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BN: You mentioned earlier that you had a, kind of a positive experience with the schooling at Heart Mountain, I wonder if you could talk about that a little.

AM: About my school experience?

BN: Yeah.

AM: I felt really lucky because I had second, third and fourth grade in school at Heart Mountain. And all of my teachers were just very good and very kind. My biggest memory of being in the second grade was Mrs. Fomer, one day, after lunch, she said, "And now we're going to have a promotion. Amy is going to go from Reading Group 3 to Reading Group 1." And so that was a big deal. I remember that, kind of feeling special for the first time, maybe in the school. And then Mrs. Clark was my third grade teacher, and she, I mostly remember her for teaching us how to tell time, and practicing with my father at the clock, with our clock at home, and my going someplace and coming back and telling him how many minutes it had been. So my school experiences were positive ones. I don't remember... oh, yes, there was one day when my best friends in Block 1 were Lillie and Bernice and June, and the four of us would go to school together, and Lillie was one year ahead of us in school. And one day, we, I guess, Bernice and June and I felt very mean, and we did something to Lillie on the way to school. I can't even remember what it was now, but the three of us were in the same class, and the principal of the school called us out, and we knew we had been bad. But that's my only negative remembrance of school, it was something totally appropriate. And then Mrs. Forsythe was my fourth grade teacher, and she was the principal. And she was really a nice lady, she took us, took a bunch of girls as Girl Scouts on a camping trip on one weekend. And for Thanksgiving, she made a big pot of soup on the black potbelly stove that we had. And she had us dress up as Pilgrims or Indians, she had divided us up. And there was a boy in the class whose name was Masa-something that sounded like an Indian chief, so he was the Indian chief. It was a really big occasion. We cut the vegetables and everything, we helped her make it. And she gave assignments that were creative where we had to think of things and organize things. So I just felt like we had a really good education. In fact, when I got back to Los Angeles, back in those days, it had winter and summer classes, I got skipped to the winter class. And two of my friends in junior high had that same experience. So I knew that a lot of people had bad experiences with school, but there were some of us who weren't lucky. It made me think that of the people who worked in the camps, some people were there because they wanted to help, they didn't like what was happening to us. And some people were there because they had the prison guard mentality and they like the power, and they liked to be able to put us down or stare at us or intimidate us. So I was lucky in terms of my school experience.

BN: The friends that you mentioned, are these new friends that you made there?

AM: Yeah, they're new friends that I made there.

BN: Did people from your neighborhood back in East Hollywood, Virgil, also come to Heart Mountain, do you recall?

AM: Some of them did, but they weren't in Block 1.

BN: Yeah, they were scattered.

AM: I think some of my brother's friends were in Block 1 when I told them.

BN: Do you remember any of the recreational things, sports, or I think you mentioned, was there a Girl Scouts?

AM: I was in Camp Fire Girls, and my Camp Fire leader was my brother Shogo's girlfriend's best friend. And she's still alive, and she lives in Portland. And somehow I got in touch with her after some Heart Mountain thing, I met some of her relatives. And so I wrote to her and told her how much I appreciated her being our leader, and how she taught me how to tie my knot on my Camp Fire scarf. And every time I do a scarf, I think of her and I say, "Left over right, right over left." [Laughs]

BN: You're wearing a scarf now. Were you able to go outside the camp as the group?

AM: Well, yes, they went on a camping trip, but I broke my arm the weekend before they left, so I didn't get to go. But I think I was afraid to go, I mean, you know, I'm a psychotherapist. [Laughs] I think the idea of going away when I was maybe nine years old was still a little intimidating for me.

BN: But you broke your arm.

AM: Yeah, I broke my arm.

BN: How was your experience in terms of the treatment of it?

AM: Well, I ended up being in the hospital for several days. And the pediatric ward was filled, so I was with the adults. And the adult ladies were very nice to me, I got a lot of care. And I remember the nurse and the orderly, they were boyfriend and girlfriend, then they were nice. I got a lot of good care. My family came to see me every day. I was in the hospital twice, once for the broken arm, and the other one was for tonsillitis, and that was more, kind of ordinary. I was with other people, they gave us ice cream, that's what I remember.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.