<Begin Segment 19>

MN: So what did you do in Tule Lake?

AI: Really nothing you can do. There's no work unless you're, probably work in the mess hall or I can't remember if there's any work available in that camp. It's more of a prisoner like, really there wasn't anything to do.

MN: Did you continue with your mandolin classes?

AI: Yes, I did. In fact, we got so bored that I went to high school and music class and I asked if I can join the band or if I can learn. So they said, "What do you want to learn?" "I'd like to learn the clarinet." So he says, okay. So you buy the... mouthpiece and they'll furnish the clarinet so I start learning and I was blowing good because they thought I was just nothing, fresh start, but I played the mandolin and guitar so I knew a little bit about music, I knew the tune, so picking up pretty quick. But when I started hitting the high note, because of my paralyzed face, I cannot keep my lip tight and I couldn't blow the high note so I had to quit playing the -- they thought they found somebody that really could play but that was my career for the clarinet. Then I start, in that class I start the viola a little bit, it wasn't for me so I drop out of the class. Then there was a conductor, Japanese Columbia radio station conductor was in that Tule Lake. He was studying in New York and got caught and he was back to Tule Lake to go back to Japan. So he organized the orchestra so I joined that orchestra with my guitar so I played there a little while. It was good experience. It really surprised me the way he does that... I think there was about forty of us mandolin and guitar and violin was in that band and all that, everybody stroking note, and one person make a mistake which was me. He runs into the room and he was outside listening through the speaker, and he run into room and, "One mistake, who was it?" He picked that out, out of the forty people, one mistake on the note, on guitar your six strings? That's when I found out, boy, what an ear he's got. So music just is not for me. [Laughs]

MN: Did you folks give concerts?

AI: No, we practiced, practiced, and we never had a concert. Good thing. [Laughs]

MN: How about the darkroom? Did you make a dark room at Tule Lake?

AI: Yes, I made a darkroom in the corner in that Tule Lake and I was dabbling with the film again.

MN: Share with us the story about how you guys made Christmas cards.

AI: One George Naohara, one of the roommate, he's got good handwriting. And there's next barrack there was a guy named George Kimura and three of us got together says, "Hey, let's make some Christmas card." Says, how we going to do? We couldn't buy a card enough, too expensive to buy a card so we said, "Okay let's buy postcard," and we print the Christmas card. So we decided to buy the whole thing out of the post office, all the penny postcards they had and we made a Christmas card out of that and we took to canteen, we asked them to sell that. And people went to post office trying to buy postcard for their holiday greeting and they can't find one so they were forced to buy our postcard. And I think we pay, what, penny and we sold them like five cents or ten cents or something like that. And out of that we made about forty-five dollars out of about twenty dollar investment. Each of us made forty-five so I don't think anybody in the camp did that.

MN: How did you make these postcards into Christmas cards? Did you draw on there or put photos?

AI: Well, we draw and we used to... they call that you etch out the -- what they call that stuff that they used?

MN: Block print?

AI: Well, in Japan they call it teppan but you cut out the...

MN: Stencil?

AI: Yeah or something, use the ink to print out.

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