<Begin Segment 21>

MN: Now the train, when it arrived at Rohwer, do you remember what time of the day it was?

MY: Yeah, it must have been afternoon when we got there. Well, see, this Yukio, he took care of everything. Went up got us registered or whatever and told us, "Okay, we're going to Block 16," and so we really didn't have to do too much. He did everything.

MN: What was your first impression of Rohwer?

MY: A lot of barracks. I guess it's sort of like an army camp. But I guess at that age you figure I was eighteen and it wasn't too bad because by then I had made quite a few friends that I got along with real well.

MN: So how many of you lived in one room at Block 16?

MY: Well, actually, it was supposed to be three of us, but then four others moved in with us. So we made bunk beds alongside the wall... I don't know where we got the lumber but we made bunk beds alongside the wall and had seven of us in that one little room. So we'd put the mattresses on the floor and wrestled at night and when it was in the wintertime we had a big pot belly stove. Nighttime, supper, one of the fellow's mother worked in one of the mess halls so she'd bring home bread, peanut butter and jam, and we'd put the toast up against the pot belly stove and that was pretty good. But there was seven of us that lived in one room.

MN: All bachelors I'm assuming?

MY: Yeah, all bachelors.

MN: And then your two brothers, right?

MY: Yeah, my two brothers and four other people.

MN: So now you're living with your brothers in one room. Did your relationship with your brothers change?

MY: No, pretty much the same.

MN: It didn't bring you closer together?

MY: Yeah, I guess in that way it did. But we pretty much all had our own group, 'cause I had made friends with a few people that I met from Santa Anita. And every morning after breakfast I guess I'd take off and I'd go visit my friends.

MN: Now at Rohwer, what kind of work did you do?

MY: Originally I guess I joined the fire department, but you don't really do anything.

MN: Why did you choose the fire department?

MY: One of my friends was there. [Laughs] So I went there but I guess one of my friends was there that's why I went. That's why two of us... well, three of us went, signed up there. All we do is go up there and sleep. At night they used to play mahjong had these little gambling games, but we never joined in we never play. All we did was go up there and maybe read a magazine or whatever but we didn't do any work.

MN: You didn't put out any fires at Rohwer?

MY: They had one that I slept through. [Laughs] But I never went. One of the mess halls that had a little fire on the roof. By the time they jumped on the fire truck I was still just getting up. I didn't make it.

MN: You know, when you joined the fire department, did you have to go through any training?

MY: No... yeah, we did do a little bit like how to take the hose off, roll out the hose and that's about it. I mean, we never really did that much. We didn't like polish the trucks. I mean, it was an olive gray green like kind of truck. It wasn't red, but it was a fire truck.

MN: So you mentioned earlier that at Rohwer you started to go to the dances.

MY: Yeah, I did.

MN: Who put on these dances?

MY: Well, these different, like the people that I met, my friends, they were all mostly from Hawthorne so they called themselves -- they were the Hawthorne Y group they called them. And it was a group of people, must have been fifteen or so in there, so every once in a while they'd say, "Okay, we're going to have a dance." I'd say that, "Okay, I don't know anybody so I won't be there," and my friends would all say, "No, no, it's okay. I'll fix you up." So this one dance one day, I had one of my friends... next day he comes over, he says, "Hey, Mits, I got you a date." I said, "Okay," and pretty soon one of my other friends comes over and says, "Hey, Mits, I got you a date." I said, "I can't take two girls." [Laughs] So he took the one that he got for me, but I didn't know any girls in camp. But I had learned how to dance... this Yukio had a sister and she was real... she learned how to dance so she was teaching us, but it got to be fun. I used to go, and I got to know a few different girls and eventually I would go to a few dances. But I never really got involved with girls 'cause... I don't know. At that time I just, I guess I wasn't ready to get involved with girls.

MN: So Yukio's sister taught you how to dance?

MY: Yeah.

MN: What kind of dances did she teach you?

MY: Waltz and swing, we used to do a lot of jitterbug in them days.

MN: Now at the Shonien you were going to church service in the morning every day, every morning. Did you go to church at Rohwer?

MY: Yeah, we used to go to church.

MN: What was that like?

MY: Reverend Sakauye and we would go there. I guess it's just out of habit. I guess you go to church every day for ten years, it's just in your system. In Rohwer I remember we used to go to church service. I don't know if we went every Sunday but we used to go quite a bit.

MN: How about sports? Were you active in sports in camp?

MY: Yeah, our club, the Hawthorne Y Juniors had formed a little football team we used to play against some other teams but it wasn't that big a thing. I think our main activity was lifting weights. I knew quite a few of the fellows that used to lift weights, and those are pretty much my main activities in Rohwer.

MN: Now when you're lifting weights, if you don't know what you're doing, you can injure yourself.

MY: Oh, yeah. This fellow Shig Shiraishi, he was almost like a pro lifter. I mean, he was good. He'd teach you all the proper techniques and things and he was really good. So that's how we learned.

MN: Now in 1943, the "loyalty questionnaire" came out.

MY: Yeah.

MN: Did Rohwer have meetings to discuss this?

MY: No, I don't remember. I never went to a meeting. I don't remember that too much about they say "no-no" or "yes-yes" or whatever. I never realized that there was so many people opposed to it that answered "no-no" and that. I don't remember myself being that way.

MN: Did anybody pressure you to answer a certain way?

MY: No, I just, pretty much your own conscience I guess.

MN: Did you discuss it with your brothers?

MY: No, never. Just automatically... I would never think about putting "no" on there 'cause I don't think I was ever pressured that way or whatever. Some people had that conviction and that's their priority. They can do what they want. I never even thought of it until after the war and I heard about so many people that resisted and got put in jail and things. I never even thought about it, just that I heard about it later. And in fact I met one of them that was one of the resisters, and I thought, yeah, I guess he had his own way. I mean, that's the way he felt. But I never thought of it I just heard about it later. So it wasn't that big a thing for me.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.