<Begin Segment 9>

SY: And then what were your activities outside of going to school?

HK: Sports. Every block had a team, baseball team, basketball team, and so on and so... we didn't have football. So, you know, sports was a big thing for us because that was an activity that everybody engaged in. Then we also got sort of active with the church group so that... some of their youth activities took up some of my time but that was pretty much it.

SY: But you never felt like there was nothing to do?

HK: No, not that I was bored or anything like that. I remember we played board games and we played... Monopoly was big. It's still a pretty popular game but we played a lot of Monopoly games frequently and so we popularized Monopoly. And we had some card games too but I remember most of our time was with Monopoly as far as board games were concerned.

SY: That's interesting. And did you end up... I'm sure it was... was it seasonal there?

HK: Oh, yes, there was snow. I'd never seen snow before in my life so that was quite an experience when it first snowed. It didn't snow heavily but I would say we would get eight, ten inches of snow. And as I said earlier we built an ice rink in the back, and here again I was able to order ice skates through the Sears Roebuck catalog so I had ice skates which is curious. And I became a pretty good ice skater because we did a lot of that. And then of course we played sports, it was basketball and baseball. And then we also did... they also had a Boy Scout troop so we did that and we also went out to do some camping outside of the barbed wire, so there was a place where we went camping with tents and swimming hole so that was kind of a fun experience.

SY: So you were able to go... besides camping, though, did you ever go beyond?

HK: I mentioned Delta earlier and they did us allow to go and our families go to Delta I think once a week, there are two people from each camp... from each block were able to go. And they would go shopping, so the bus would take them and leave them for shopping for four or five hours and then bring them back. So we were able to go to Delta to do some shopping, so I went a couple times along with one of my sisters, but we had limited funds so we couldn't buy a whole lot. But I remember being able to buy an ice cream cone, that was a treat.

SY: But how about the reaction? Still you didn't feel any kind of negative reaction from the people in Delta?

HK: I felt a little uneasy, some discomfort going there and all these white people there. They never talked to us. I'm sure they maintained their distance, 'cause we talked to the clerks in the shops of course, but I didn't feel really that comfortable.

SY: It was just two people from the camp that were --

HK: Two people from each block.

SY: So there was a group.

HK: A group, yes.

SY: You stayed together kind of?

HK: Yeah, we kind of stuck to each other for security.

SY: So during this whole period of time, you were pretty much sheltered from any kind of racial --

HK: Yeah, I pretty much... my brother, after working in the sugar beets, went to Salt Lake City where he actually was able to live, and he worked in a produce market there. And so one day he said, I'd like to bring my younger brother, me, from camp to Salt Lake City just for a few days just to kind of just to have the experience of being outside of camp and seeing Salt Lake City. So I went by car with some camp personnel... I'm not quite sure what that person did, Caucasian person, and drove from Topaz, Delta, and then up to Salt Lake City, it's about a four hour drive. So we made a stop along the way somewhere I forgot what town it was and this gentleman that was driving me went to the store or somewhere and he was gone and I was in the car all by myself in the back seat. And some white men came by and they saw me, I'm sure they said, "There's a Jap, a Japanese person there," and one of the men said to the other, "Let's get that Jap." I'm here, a little kid, I thought, I'm scared, "Let's get that Jap." And fortunately my driver who accompanied me came back in the nick of time so I remember that, being very frightened from that experience.

SY: Did you talk to your brother about it or not?

HK: I don't think I mentioned that to him I may have but I don't recall saying anything. And then in Salt Lake City one of the things we did as kids were, to get some change, make a few dollars, we would sometimes sell ice cream. They used to have these little carts with ice cream and they had dry ice in there to keep for the refrigeration, and we would push the carts down the road, sidewalk, to sell and ring the bell to say the ice cream man was here. But I was a kid, you know, and I remember a white family coming by and looking at me and looking at the little cart and I thought, "Would you be interested in buying some ice cream, your children, your two children here?" And the man said, "No, we wouldn't buy any from a Jap." I remember that very clearly as well. So those things remain in your psyche as a very negative kind of experience. So it reminded me that, yes, I'm a victim of all that was going on, World War II, Pearl Harbor, et cetera, et cetera.

SY: So you felt more comfortable to some degree when you were surrounded by Japanese in the camps?

HK: Well, yeah, that's all we knew, so certainly the comfort level was higher.

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