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BN: Okay, I'm going to come back to Hunters Point, but before we do, at Topaz, you are school age. Do you remember anything about the schools and teachers that you had there?

HT: No. All I know is that we, used to, had a place to take showers, the public. Because it's just one room you're in. There was a basketball court.

BN: Did you play at that time?

HT: No, I don't think so, but I don't know.

BN: Was there, I know there were Buddhist and Christian churches in camp, was there a Konko?

HT: I don't remember.

BN: Well, because Reverend Fukuda was interned separately.

HT: Yeah, right.

BN: So do you remember, did your family have an altar or anything?

HT: No, nothing.

BN: So it kind of died for the moment while you were in camp.

HT: Yeah, I don't remember. They used to bring food over from the mess hall and eat at home.

BN: Do you remember any kinds of, what you did in terms of recreation, playing with friends and so forth?

HT: I thought there was a volleyball kind of stuff. And you see all the guards, you know, it was sort of scary. But I think some people went out of camp to work, I sort of remember something like that. But I don't think it was my father, because he was good at cooking.

BN: So he cooked in the camp mess hall?

HT: Mess hall, yeah, mess hall.

BN: In your block, I assume?

HT: Yeah, I think a lot of people just... but when you get things like natto where you don't, because he used to make that.

BN: That probably made him a popular chef. Did your mother do any, also work at the camp?

HT: No, because she has all the kids.

BN: Right, that's true, and little, they're small kids, she has a baby. And I guess you mentioned the youngest sister was born in camp?

HT: In camp, yeah.

BN: Do you remember that?

HT: Yeah, I remember her, because when we came out of camp, then one of my sisters was born.

BN: Wait, was she born out of camp?

HT: No, one, (Jane) was born in camp, (Masa, Pat), but then the other one, when we came back, she was more like, I can't remember if she was born in Japantown.

BN: Oh, this is another sister, this would be number six.

HT: Yeah. So it's a big family.

BN: Right, right. Yeah, so she would have had two really little ones in camp, and then another one later. Anything else you remember notable about Topaz?

HT: It's just, it's a different kind of weather. Like you live in San Francisco, go to the, like Topaz is hot, hot, hot.

BN: Now you mentioned that your father intended to go back to Japan?

HT: That's why they sent us to Tule Lake.

BN: Right. So do you remember having to move then to Tule Lake?

HT: Yeah, I remember we had to go to Tule Lake, and then I guess he must have changed his mind or something like that when they sent us to Oregon.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.