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MN: Now your father, what did he do in camp?

LW: My father was a skilled carpenter, so in addition to farming he built his own house, so he was a good carpenter. So his job was being in the carpentry department, so he did jobs on, on the barracks and other camp facilities that needed carpentry work.

MN: Camp I had this huge theater that was built. Did he work on any of those theater projects, putting on plays?

LW: No. I think all his work was pretty much confined to Camp III.

MN: What did he do on his free time?

LW: He was, oh yeah, he kept up his poetry. Before camp, he and, there was a poetry club of California people, and so he was always composing poetry while he was farming. When he got into camp he was, continued composing poetry, and even in camp they shared, they had a poetry club. But he was also a, he liked to create things with his hands out of wood, so he did some beautiful things with ironwood. The interesting thing was that in his free time he would go out of the fence, Camp III -- I guess that was one camp that was quite lenient -- so he would walk out into the desert and look for ironwood, which was petrified wood. It was almost like stone. And he, he came back with, on his trips he came back with some ironwood, and out of the ironwood he created a couple of beautiful vases, which, they're still in our family. I think one of the members of our family has one of his vases, and on that vase he carved the, a haiku using, and done very beautifully in the calligraphy form, and to be able to do that, carve that in that ironwood was amazing to me, so it's really a real treasure that we have. So that was his work. He enjoyed poetry, working with his hands, creating some beautiful pieces.

MN: Has his poetry ever been compiled into a book or an anthology?

LW: I think, I think yes. I think my sister, who is, made a special effort to preserve some of the history, has a book of poetry, and I know that the club that he belonged to, even in camp, had poetry, haiku poetry books, so I think my sister has, has those in her possession. Since my sister's husband is bilingual, knows Japanese, he's good at being able to translate and understands the meaning of that poetry.

MN: Now, what about your mother, what did she do in camp?

LW: My mother, in addition to trying to grow flowers in the piece of, space in front of the barrack, she loved to knit and she knitted a couple of sweaters for me, and I know she knitted other things, clothing for her children and maybe even her grandchildren.

MN: In November of 1942 Saburo Kido, a JACL leader, was beaten up at Poston II and Poston underwent a general strike, I think mostly Camp I. Did this affect life in Camp III?

LW: All the, in terms of anxiety and some, quite a bit of conversation among the older folks. As a youth, I guess we had heard about it, but we didn't really ask questions and really get into the dynamics of dealing with that situation, so we were pretty naive teenagers dealing, probably trying to make the best of our own situation.

MN: Now how about when the "loyalty questionnaire" came out in '43? Did you discuss this with others before answering?

LW: We didn't have a chance to discuss it. We may have -- well, our pastors were, in the camp, were our peers. They were only a year or two older than we were, so they were going through the, their own experience, and even though we discussed it there was never any attempt to, for us to get together and just talk about it. I think we all dealt with it as individuals, and I think our, our pastors may have thought about it, but they never really got the group together to discuss the issues, the issue around the questions. Personally, having a background in Christian faith, being, trying to live peacefully with others, my idea of the question was I would, if I had the chance, I would say, "If necessary, if needed, I will serve in the military, but only as a non-combatant participant, like in medical corps or something along that line where I would not have to carry a gun." But when it came time to, that kind of answering of the question was not permitted. We had to answer yes or no. I believe I answered "yes" to both.

MN: And what about your parents? Did they ever talk about wanting to return to Japan?

LW: No, they never did. They, with eight children I think they were really committed to staying here and doing their best to help our children to grow up and develop as American citizens.

MN: And how long were you in camp when your father started to feel sick?

LW: I think, well, even before he came to camp he was having some physical problems, and the camp certainly didn't help. I think his physical problems continued, but we didn't really know what, what the problems were. But he continued to work right on through, until the time I left camp. I left camp in end of June. We went in -- I think it was end of June, maybe first of July, but we went in there August, so it was about eleven months that I was there -- he was still active. He was still working in the carpentry department.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.