<Begin Segment 10>

MN: Your mother encouraged the girls to take extracurricular classes. What sort of activities did she encourage you to do in Topaz?

JD: I took Japanese dancing. That was really about the only thing that we could take. I also went to Japanese language school, but I didn't like it either. But we, but I went, but it was Japanese dancing that we took and I really actually enjoyed that. I enjoyed that dancing. But that was about the only thing I took.

MN: The photos you showed us, you're wearing a kimono. Where did that come from?

JD: You know, it's interesting because I think, for whatever reason, my mom decided to bring some of the Nihongis with her, even though we were not allowed to carry very much with us, she decided she was going to bring that with us, and so the Nihongis that I'm wearing are the one that my mom brought. And so she, then she brought the obi and all the accoutrements that go with it, and so she brought a couple of them with her. I don't know why, but she did.

MN: Now, for the music to go with the odori, was it real instruments or was it records?

JD: Mostly records. Mostly records. Sometimes there was a shamisen sort of thing, but it was basically records. Yeah.

MN: So somebody had brought a shamisen?

JD: I think so, yeah.

MN: Now, you said you went to Japanese language school also. Is this like when you were in San Francisco, was it after regular school?

JD: The one in camp you mean?

MN: Uh-huh.

JD: The one in camp was after school. I think it was after school. I don't think it was on the weekend. If it was on the weekend I don't remember that. Maybe it was on a Saturday or something. I don't remember what day I went. I just remember that I had to go and take it.

MN: Now, what did your parents do in Topaz?

JD: Well, my dad became a supervisor of an irrigation crew for a farmer, probably a farmer outside the camp, and so he was always leaving the camp with his crew. My mom was one of the cooks at this mess hall that was built outside of camp to feed people like my father and his crew and others who were doing like sort of thing, but they wouldn't have to come back into camp to have their lunch and to go back out again, 'cause it was kind of a distance. And so they had this mess hall, and so my mom was one of the cooks there.

MN: And how many times did you perform for these crew people?

JD: I can only remember once. That one time only is, is what I remember. If there was another time I don't remember that.

MN: Was that for a special occasion?

JD: No. I think my mom decided that it might be nice for these people to have some entertainment, and since my dad was there as well, as well as others, my mom just got some of us kids together and said why don't we have this odori thing for, for the people that are coming to eat, and so that's what we did.

MN: Now, by your barrack is this huge pond that your father built.

JD: Yeah.

MN: Can you share with us how we built it, how long it took?

JD: I don't remember how long it took. I don't even remember how it even got started. I just remember that my dad got it started and he got some of the other, his contemporaries to see if they were interested, and a lot of them were, and so a lot of them helped out. I don't even remember where they got the material to build it, because when we went back last year to Topaz that pond was still pretty well intact with that same material, and it looked like some kind of concrete, but I don't know where they got it. But so they built it. It took them, I think a little while, and then they had to stock it and it was stocked with catfish, and the catfish came from the irrigation canal, so my dad just got a bunch of it and brought it back to the barracks and put it into the fish pond.

MN: Did you guys eat the catfish?

JD: No. No, they were strictly there for our enjoyment.

MN: You know, when you were leaving camp, what did you do with the catfish?

JD: I think they were just left there to die, I think. As near as I can tell, I don't know.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.