Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Marion Michiko Bernardo Interview
Narrator: Marion Michiko Bernardo
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda, Barbara Takei
Location: San Francisco, California
Date: April 6, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-bmarion-01-0011

<Begin Segment 11>

TI: So when you left Walnut Grove where did you go? You mentioned the --

MB: Merced.

TI: So the Merced Assembly Center.

MB: Yeah, which was a horse racing track that they built temporary houses in the stalls, removed the stalls, and there still were horse dung and whatever.

TI: And so describe your area, I mean your living quarters, was it a horse stall or is it a barrack? What did you, where did you live in Merced?

MB: In camp?

TI: In Merced.

MB: In Merced? In the barracks.

TI: So you had barracks.

MB: Hastily built, 'cause it was just temporary residence and we were there, I don't know, before it got cold anyway.

TI: Okay. Any memories of Merced? Any stories that you remember from Merced?

MB: Not really, other than my personal, remembering personal things. My mother was getting sicker and sicker with her cancer, and my father would go get his, get her meals at the dining room, but he was also block manager. He had to make announcements when everybody was together. And so here I was, quite young, my brothers didn't want me tagging along with them and their friends, older friends, and my father's up front making his announcements, and it was a difficult time for me. I mean, there were no personal help for those kinds of problems. And then, I'm remembering, thinking about it, and then my father would get upset that I would eat my mother's food, and so, you know, the rooftops are this angle and there was no ceiling in between the whole building and people could hear me crying and everything. [Laughs] I remember that.

TI: Oh, so your father would get mad at you and then you would start crying?

MB: He would say, "That was for your mother and you mustn't eat it." And I didn't want to go to the dining room because I didn't have anybody to go with, and they were not people from Walnut Grove. He wanted to get away from people from Walnut Grove, and so we were with strangers, Merced people, so it was...

TI: I'm sorry, say that again. You wanted to get away from people from Walnut Grove?

MB: My father wanted to, yeah.

TI: But why?

MB: I don't know. I guess he had had it. During the evacuation period all these problems that came up, and he just wanted to stay away from them. And it's just that I didn't want to go to the dining room.

TI: Earlier you mentioned that you found out, when you went to camp, that the Walnut Grove people spoke differently than the other Japanese?

MB: They spoke differently? Oh, they spoke Japanese, right.

TI: Yeah, so they had, I guess, heavier accent, the Niseis did.

MB: Right, right. Yeah, so the, especially the people from L.A. -- this was when we moved to Colorado, Amache -- they made fun of us, "Oh, you're from Walnut Grove. I could tell from your accent." And that's just kids, you know.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.