<Begin Segment 3>

BN: Do you remember actually the day when you actually left?

BS: No, I have no memory of that. I just know that we ended up in the assembly center.

BN: Which was nearby.

BS: In fact, we could see Jantzen Beach from our house by climbing up a little hill.

BN: Do you remember what section of the assembly center you lived in?

BS: I have no idea.

BN: But you definitely remember living in the assembly center?

BS: Yeah.

BN: Any memories of... you mentioned recently remembering going to school?

BS: Right. And the rodeo stand in the bleachers, they had us sit up, all the little kids, I guess I was in kindergarten. I actually remember being there for a pretty long period of time, I thought it was about eight months, but I was reading through your notes on the assembly center and they said it was only about four or five months. Seemed like a much longer time to me.

BN: And then you mentioned, right, that you basically don't speak English. The instruction, I assume, is all going on in English.

BS: Right. The schooling in the Minidoka camp was in English. And most of the teachers were Caucasian. But as I mentioned earlier, I almost flunked first and second grade. I think at the end of the first grade, they thought that maybe I was little retarded. And so I remember being asked by the teacher to go to the principal's office. So I went up there and (he) started asking me to play all these various games, I didn't know what the heck was going on. I later (realized) they were (probably) IQ tests. They thought I was retarded and were trying to test me to see whether I was, in fact, retarded. But apparently I must have passed, because I found myself in the second or third grade.

BN: So you obviously picked up English.

BS: Yeah. By the time I was in the third grade, I was finally learning English and speaking quite well, and doing quite well (educationally).

BN: Before we get back to Minidoka, I just wanted to finish up on Portland. Is there anything else that you remember about your time there?

BS: I remember having a bad toothache one night, and my father... I was bawling my head off and waking everybody up nearby. And so my father got the dentist to get up to look at me. And he was very irritated at me for crying so hard, slapped me in the face trying to shut me up. which really infuriated by my dad. But that's the only thing I remember about that time.

BN: Was this a Japanese dentist?

BS: Yeah.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.