Densho Digital Archive - Minoru Tajii Interview (denshovh-tminoru

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MN: Let me ask you about dances at Poston. Were there dances in your area, in your quad?

MT: We had dances in our... like I say, by then, we had our own group, well known among ourselves, we were known so that, don't butt into our quad. We had dances, and at the door we just says, "No, no, this is for our block only." That was it. They didn't bother us.

MN: Where did you have your dances?

MT: Yeah, we had dances.

MN: Where?

MT: In the kitchen. Take the kitchen tables and shove them aside and have dances in there. You ask somebody, "You want to go with me? No? Okay." [Laughs] If okay, you'd go, otherwise no, okay. That's the only way you really get to know each other. In our days, boys used to play with boys, girls played with girls. You really, you'd say hi and that was about it. But then they started having dances, and you stood around and talked. So you don't care if they're older than you or younger than you, you'd just go, go to the dance and go back, that's it.

MN: How did you learn to dance?

MT: Whatever they teach us there. Some of those people, they knew how to dance, so just move. [Laughs]

MN: How often did your quad area have the dances?

MT: Oh, not too often. Gee, I don't think we even had it once a month. It's hard to get enough people together and you try to get some things to eat, but by then, see, most of the people were getting paid twelve dollars a month minimum. And then your higher paid ones got more, so the higher paid ones, they were either doctors or things like that. They're not going to come to our place.

MN: Now you also carved pins in Poston.

MT: The what?

MN: Pins, you carved pins?

MT: Oh, yes.

MN: How did you carve them?

MT: Oh, what we do is... by then, they were letting us go out. You can go out into the desert and find these, what they called ironwood. It's a oil-rich wood, so when you polish it up it comes out very nice, so we go out and find that and bring it back. By then, people got small saws, knives, and then you just carve it up. I should have had her find it for me.

MN: What did you carve?

MT: Birds. Birds and other things, because I made like a deer, and I gave it to my mother, so it must be in Japan somewhere yet. But one of the ladies at the, that was across from us in the next barrack, I made her one, and she sent it to me after I came back from Japan. As a matter of fact, I had the service station, and after I got rid of the service station, so that would be 1978 I sold the service station. So it was after that, she found out I was here, and she says, "You know, I was going through my things and I found this and you made it for me." She said, "Would you want it back?" I said, "No, I gave it to you, so no, no, you don't have to." She sent it anyway. She said, "You know something? You can remember that you made this and gave it to me," so she sent it to me. Last name was Shimabukuro. That would be an Okinawan name. She sent it back to me; it was real nice of her. That was a good memorial for me, I said, oh, yeah, when we went in camp I made it for her, yeah. [Laughs]