<Begin Segment 15>
SY: And then when you got to... I guess, did you arrive at a spot where they took you by bus to the camp, or how did that happen?
CI: I know that we landed in Arkansas at night, and then so I think we got into trucks or something and then they took us to the various blocks. That's about all I remember is that they took us by, I'm sure it was trucks, not buses.
SY: What was your reaction when you got there? How did you feel when you ended up in this...
CI: Gee, I can't remember.
SY: Do you remember if it looked --
CI: And I can't remember what we did when we got there, whether... was there a welcoming committee? I don't know. [Laughs]
SY: And so you, I mean, you don't remember if it was noticeably different from Santa Anita?
CI: Well, let's see, because it was like eleven o'clock at night. So we were just exhausted.
SY: Somehow you got to your barracks, though, and somehow you found it and set up. And so your family, same set-up for your family, three and...
CI: No, this time we had... well, there was still three and five. Yeah.
SY: Your aunt was still with you.
CI: Yes, she was. And the three-person unit was a little bit larger than in Santa Anita, little bit larger. So we had the two end units. And I think we had... it's like a seven-unit barrack.
SY: Seven separate family units, is that what you're saying?
CI: Yeah, seven. But it depended on the makeup of your family, like we had two end units. And then it was identical on the other end and then they had about four units in the middle. And they might be occupied by just one family or two, depending on how many people there were. Eventually my father cut a little hole in the wallboard, and so we could crawl from our unit to next door without going outside.
SY: Otherwise you'd have to go from...
CI: Yeah, we'd have to go outside on the porch and then go. So anyway, he made that hole, so we just crawled.
SY: So were you in the interior unit or were you on the...
CI: No, we were the big one on the end.
SY: Uh-huh. But you personally, were you on the inside?
CI: Yeah, the next smaller unit.
SY: So do you remember the family on the other side of your unit?
CI: Oh, there? Yeah, the Shiroishis. I think they had two middle-size units.
SY: And could you hear, was it noisy? Did you hear things that were happening?
CI: I didn't notice it. But I know that a lot of young people were very cognizant of noise, extraneous noise. No privacy.
SY: And then you started school right away?
CI: I think so. Because this was wintertime, and I think there was no semester, I think it was kind of in...
SY: So you remember it being cold, huh?
CI: Oh, yes, very cold.
SY: Very cold.
CI: We were not used to that. The only thing I remember is that when they told us that we were going to be evacuated, they gave us a list of suggested clothes to wear. And one of the things that was on that list was boots for the girls. And I didn't want to wear boots. So we went to Sears-Roebuck, and the only thing that I would agree to was cowgirl boots, and that's what I had, cowgirl boots. [Laughs] Black ones that came up to maybe mid-thigh. So my mother made me wear those. Otherwise I would have had to be wearing boots. But they weren't very good suggestions as to what to wear. They said, "Be prepared for the heat or be prepared for the cold. So I know that in camp, later on, we were given money for purchasing things from the Sears-Roebuck catalog. So here was this great-great grandmother wearing a peacoat, and the little kids wearing peacoats because it was cold. And that was kind of a funny thing to see, this great-grandma wearing a peacoat.
SY: And to keep them warm, huh?
CI: Yeah.
SY: And so you remember... that's interesting that you remember all those things that they told you to bring. Because I never knew that, that they actually gave you a list.
CI: They gave us a list, yes. But it wasn't very helpful.
SY: And your mother and father, did they get a job working?
CI: Yes. My dad was, he was the furnace, the man that maintained the hot water for our block. They had to keep the fire going. And my mother was the dietician.
SY: Wow.
CI: She didn't know a thing about dietetics, but anyway, that was her job.
SY: So what did she do?
CI: Well, I don't know. I don't know what she did. [Laughs]
SY: She had something to do with what you ate?
CI: Yes, she was the dietician, so I think that with someone there, maybe under someone's supervision, she made sure that the provisions were there for the cook to cook. But anyway, you had to do something in camp, otherwise you didn't get paid.
SY: Right. So the food, do you remember the food at Santa Anita?
CI: We had pretty good food.
SY: At Santa Anita and at Gila?
CI: Oh, I'm not sure. I know that we had apple butter. Many of my friends and I will never touch apple butter again. Because that's what we had every morning. We had toast and butter and apple butter.
SY: So it was not a pleasant memory, I guess.
CI: No, not apple butter. There's some people that, "Oh, I thought that was good." But some of my friends and I...
SY: You'd never had it before, I imagine.
CI: No, we didn't. We were introduced to apple butter.
SY: And did you miss Japanese food when you first got there?
CI: No, it seems to me that we had Japanese food, I think, but I can't remember in Santa Anita what we ate. It was kind of... well, I think in Santa Anita, for the younger people, there were kind of a bog and we just fooled around and your parents really didn't have that tight control over you. And where could you go anyway? You were restricted in camp.
SY: And then when you got to Gila, you had to go, it was the same thing?
CI: Oh, no, I think it was different in Arkansas, Rohwer.
SY: Rohwer. I'm sorry, Rohwer.
CI: It's much more... well, I guess it was more organized and more like home. Because Santa Anita was, it was just temporary. We knew it was temporary. It was much more organized.
SY: So you had more of a sense that you were going to be there for a while.
CI: Oh, yeah. I think so.
<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.