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BN: And from there, let's move on to Tule Lake. And you moved with your family. What did you notice about Tule Lake that was different from Manzanar?

NK: Everything was word of mouth, and we knew we were going to go to Tule Lake because my brother and mother, father, they all signed the "no-no" questionnaire. And so once you did that, you're off to Tule Lake and eventually to Japan. And that was what my father wanted to do, and had to be in '43, we were sent to Tule Lake as a family. So the first time in a long time, we had a family group, as you might say.

BN: And did your sister, Shizuye, and her husband also...

NK: Yes, they also came too. They must have (also have had) "no-no," because they were just a block away from us in camp.

BN: So she was sort of living with his family?

NK: Right.

BN: So his family also...

NK: Yeah, he only had a mother and a brother, so they all were... signed up for "no-no." Now, just because you signed up for "no-no," later on, like even after the war ended, the people were given opportunities to change their minds. And although my brother-in-law signed "no-no," they did stay in the United States after the war ended and relocated back to the Venice area.

BN: What block were you in at Tule Lake?

NK: I was in Block 76, had to be Barrack either 4 or 5, and then the apartment was about 3.

BN: And then what was different about Tule Lake?

NK: Tule Lake, the weather was more harsh... cold. They used a coal-burning stove for heat. Manzanar used oil. I think it was diesel oil or something, but it was oil. That's the first time, at Tule Lake is the first time I saw coal, and living in Southern California, you never see any coal. But that was my first opportunity to see a piece of coal.

BN: And what about school? Because you were going to kind of an American-style school.

NK: Yeah, there was a... as people filled the camp in Tule Lake, almost everybody there was a "no-no," and they started a Japanese school, and they kind of patterned it off of the schools in Japan. And, in fact, they formed these younger groups of boys that exercised early in the morning. Sometimes it was kind of scary being twelve years old and have these people marching up and down the streets at four o'clock in the morning. It was not a comfortable feeling, but that was the way of life in Tule Lake in those days.

BN: Did you have to get the same kind of...

NK: I was fourteen, fifteen, and so I was not involved in the signing of the "no-no," "yes-yes" document. And so also the boys that were active in the exercising and so forth were all sixteen or older that I know of, so I wasn't involved in it also. Fortunately, they excused me from the bitter cold outside.

BN: How was your Japanese? How did you do in that school environment?

NK: Well, I felt comfortable. I would say amongst the... in my class I was above fifty percent in comprehension and so forth. But some of the boys and girls were really struggling because even before the war, they weren't sent to Japanese school because of the finances or otherwise. That's one of the advantages I had when I was at Tule Lake, that I used my Japanese that I learned before the war, and it was to my advantage.

BN: In your memoir, you wrote about a couple things that you did there with (regards to the) collecting arrowheads.

NK: Oh, yes. In Tule Lake, the Modoc Indians occupied that area where the camp is and there were many big battles fought with the U.S. Army and the Modoc Indians. And from that, there was a lot of arrowheads. All that area there was volcanic rock and a lot of obsidian. And naturally, with obsidian, the Indians made a lot of arrowheads and stones for hatchets and so forth. One of my best hobbies that I liked was collecting these arrowheads. And all you do is just walk up and down the areas where they -- [coughs] -- excuse me. They dug up the dirt, and look for the arrowheads. And the thing that was a prized thing was to find the arrowhead that had no blemishes on it. And you had young boys from six, seven years old, all up to teenagers and old men that were out there shoveling the dirt looking for arrowheads. In one area that there was a lot of arrowheads... this is within the camp... the people out there with shovel, and they're digging trenches like they do in World War I. You see a lot of people digging (the trencheds) to dodge bullets, but these were people looking for arrowheads. But the ground looked like it was (some) trenches, and it would produce some very, very good arrowheads.

BN: Do you still have them?

NK: I have them, but I don't know where they are. They're in my house somewhere.

BN: You need to dig some trenches. [Laughs] And the other thing I thought was a great story that you wrote about was that your father was starting to brew sake.

NK: Oh. My brother was at the age of... when we were at Tule... at the age of getting married. There were not too many weddings going on, but this one girl from Venice, he started dating, and they finally decided to get married. In camp, they had a mess hall for each block, and my father, I don't know where he learned it, but decided that he's, for his son's wedding, he's going to have a big party. And so months and months ahead of time, he started collecting rice and big barrels. He started to make some sake, home brew, and in our apartment, naturally, you have your beds and a table. But all of  a sudden he had these big barrels, and then he was to make the sake. And this was for the wedding party that he was going to (throw) for my brother. Once my father started making his sake, he started getting some old friends that we haven't seen in a long time. But they would come knocking at the door and see how my father is, and naturally, they had to take a taste of it before they left. And so we had some happy, happy people walking in and out of our apartment. The wedding went off very good and that was one of the few... well, in fact, the only wedding that I know of that they served sake and had a big party. So my brother was very fortunate to have my father throw the party for him.

BN: Did you notice, relative to Manzanar, greater security or guards? Because it was more of a prison atmosphere, right? From your perspective as a teenager, did you feel that?

NK: It was very subtle, but the Manzanar security was not quite as secure as Tule Lake. It felt like Tule Lake, because of the Hoshidan and the organizations, the army had to react to those things. And so the Tule Lake security felt more harsh in my mind.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.