<Begin Segment 14>

MN: Now I want to ask you about school. What are your memories of attending school at Jerome?

YH: I know the school was in the middle of the center, and we lived on one edge of the center so it was a long walk for us to go to the middle. And Denson was in the, built in the middle of a swamp, so a lot of times my shoes or my boots would stick in the mud and I'd practically walk out of my boots, and that's how sticky the mud was. But other than that it was okay.

MN: What about the teachers at your school?

YH: Oh, the teachers, the teachers weren't as good as the one in Long Beach or Santa Anita. I don't know where they got those teachers, but one teacher smoked, not smoked, but chewed tobacco in class while he was teaching, and this tobacco juice would come out of the corner of his mouth and run down his cheek. That was really disgusting. There was another teacher who taught history, but end of her class she would give us another, tell us another chapter of Les Miserables.

MN: Were all your teachers hakujin?

YH: No, I had one teacher, Mr. Shimokubo, who was an algebra teacher and he was very good. He was an excellent teacher. And everyone wanted to take his class. There weren't enough chairs for students to sit in the classroom, so a lot of them were standing up.

MN: So were people wanting to take his class because they wanted to take algebra or because he was a really good teacher?

YH: He, I think it was both. They wanted to take algebra, and he was really a very good teacher.

MN: Now, you mentioned that your aunt also taught?

YH: Yeah, she taught art.

MN: Did you take any of her classes?

YH: No.

MN: Did you continue, like dance or piano lessons, in camp?

YH: No. I did take piano lessons, but the piano was at the school in the middle of the camp, and so we got a hold of a cardboard keyboard, so we would practice on the cardboard keyboard, which there's, you couldn't hear any music 'cause it was just a black and white cardboard keyboard.

MN: You were just putting your fingers on the cardboard.

YH: Yeah.

MN: So you had surgery in camp. What kind of surgery did you have?

YH: I had my tonsils removed. And 'cause my tonsils were inflamed 'cause I, that's why I couldn't swallow, and the doctor said I had to have my tonsils removed. So it was a local removal. I just sat in the chair and then he just snipped the tonsils out. And then I think I was choking on the blood and I coughed, and I coughed right onto his white gown. And then the best thing was I got to have some ice cream after that.

MN: I wanted to ask you something a little personal. You started menstruation in camp. Had you learned about menstruation before you got into camp?

YH: Yes. My mother had her friend Nellie Minnick, who had a daughter, Dorothy, my same age, and at that time she told us about menstruation.

MN: Is this something they also taught in school?

YH: Yes, but they only taught the anatomy, both the male and female anatomy.

[Interruption]

MN: And your mother, what was she doing in camp?

YH: In Jerome she was collecting all the sanitary napkins. They'd put 'em in a plastic bag in the bathroom, so she would collect all those, plastic bag.

MN: So that was her job?

YH: Yeah.

MN: Your grandfather, Fusakachi Kanow, died in camp.

YH: Yes.

MN: How did he pass away?

YH: Gee, I don't know. Fusakichi, yeah, I don't know how he, how he died.

MN: Do you know what happened to his remains?

YH: No.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.