<Begin Segment 4>

TI: When you think about -- going back to the camp experience now -- inside the camp, the Japanese controlled lots of different areas in terms of the administration. How, how well were the Japanese about being fair in, like, job placements and just the running of the camp that they controlled? Do you think that they...

JY: Well, yeah, naturally a lot of people used their influence to hire different people to put them on the job, this and that. In that respect, I guess it was... I don't know. But like they said, one job per family, well, like our family, there was four of us working. There was nine of us, actually, four was capable of working and all four, they all got a job. But we applied for a job and got the job. So we didn't know, but at that time, so we're new in Tule Lake, we came from Heart Mountain to Tule Lake to look for a job. My sister got a job in the mess hall, my brother got a job in the social welfare, my other sister, I forget what she got. Anyway, we all went to work.

TI: So how did that work? I mean, how were you able to, your family able to get those jobs, and perhaps another family not? I mean, was there, how did that work?

JY: What you mean, how it worked?

TI: Well, so yeah, I mean, would your family do something differently so that they would get these jobs? Or I'm just trying to understand...

JY: I don't know how we came about all four of us got a job. Like my father says, just stay busy and stay out of trouble, you won't get in trouble. We're in a new place, Tule Lake, it's gonna be tough. All these different elements coming in from all different part of the country, so always good to be careful what you do. But just as long as you do your job, do it properly... I know they didn't tell me at the time, but after I got out of camp, they used to literally blow me over every time. Like when I put the jail, they didn't give me a hard time then, but after I left camp and talked to them, says, "Boy," says, "you were a bastard building the jail for our own people." But I can't help it, that was part of the deal. I mean, it's part of the job, administration wants it, and I just did what they wanted to do. "But you shouldn't have built the jail." But what the heck's the difference?

TI: Yeah, let me ask you that. So I understand during camp, you're, it's a job and you're doing it. And so after the camp, when people said that, did you think about that a little bit more? Or what do you think about it now that it's after camp and people ask you, "So Jimi, why'd you build the jail?"

JY: I just got to... well, it didn't bother me that much, really. It's all past and done with. They're just telling me the story how a lot of people were very angry with me because I did that. But they weren't angry with me when I made the barrack, I pulled the barracks over to build the stockade. See, before the stockade, it was a processing center, that's what it was. And then just turned out to be no use for it, so they created a stockade out of it. But, see, they didn't know that part of it, that I made the stockade indirectly. Because at the time, they never connected who did what. But jail, I built the jail in front of everybody, and that was more visible, I guess.

TI: Well, so when you do things like the stockade and the jail, again, thinking back, would you have done anything differently?

JY: Done differently?

TI: Yeah.

JY: No, I think part of the administration, our office was, Director Best's office was right next door, and he'll come in and talk to us. And like everybody else, we went and talked to him. And like the jail, Best called me in his office and asked me, "Hey, Jim," says, "we got to build a jail." My stock answer was, "You know, Mr. Best, I'd be a damn fool if I built a jail for my own people." He says, "Well, if you don't do it, somebody else gonna do it." You're up a tree, right? So okay, so I built the jail. But those kind of things, I guess, just being young and feisty, what the heck, I'll try anything.

TI: How about your crew? When you were building the jail or the stockade, did you ever have to talk to people on your crew because they said, "Hey, Jimi, why are we doing this?"

JY: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I said, I had about 250 guys working for me, had different crews. So I went around all the crews asking, "Hey, I've got to build this jail." The first thing they said, "Bakatare. Who in the hell is gonna build a jail for our own people?" But finally I got two brothers from Loomis area, they said, "Okay, we'll do it for you." So they never built a jail, concrete job, and they're a bunch of farmers, right? We're all, like myself, I didn't have that much experience. But we all put our heads together and we built the jail, you know. Crudely enough, but with the equipment we had, it's amazing we even built the jail.

SF: When did the jail go up, Jimi, and when did the stockade go up?

JY: The stockade went up first, real early, when I got there in '43. First part of '44, see, the stockade was mid-'44. Because at the time, they ran out of hostage for prisoner of war exchange with Japan. So the prisoner of war exchange were those Peruvians and Central American people, was brought to United States and they were sent to Japan for prisoner of war exchange. And then the last eight hundred refused to go, so they had to have more prisoner of war exchange. So next best was the processing center. And meantime, people were asking to be repatriated to Japan. So though that, we had to make a processing center. So we dragged four barracks, one barrack for women to sleep in, the other for men, then one was converted to a mess hall, another one was converted to a restroom and laundry room. And then that was, we drug the barracks over from the warehouse, in the meantime, we almost started the jail almost immediately. But mid-July, mid-summer, we started building the jail. And about four or five months, we were done with, the jail was built. But the processing center was, had no fence around it, it was just, there was a fence around it partially, it was in the army compound. And then so they figured they'd have to move a lot of people to, out of there. But meantime, when the first batch went to Japan, meantime, before that, all the Spanish-speaking Japanese was in there. So they looked at them and says, "Who are you? Where you come from?" Said, "We come from America." Said, "You're telling me America is exchanging American citizens for prisoner of war exchange?" Says, "No more prisoner of war exchange." So we saw the copy of the letter through the Spanish embassy, that there will be no more exchanges. Japan refused to make any more exchanges whatsoever. So that was the last, first and last ship that went to Japan from Tule Lake. Then all the building was standing there, meantime, all the riots started in '44, late '44, and they just brought in four towers from the farm area, put double fence around it, made a stockade out of it.

SF: So who was held mostly in the jail and who was held mostly in the stockade?

JY: That question comes up all the time. Just who's who, and I asked them jailed guys, that was in jail, I said, "What the heck you were in for?" Said, "I don't know." Then I asked the guys in the stockade, "What you were in the stockade for?" Says, "I don't know." Maybe they were, they signed up with the, certain organization, and then the other guys, they don't, but domestic violence or whatever it is. But they really didn't know. It just so happened one guy that I talked to, he helped me build the jail. And when I saw him on one of the pilgrimages, I says, "Hey, that's the guy who ran the jail job." He pointed at me and he told everybody, "I was the boss of the jail, jail crew. And I was, after I built the jail, I went into the jail." I don't know why, but since I was putting the jail, this youngster, he was only sixteen, seventeen years old, he was a few years younger than I was. So he was just laughing about it, but that's how it was. I could never tell you who, how they segregated. But the Hoshidan group, they were in the stockade, mostly. But the jail, I didn't know who. So the stockade used to cook the dinner for the jailbirds, so when the jailbirds goes into the stockade, all the stockade people were at one corner while they eat their lunch, then they go out and they come back in. They didn't mingle together, I don't know why, they were next door to each other. But it's odd how that worked. I could never, ever, lot of books, but I couldn't find out how they segregated 'em.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.