Densho Digital Repository - Kenji Ima Interview (Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-495-13)

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VY: So talk a little bit more about what it was like in camp itself. Do you have any memories of, say, what your parents did? For instance, where did you live, what was that like?

KI: My father was a cook in Block 40 or something like that, and we lived in Block 36. So he was gone a lot because he was cooking, so I rarely saw him. My mother... and by the way, I think his wage was something like fourteen dollars a month, it was minimum, but it was at least something that occupied them. And then my mother was, I think she was, helped as an aide in the hospital and then she worked in a store that sold needles and threads. So both my mother and father then worked. So I didn't see my father a lot, and the four of us, my mother and father, brother and myself lived in a room that is, I would say, not too much larger than this room. Next door lived my uncle, and it was my brother's, my father's brother. I have pictures of being with my first cousins in camp. And then my uncle, my mother's brother, lived in Block 30, I think it was, so we didn't see each other because there was some distance. So in a manner of speaking, a lot of the time left over was to be with other kids. And that was very different. It was almost like Lord of the Flies. [Laughs] You know, where the kids took control of things.

VY: I've heard that before. Like during the day, especially, kids were kind of free to just be with each other and explore the inside of the camp.

KI: Oh, yeah. I remember there was an underground structure full of, I forget what it was, but of hay or something, we would go there and play. And there was a swimming pool made, and I forgot how it was, but it's probably later. And what else? Oh, school.

VY: Did you like school?

KI: Yeah, I liked school.

VY: What were your teachers like?

KI: Oh, I thought they were quite nice. I had no objections. They were mainly white women. And I thought they were nice to us. In fact, within the camp I thought we were treated nicely by whites, but it was after the camp that I realized that was an exception.