<Begin Segment 17>

MN: I'm gonna ask you a little bit about the weather at Heart Mountain. You sort of mentioned this before, but I know that was, the first year you were there, that was the coldest winter on record. What was your reaction to seeing snow for the first time?

YY: Oh, it was amazing. I loved to see the stars and the sunset, the sunrise was just, was so thrilled to see that. It's just the blizzard and the sandstorm that was sort of unbearable to bear. You can't even open your eyes in that.

MN: So if there's a blizzard or a sandstorm, how do you go to the latrine?

YY: Well, you just charge in, you know. I mean, you look down and you just run. I mean, there's no other choice you have. If you've got to go, you've got to go.

MN: Now I know some people had chanba, you know, chamber pots. Did you have that?

YY: No, we didn't want to do that.

MN: Now you're talking about these sandstorms, how bad are these sandstorms?

YY: Pretty bad. It's so bad that you can't see. It just kind of pushes you. It's worse than... well, I don't know. Then we had snowstorms, too, which is just as bad. It's cold, you can't see, so you kind of drop in the latrine, the closest one until a little while and then you start in again. But it's hard to find your place. It's dark, the barracks all look alike, so you get scared sometimes.

MN: Now the snowstorms are during the winter. When do the sandstorms occur?

YY: In the summer, mostly. And it's so hot out there, so hot. But people started growing vegetables and fruits and stuff like that. Growing their own things as a hobby. They had baseball games and such.

MN: Did the Takahashis and you have a victory garden?

YY: I don't think we did.

MN: Going back to the wintertime, did you learn to ice skate?

YY: I tried. It was scary. I had a chair, we all had a chair to kind of... but it's not as easy as it looked. But I wanted to be like Sonja Henie. [Laughs] She was my idol, you know, and I used to save all her pictures. But no, I didn't really pursue it. But when I left and went to Detroit, there was a pond there and I would think, well, maybe I'll try it. And I did go out there, but I was kind of scared. You know, when you skate backward, it looks so easy, but it's so difficult. But I was trying to make like Sonja Henie but I couldn't do it.

MN: Now let me see. You said you carried a chair out there?

YY: You push a chair sort of for balance. Because it's slippery, and your ankles are not strong, and wobble. But it really takes a lot of practice, everything. It's scary. It's not like roller skates, you got a lot of support. But ice skating was a little blade. So it looked so easy, Sonja Henie skating, I thought, gee, I'll be like Sonja Henie. Couldn't do that either. [Laughs]

MN: Where did you get your ice skates?

YY: We ordered, mail order. I think Montgomery Ward's. Even our bras, we ordered it through the mail.

MN: So what did people use, I mean, how did you make the ice rink?

YY: I don't know. It just freezes.

MN: Just whatever water there is out there?

YY: I think so. I think it just freezes on its own. It's just nature. I don't think they made it per se.

MN: So basically was the camp one big ice rink?

YY: Probably, a lot of places water gathered and froze.

MN: Did you ever get injured?

YY: Oh, no, because I wasn't that into that much. It was kind of scary because you'd fall and it was a hard fall.

MN: Now Mrs. Takahashi, what kind of job did she have at Heart Mountain?

YY: She was working in mess hall.

MN: Now how about Mr. Takahashi?

YY: Gee, what did he do? I don't know. He puttered around and made things and joined the baseball game and things like that.

MN: Now you shared a little earlier, but what kind of job did you get at Heart Mountain?

YY: Well, I got a job at the church as a secretary. Three ministers, I would mimeograph the program for the church program. So I was very busy. The mimeograph, you have to put it on this big contraption and you roll it. So yeah, I was pretty good at that. And I got wages, too, and I was really happy.

MN: Now when you were in Heart Mountain, did you get an opportunity to go outside?

YY: No. I probably did, but I never pursued it.

MN: Why not?

YY: I wasn't interested. They had, they were very... they didn't want any "Japs" out there. I don't want to go have do that, I'd rather just stay in and just enjoy myself, whatever I could find.

MN: So you had heard that maybe the outside people were maybe hostile?

YY: Well, it says in front of the doors, there's "No Japs Allowed" and things like that, so I'd get the message. I'd say, "Why would I want to be doing that?"

MN: Did Mr. and Mrs. Takahashi ever go outside?

YY: I think Mr. Takahashi did go to Cody. He brought home some doughnuts, I remember.

MN: You talked about this dance that you went to at Heart Mountain already.

YY: They always had dances in the mess hall. And then they wouldn't allow me to go dance, I said, "Can I just go watch by the window? And I'll be back." Somebody, I told you, they asked me out to dance and I said, "Oh, okay." I'd been there ever since, until midnight, and I thought, "Oh, boy, I'm going to get it." I did. [Laughs] I enjoyed myself.

MN: So after that did you ever go again?

YY: No. I don't think, I don't dare oppose them, 'cause I wasn't quite sure what they'd do.

MN: But you were a teenager.

YY: Yeah, but they still wanted me...

MN: Where did you learn to dance?

YY: Well, years ago, my brother was five years older than me, he wanted to, he said, "Come on, we're going to dance," and so he was teaching me so he could learn to dance with the girls. So I got proficient dancing, and it was easy for me. I enjoyed it.

MN: So your brother needed a dance partner.

YY: Yeah, well, he was a good dancer, but he needed, yeah, dance partner, so he practiced with me.

MN: What were you practicing? Like the jitterbug?

YY: That and regular foxtrot, mostly foxtrot and jitterbug and that kind of stuff. The waltz they didn't do too much of in those days.

MN: So in 1943 the government came out with the so-called "loyalty questionnaire." Was this an issue with the Takahashi family?

YY: I don't think so because the son was already in the army.

MN: And then Heart Mountain is known for the Fair Play Committee and the mass draft resistance. Did you pay any attention to that?

YY: No.

MN: How about when Ben Kuroki came to visit?

YY: Oh, we all went to see, listen to his lecture when he came. We were all happy and proud of him, I remember all gathering outside.

MN: Do you remember what he said in his speech?

YY: No, I don't recall. But he was a hero to all of us.

MN: Did you take a photo with him?

YY: No, I didn't have a camera and I'm not into that kind of stuff. I'm sure other people did. I was kind of shy, too.

MN: Now, you also shared about your brother Takeo, he was at Manzanar and then he transferred to Heart Mountain. And then your other brother Masao, did you know that he was in MIS?

YY: You mean in Hawaii?

MN: Hawaii and then he went to Camp Savage?

YY: Oh, yeah, he kept corresponding with me.

MN: Now how long were you in Heart Mountain?

YY: About a year and a half, I think. Because he, (ojisan), got an offer, a job. If you have a job waiting for you, you could always go out. So he had this... the Methodist church that's about a block long in Royal Oak, Michigan, it's a suburb of Detroit, they offered him a custodian job. So he says, "Well, yeah," so he took it. And there's a little apartment downstairs in the basement, so that's where he started living. And I had to finish my high school there, Royal Oak High School. They'd never seen a Japanese there at all.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.