Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Kanji Sahara Interview
Narrator: Kanji Sahara
Interviewer: Brian Niiya
Location: Torrance, California
Date: October 5, 2018
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-448-11

[Correct spelling of certain names, words and terms used in this interview have not been verified.]

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BN: In terms of your barracks, you mentioned that your family was in two barracks. Many families built furniture and did all kinds of decorating and so forth. Did your family do that?

KS: Yeah, so everybody got that steel cot, a steel cot and a mattress, so then that's what we had. But the thing about steel cot and mattress, in Santa Anita, the health department thought that steel cot and mattress, it'll be more hygienic if they would bring the mattress outside to let it sun in the ultraviolet light. So every Saturday, my father had to bring out six beds and six mattress and bring it out so the sunshine could, quote, "disinfect it." So all the 10,000 people, or all the 18,000 people were doing that on Saturdays, bringing out their beds. And then while we had our bed out there... oh, here was another thing about Santa Anita. They said that the Japanese were using too much toilet paper. So now when we first went to camp, the toilet papers were in the toilet, hanging right there next to the stall, but they said the Japanese were using too much, so we're going to give the toilet paper to the families, and then the families were supposed to bring it to the toilet. So that's what we had. So then when we had our mattress out there sunning on Saturday, the truck would drive by, and there would be a guy in the back, and he'd be tossing the toilet paper onto each mattress. So that's how we got the weekly supply of toilet paper. So if you didn't have your mattress out there, you didn't have any toilet paper that week. So then the way it worked was that after the toilet paper roll was half used, then the roll gets pretty small. Then I used to put the small roll of toilet paper in my hip pocket, so I used to walk around all the time with toilet paper, roll of toilet paper in my pocket. So that's how it was in Santa Anita. But Jerome, we were civilized, so we had toilet paper in the toilet.

BN: Just to clarify, in Santa Anita, many of the assembly centers, you had to stuff the mattresses with straw. Santa Anita, you had cotton.

KS: Yeah, ours was already built, it was a built mattress. But I don't know about other people, maybe in barracks they had to stuff it, but ours was all built.

BN: So at Jerome, did your family make furniture and other things?

KS: So you had to scrounge around trying to get the lumber. So when they build a barracks, there's a lot of leftover wood, and that's when you try to pick up to make your furniture.

BN: What about the dining hall? Do you remember what that was like in Jerome?

KS: Jerome, there was one mess hall per block. I think the capacity of the dining hall was like 250 or 300. So I think everybody could sit down and eat together one meal. Well, in Santa Anita, there were six mess halls for 18,000 people, so each mess hall had to serve about three thousand people. So you had to have, for each breakfast, lunch and dinner, you had to have several sittings. So you had to get in line to eat in Santa Anita, and the line would be outside the mess hall, while in Jerome, the line was inside the mess hall, you just lined up against the wall, so that you can get to the front to serve yourself.

BN: Did you eat as a family or did you eat with friends?

KS: I don't know. I'm not exactly sure, but in Jerome, and also in Rohwer, my mother was a dishwasher, so she'd be washing. So there was, I don't know, five, ten ladies in the dishwashing department, and that's what she was doing.

BN: So she could keep an eye on you.

KS: I don't know, but I think the idea was everybody was supposed to have a job.

BN: As a kid, were you aware of the fence and guard towers and so forth?

KS: Well, in Jerome, they had the guard tower and the fence, but I think they were in operation only several months at the beginning. And then after that, they didn't have the guard towers manned, and then the fences were not maintained. So when Jerome, everybody used to go outside the camp, basically just walked between the wires of the fence, so we used to do that, go catch rabbits or whatever. So we used to go outside the camp all the time. And then in Rohwer, we used to go outside of camp and walk a couple of miles to that store outside of camp to buy soda water or something like that. They did not maintain the wires in Jerome and Rohwer because there we were in Arkansas, and if you lived in Chicago, if you were a Japanese in Chicago or Salt Lake City or Denver, you didn't have to go to camp. So it's sort of funny that people would be locked up in camp when closer to the West Coast, there were Japanese people that were free. But in Santa Anita, they had guards watching the camp, and I remember one day standing by the fence looking across Huntington Drive, and I could see the civilian population. And I was wondering how come we're on this side of things, and on the other side of the fence, everything still seemed to be normal.

BN: And in the Arkansas camps, what were some of the other things you did? Sports...

KS: In Arkansas camp, the game that we played was called Sticks. So you get pieces of... in Arkansas, our block was in the forested area. So if you look at a picture of Jerome, then you see most of the camp, the blocks had no trees, but our blocks had a lot of trees. Then there was always lots of lumber and stuff like that, and also timber or wood. So we used to make what we called sticks, and these are sticks about eighteen inches long, and maybe two inches diameter. And then Arkansas, the ground was muddy, so it was sticky. So you'd throw a stick into the ground, and then the next guy would throw it, and the next guy, when he throws it, he tries to knock down your stick while his stick is standing, and that's how he wins. If there's a stick on the ground and you throw your stick right next to it and it touches yours, well, he wins, too. Anyway, that's what we did all day long, just playing sticks. So then in Jerome, might have lived there two years or so, and then I don't think we ever played baseball or football, we just played Sticks all the time. You didn't have to buy any glove or any outside stuff, you'd just make your own stick.

BN: I know you were just a kid at the time, but did you have any recollection of the whole "loyalty questionnaire" episode? Was that discussed in your family?

KS: No, nobody talked about that "loyalty questionnaire."

BN: Presumably everyone said "yes-yes," because you stayed.

KS: Right. But I'm pretty sure that all the parents were talking about that, because my mother would say that in Rohwer, when they had the "loyalty questionnaire" and all that kind of stuff, that's when she decided that they're gonna stay in America forever. Because she realized that the children did not speak Japanese that well, and it would be difficult to go to Japan, and that they're gonna live in America forever. So they made up their mind in 1944/'45.

BN: At the same time you've got cousins who are in Japan, your uncle, and was there any kind of talk about that?

KS: No. But I told you my uncle that lived in Manzanar... not Manzanar, the one that went to Heart Mountain, that went to Japan just before the war and then came back here right before the war started? He had the one son and two daughters, and then the one daughter had two children, boy and a girl. So end of the month they'll be coming here, that boy and a girl will be coming here and stay upstairs.

BN: So you're in touch and so forth? That's good.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.