<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So we're back on camera, so we're back on the record. So where we left it, you had finished your first year at U of H, you quit, and then you got this job that actually was... allowed you to go to like Honouliuli and other camps in that area. So the question I have is, tell me about Honouliuli, when you would go do the type of work, what kind of work would you do at Honouliuli?

YI: Okay, for one thing, it's called a (PW camp) in Honouliuli gulch, okay, and there is a village called Honouliuli which is an entrance to Ewa Plantation. So most of us never referred to Honouliuli gulch because there was nothing there, okay, and it's not visible from the road.

TI: That's good to know because if I say Honouliuli, you think of the village, not the gulch.

YI: Yes, if you ask ten people, I think nine would tell you it's the village, entrance to Ewa because there was nothing in the Honouliuli gulch and then, except for families that had internees in there, nobody knew.

TI: So as a worker, what would you call the gulch, what would you call that?

YI: POW camp, that's what it was known as a POW camp and then, of course, I knew my father was there. See, they said that there were Italian POWs but I'm sure there were Germans too because I remember the distinction in the uniform, you know, they all didn't have the same kind of uniform. And they had Taiwanese families, you know, because of the war in the Pacific, for their safety, I think there were families in the camp behind our, my father's location. I saw families in there with kids.

TI: And when you think of the camp layout, so there are like these different sections, you mentioned German, Italian, Taiwanese families, your father. How did they separate the different areas?

YI: Fencing, you know, barbed wire, yeah. I guess they couldn't comingle. I don't know about the POWs, I think they were together, the Italians and Germans but I may be mistaken but I say there were two because I remember the difference in the uniform, you know.

TI: And then so tell me again when you would go to Honouliuli, you know, the POW camp, what would you do? What was your job?

YI: What you call, I wonder if there was a security gate, I don't think there was a security gate into the camp, but the MP would come and meet us and then he would open the gate for us, you know, like entrance to the mess hall. But we were not allowed in the camp, the mess hall, as you go in the left side was the camp and there was big mess hall, I think, you know, that concrete area, I think that was part of the mess hall. He would watch us, he would sit down and watch us while we did our thing. But after a while, you know, we got to know him because I'd go there weekly, and talking, I'd say to him, my father's in there, you know. He said, "Well, why don't you go talk to him," you know, so he'd let me go and talk to my father over the fence and my father would give me... you know, there was a huge rationing during that time, where civilians didn't have butter, this kind of stuff. But he used to give me lots of butter to take home because, you know, what they going to use it for, you know, Japanese, they were giving them rationed butter and they didn't know what to do with it.

TI: So that's interesting, so the prisoner was giving you things to take home?

YI: Yeah, I used to take it, you know, if I knew I was going in then my mother would make extra musubi and I'd take it and give to him, yeah.

TI: And how was he when you saw him because you mentioned earlier he --

YI: He was well already and he was resigned to the fact that... I think he enjoyed it, I mean, you know, that... well, I think that's the kind of quiet my father liked, those who do a lot of reading and writing and stuff like that. And then I used to take in rags for him, they were making wooden geta, and I guess they needed they braided the rags to make the himo for the geta so I used to take in rags for him.

TI: So he would tell you what he needed and the next time you would come and bring things. And you also mentioned that the men could also have, you know, family visitation, did you ever go to any of those?

YI: No, I didn't go because, you know, I let my mother and sister go because, you know, I see him. And they tell me the visitation was in the mess hall I think.

TI: And do you recall how your mother and sister, where they would have to go to be taken to the camp? Did they have to meet like at a certain place to go?

YI: Yeah, well, actually, we had a friend in the camp that took them. But he had to stay in the car though, we didn't have transportation otherwise.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.