<Begin Segment 19>

TI: Let's talk a little bit about your parents. What were your parents doing at Tule Lake at this time?

MY: My parents, in general, I kind of perceived, not in any concrete way, but this was their vacation since coming to United States. I mean, they didn't have to worry about food, they didn't have to worry about anything other than pursuing their interests. And their interest was my father's sword making. My father's interest in Japanese swords manifested itself by he taking a job in the boiler room of the block where he could take care of fire in the boiler room and thereby, having fire and getting the spring of a truck -- you know spring of a truck is not circular, it's flat -- he getting that and making swords out of that. And that was his hobby, of working every day at the boiler room, which was no big deal for me, not a big deal for him because he was enjoying himself, making swords, pounding swords into shape.

TI: So he was using the boiler room, so the heat from that, to heat up the metal, straighten it out, and forge...

MY: Yes. I could show you examples of the swords he made there.

TI: Oh, I'd love to see that. That's amazing.

MY: So that was primary activity, but then my father was a very creative person in many different ways.

TI: But going back, I'm sorry, but going back to the swords, so he's, we've talked about in the past and he's always been interested in swords, he was a collector of swords. Why was he making swords? Was it purely just because he had the time and wanted to do this, or were they perceived as potential weapons?

MY: No, no, that was, he was interested in swords and there was not an access to Japanese swords in camp. I just assumed this was his way of getting into his hobby. If he can't find any he'll make them himself, which he did.

TI: But is that, so I'm thinking, here you are in a prison, you're prisoners and you're being guarded, and, and wouldn't the guards perceive that as contraband, something that is...

MY: If they were aware of it I'm sure they would have taken it away, but he was one of the nineteen thousand people in camp doing whatever they were doing. My father's action was taking care of the boiler room.

TI: So other, so he makes swords, and other activities?

MY: Well he was, as I say, a very creative person, so he made furniture for the room and he made furniture out of scrap lumber. So our unit, twenty by twenty -- this is about twenty by twenty, correct? Approximately. Part of it was divided into my brother's room and our room, with a division, my parents' room was over here, and then this whole area was the living area. My father made armchairs, couches out of scrap lumber, and then, let me see, no, the scroll is not hanging here. My father took a scroll with him into camp, and so that was hanging. And then he made armchairs out of branches of trees. Like this, this is made out of horn, deer horn. You could imagine these being branches of a tree. He made arms out of that, so we had two armchairs, yeah, two armchairs created from this kind of branches of trees, and then one couch. So our living room would have fit in this room just as easily, in terms of furniture. It was unique kind of furniture.

TI: I'm curious, was any of that saved or preserved?

MY: I beg your pardon?

TI: Was any of that brought back or saved?

MY: No.

TI: It's too bad. I'd love to...

MY: I have pictures of it, but that's about it.

TI: And your mother, what did she do with her time?

MY: My mother's attempt, I could say, and it was a very noble attempt to try to keep the family together by going to the kitchen and getting four people's...

TI: The ingredients or the...

MY: Four meals, and then bringing it home hoping that the family will eat together. Well, every so often would do this, which meant my mother's noble attempt -- and it really was a noble attempt because we seldom sat down together, the four in our barrack room. We sometimes sat together in the kitchen, mess hall, but not too often because Al was with his group and I was with my group, and every third day I was with the fire department eating there. But I have something which my mother made which surprised me, was her embroidery. So she had time to do embroidery, which I never knew she knew how to do. And then she made all my clothes, pajamas and such.

TI: Going back to those rare times when the four of you would sit together in the barracks to eat, so it's quiet, the four of you eating, what kind of conversation, what would you discuss?

MY: I don't remember.

TI: Or do you, do you have a sense of the feeling, would your parents talk more than you and Al, or do you have any sense of how that went? I'm just trying to get a sense of, it's almost like it's --

MY: It was just the family getting together and no one way or another way of conversation or anything. And we were, we interrelated with each other in no specific way, as I recall.

TI: Yeah, it's almost like a scene from a movie almost. I can see this. Because it is in, you talk about this kind of turmoil going on with nineteen thousand people, and your mother tried to just bring the four of you to this, in her mind maybe, a little haven, just the four of you, to come together. So there's just, like, this nice image.

MY: She succeeded in her own way.

TI: Your father, what, did he have a job or was there any role that he played at Tule Lake in terms of, you mentioned you didn't get so much into the politics. How about your father? Was he someone that got more involved in that?

MY: Yes, he was involved. He was a block representative. I don't remember for how long a time sequence, but he was a block representative, as I recall. And at what one point I don't recall either, because that has important bearing in terms of the fact that all three of us were in the stockade together.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.