Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Mo Nishida Interview I
Narrator: Mo Nishida
Interviewer: Martha Nakagawa
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: November 29, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-nmo-01-0006

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MN: Now once you got to Santa Anita, where did your family live? Did they live in a horse stall or in the parking lot?

Mo N: We lived in the parking lot. We lived in the Orange Mess.

MN: Now you saw the fight that eventually erupted into the riots at Santa Anita. Can you share with us those memories?

Mo N: Yeah, sure. Some of us kids were out there, I forgot where we were. Maybe we were in the grandstand. But yeah, we went to school when we first got there, I remember that. And we figured out that nothing was happening, so we quit going. So we were out there roaming around camp every day, checking everything out. And I remember seeing this dude running like hell and people chasing him, talking about dorobo, thief. And I remember this guy trying to climb on to this garbage truck that was going by. He got in, but the people inside were Buddhaheads, they were collecting the garbage. So they beat the shit of out this guy with garbage cans. So he falls out of the truck, and he's out running, and then I run back to camp, I run back to my block, my house, tell my mom, and we go out.

And lived, the White Mess, the Orange Mess was right... I think it was Orange Mess. One of those we lived either at Orange Mess or White Mess. And my grandparents lived in one and we lived in the other, but I think that's probably 'cause we came by car. But anyhow, it's right by the entrance. So we go there and we watch these soldiers come in. And this one truck stops right in front of us, me and my mom, and we're looking at this kid standing on the top of his truck with a big machine gun pointed directly at us. And this kid is scared, just as scared as we were if not more scared. And that's the part that comes up later again in my life with this thing of seeing the face, seeing the expression, but me feeling no emotion. No emotion there inside of me. Should be some fear or something, anger, anything, right? But there's nothing there. And my mother, that night, doesn't come home with me, so I'm home with my dad. And next day, my dad takes me out for a walk and tells me my mom ain't gonna be with us for a while. Turns out she's with her parents at another mess hall with my sister, my baby sister. And so that's when I find out that, later I find out that she had a nervous breakdown behind it. And I can imagine what she's thinking. And I think she had my little sister with her, just born, my sister was born in '41. And so two of us, she's got two of her kids and herself, and this guy's facing her down with a big machine gun and she can't do nothing about it and could get killed. So I could see where it would just tear her up to the point where she couldn't handle no more. But we couldn't say that while she was alive, it's that old Buddhahead thing about kichigai, right? If you're crazy, then you get ostracized by this community. So we were never able to talk about it openly. But that's my thinking what happened. 'Cause she has another incident when the FBI comes to visit us after the war where she freaks out thinking they might take my dad away kind of stuff.

MN: Do you remember any positive memories of Santa Anita?

Mo N: Yeah, yeah, I remember us collecting pollywogs out of the ditch. I can remember some of the soldiers, not all of 'em were bad or mean to us. They used to throw pennies to us and we'd scramble for pennies and stuff like that. So I guess we went mooching or begging from these guys like any kids would. Yeah, so that was kind of fun. But of course the best part of Santa Anita was that we got ice cream on a regular basis. Never had ice cream on a regular basis. I mean, that was a luxury, right? So to have ice cream, I can't remember if it was once a week or almost every day or something, but we had ice cream, we had plenty of ice cream. Now, that was a good feeling.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.