Densho Digital Archive - Yukiko Miyake Interview (denshovh-myukiko-01-0026)

<Begin Segment 26>

SY: Then in Puyallup, you were there with Kako. What was your overall impression of Puyallup?

YM: I hated it because that day we went it was raining, and I think I told you George Inouye was the only one that came and helped us. He stuffed a mattress for us with straws, and he brought in a duffel bag that was sopping wet and the bathroom wasn't ready. Nothing was ready. But we were put in this big barrack. It was mostly women and night time was kind of nice because there was one lady there with a nice voice, and she used to sing to all of us, but there was no ceiling so we could hear her. And she used to sing to us and the guard would come and say, "Shut up, be quiet." And the minute he left, she started singing again. [Laughs]

SY: You mentioned that you began to speak out more.

YM: Uh-huh, I did.

SY: And you used to say things to the guardsmen.

YM: Yeah, I did. I said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "What are you doing up there? We didn't do anything bad." Maybe I'm using the right word, but I said, "With the bayonet sticking in your gun?" I said, "What are you going to do? Kill us?" I must have said something pretty bad because my friends all told me to shut up. They said, "Be quiet. Don't say things like that," but I said, "That's the truth. Why should they have a bayonet?" Then about two months or three months later, the bayonet was gone. They had just that gun, but it was still the same isn't it? I resented that very much, but I shouldn't get mad at the soldiers because they were all young, and they tried to be kind to us, but they didn't know how.

SY: What ways were they kind or which way did they try?

YM: Well, they weren't kind, but... they wouldn't talk to us. Well, not to us, maybe they talked to others, but I don't know as far as we are concerned. And I know once in a while we passed their -- what do you call those guard...

SY: Towers.

YM: Tower. And I said, "What are you doing up there?" So my friends would never let me walk where their guard towers was. Yeah, I was speaking out more.

SY: What made you speak out more?

YM: Hmm?

SY: What made you speak out more?

YM: Because there was no one to speak for me. Kako wouldn't speak for me, and my friends, they wouldn't speak. So I thought, well, heck. I'm not going to lose. Since I am here, I won't be losing much of anything, and they wouldn't put me in jail for just saying, "What are you doing up there?"