kibei -- said, in Japanese, "What can I tell my kids? What can I tell my kids? I don't have the money to -- I have a hard enough time buying clothes, let alone buying surplus food."

TI: But in thinking about before the war, wasn't it even more, more profound in terms of people who had money and property versus those who didn't? And it seemed like the camp maybe leveled the playing field a little bit towards that way. But you're saying even in camp, there was these distinct, almost classes.

JY: No, I think, I think it made a more profound difference after camp, because for myself, like in various areas, East San Jose area there, there were approximately fifty families, Japanese families renting land, farming. Out of fifty, there were four families that owned the land, out of fifty. So when we came back, we had a place to come back to. The rest of the families had no place to come back to. There were three families never came back to San Jose. They stayed back east. So it was to watch them and what they struggled to go through. We had a place to come back to. But then again, as a whole, as far as we're concerned here in San Jose, we didn't differentiate, because we've got a house, we've got a place to come back to. Those poor guys living out in the cold, what can we do to help you? Everybody was out to help each other out, get a job for them, hire them, use them for workers and so forth. I mean, so we tried to make life easier for them, too, to give 'em a job and so forth. I think in that respect, we felt that we all belonged together. We had to work together to help each other. Because, sure, we had a place to stay, but money-wise, we were low on money, too. I mean, to start up the farm, we've got to buy a tractor, buy trucks and so forth, 'cause that's another story entirely again. But we're struggling to get it going and they're struggling to have a place to stay.

TI: Sure. So everyone is struggling, but you had, it sounds like you had more than others.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.