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-1000-448-8

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

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BN: Going to Santa Anita, if you're in the parking lot, that means you weren't in the horse stall?

KS: Right. So the way Santa Anita, they had 18,000 people living there, of which 8,000 were in the parking lot and 10,000 were in the barracks that were built on the parking lot. Now, my uncle that I was telling you about, that went back to Japan and came back, he lived in the stables while our family lived in the barracks part. So I remember visiting him, my father took me to visit my uncle in the stables, and then one day my father took me to the shower in the stables, too. Santa Anita had 18,000 people, I don't know how many latrines they had, but I think we had only six shower buildings. Each shower building had to accommodate, what, 3,000 people. But if you went to the shower building in the stables, it was really big because it was built for horses. So I was amazed that, wow, look at these guys, they have a nice, big shower building. But we lived in the barracks.

BN: Do you remember your camp address?

KS: It was T-16. Oh, yeah, that's the one I got lost again. I don't know if they didn't have any house number that time. It was the first day in Santa Anita, I went to the toilet, latrine, and then I knew that we were in the end unit, but I couldn't find out the barrack. So I went from barrack to barrack on the end unit to see if that was my family. And when I was doing that, then somebody that was living down in Dewey Avenue, said, "Oh, yeah, there's Kanji, we know where he lives," so then they took me to my family. But I got lost on that first day at Santa Anita.

BN: Were the people around you in your block or your area also from your neighborhood?

KS: Right. So the way it worked is we all got on the bus at the same area, the Episcopal church, and there was a Father John, the elder, there was a son that was also, I think, a minister. So one minister was the first person to get on the bus, and the other minister was the last person to get on the bus. So that way everybody was sandwiched between the two ministers. So then we went to Santa Anita, and as you got off the bus, they assigned you to a room, the barracks, so that now you were in sequence. So everybody, as you got off the bus is how you were assigned to a room in Santa Anita. So everybody in the block, I mean, everybody in the barrack, was once on the bus together. And we were in Santa Anita and now they're going to send us to the permanent concentration camp, and then half went to Gila, and the other half went to Jerome with one of the ministers.

BN: Half of your, from your neighborhood.

KS: Half of the Uptown went to Gila, and the other half went to Jerome. And then Father John, the senior, went to Jerome and the son went to Gila. So now in Jerome, I was in Block 19, which was Uptown people. And I was in Barrack 8. So I was in Barrack 8, and then in Unit A. The way that the barrack was divided in Jerome was each barrack was divided into six units. So then the two ends were the large ones, and the next one was a tiny one, and then the middle is two medium ones. So it goes large, tiny, medium, medium, tiny, large. So that's how the barracks were cut up. And on the A, the large one was the same family that I told you that lived on Dewey that was making my rubber gun. So the guy that was making my rubber gun in Dewey was not in Unit A, and in Unit C and D, that's where our family was. So we had three girls and myself, we had six in the family, so we got two units, C and D. Now, the other family that had one girl and two boys, they were Unit A. So like I said, we were living on the same block in Uptown, and now we're living in the same barrack in Jerome.

BN: And similarly in Santa Anita it was the same.

KS: Right.

BN: So your friends from the neighborhood were nearby.

KS: Yeah. So then the cross street... so we were Barrack 8, and the way the barracks were designed --

BN: You're talking about Jerome?

KS: Jerome. The way the barracks were designed in Jerome and also in Rohwer, they faced each other. So 1 faced 2, 3 faced 4, and 5 faced 6, and 7 faced 8. So we were in Barrack 8, and then facing us was Barrack 7, and that's where the Yoshinaga family lived, you know, Aiko Yoshinaga? So she was in Manzanar. So then after her child was born, then she moved to Jerome to be with the rest of her family. So she was in Barrack 8, Unit B. So I was next door to Aiko in Jerome.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.