<Begin Segment 16>

LH: Then, so then, your time in Manzanar was about until February of 1943?

FK: Yeah, yeah.

LH: And where did you go after that?

FK: We went to Minidoka.

LH: And do you have any memories of that time in Minidoka?

FK: I have some memories of Minidoka. I don't have much of Man, Manzanar. I guess, Manzanar is mostly hearsay. I know everybody says it was really dusty there. And, and I do remember one thing in Manzanar, that was when I remember waking... I remember two things in Manzanar. One was waking up in the morning and being covered with sand, and then looking at my mattress and seeing the outline of my body on the mattress. Because the adults said the buildings were built so hastily, they built them out of green lumber, so all the boards shrank which made sense.

LH: Oh no.

FK: So you would have spaces between all the boards. And of course, the walls and the roof were covered with tarpaper, but the floor wasn't. So, all the sand would come up through the bottom of the floor whenever the wind blew, so everything would be all covered with the dust. One of the adults said that they remember standing in the mess hall line and the bread was covered with sand. So, the next person might turn it over and the next person came and saw that it was sandy (again), so they turned it over. And pretty soon, there was no sides to turn over, the whole loaf of bread was covered in sand. And so, so I remember, I remember the waking up and that. The other thing I remember was the oil heater in Manzanar and how it used to make this roaring noise.

LH: Was this in your own barracks?

FK: Yeah, each barrack, each room had an oil heater in the middle and that was the only source of heat in the, in the wintertime. And also, you didn't have any insulation in the buildings, it was just tarpaper on the outside. There was nothing. I mean, on the inside it was just 2 x 4's, the studs, nothing on the inside. So, I remember that oil heater being really scary. I also remember doing something really stupid once, and I don't really know why I did it, but I put a piece of paper in that thing once. Fortunately, my mother came in as soon as I put the piece of paper in, so she stomped out the fire. But I, I was doing... [Laughs] some things that maybe weren't that smart.

LH: Oh, this is at Manzanar.

FK: This is at Manzanar, yeah.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.