<Begin Segment 9>

TI: So tell me about Topaz and your first impressions when you got there.

KY: If I remember, we took a bus after we got off the train and we were bused to Topaz. There was nothing surrounding, you just saw the mountains and the sagebrush and it was pretty desolate. And we were housed in Block 35.

TI: Describe your living quarters.

KY: Well, it was just one big room, one big barrack room and with a potbelly stove, four cots, and in the process we either, somebody made us a table, we had a table and a couple of benches. And my mother insisted that... my father worked as a chef in the next block and we -- 34 -- and we lived in 35. But my mother insisted that my sister and I were home for dinner every night. I mean, it was very, very important for us so she or one of us would go to the dining hall to pick up our dinner. And so we always ate at home.

TI: That's a little bit different than most families. And would you go to the place where your father was a chef or just your block?

KY: No, we would always... we never went to the block that my father worked in.

TI: Did other families do similar kind of things?

KY: I don't think so. I'm not aware of any other families but somehow it was important that we sit down together for dinner.

TI: And how did you and your sister feel about that?

KY: I think we were fairly comfortable. I think that... I know that talking to friends, they said, "Oh, we just ate with our friends," and we just... that was just normal. But somehow this is what my mother felt was important I guess.

TI: Now do you recall if that was or how the sort of the mess hall people, the dining hall people viewed it when you would have to go and get your food and then bring it back? I mean, was that an inconvenience anyway for them?

KY: I don't think so I think other people did it, it wasn't that unusual.

TI: Okay so you would just go kind of go through the regular line and get your food, bring it back and then when you're done just bring it back to the dining hall.

KY: Well, no, you really, you have to bring your own utensils, you know, I mean, your plate and everything so it's just a matter of bringing it home.

TI: Okay, that's interesting because I hear the stories of, in particular amongst teenage Niseis and how they would just eat with their friends and how in retrospect they viewed that and sort of breakdown in the nuclear family and not having that time with their parents eating together. And so this is a little bit different. In retrospect, do you think your experience was different because of that? I mean, in any way do you think back that because you ate with your mother every night and your sister that that somehow changed your experience in camp?

KY: It might have. I think that... I get the feeling that because there were just four of us, that we were a very close unit. I mean, I think there was a feeling of... my father wasn't there but we were a pretty close unit as a family.

TI: Good.

KY: It might be, I don't know.

TI: Now for school, you were just, I guess weeks away from graduating at Richmond. Did you have to graduate in camp?

KY: Yes, I didn't go to school in camp at all but I did receive my diploma.

TI: From Richmond?

KY: From Richmond.

TI: So they graduated you even though... and how did they do that because you didn't, I guess, technically finish high school?

KY: I don't know but they gave me my high school diploma. I mean, it was a regular diploma.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.