Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Mako Nakagawa Interview
Narrator: Mako Nakagawa
Interviewer: Lori Hoshino
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: May 27, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-nmako-01-0011

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LH: So over at Minidoka your mom and -- do you recall anything about your surroundings, the way things looked from a child's point of view at Minidoka?

MN: Minidoka, in my estimation, my recollection directly is pretty gloomy, though. I see spots of some fun things for kids and stuff, but I think as far as the family goes, my mother was bed ridden. After she took all her energy to get into camp, I think that her way of coping with all the things that were going around her was just to withdraw from society.

LH: Well, gee, if she's bed ridden, what happens to the four of you girls?

MN: Well, my older sisters kind of took over. They went to the mess hall, get the food, and bring it back to Mom. They catered the food from the mess hall to the barrack. My older sisters took care of the baby. We kind of had to kind of watch. I guess my sisters pretty much had to look out for us. My sister who was -- my oldest sister who was just a pampered little child. She was -- after eight miscarriages, my mom had this child who lived for nine months and then died so by the time my oldest sister came around, she was the most precious thing on earth, and so she's a pampered, pampered little child. And then my father is taken away and she's all of a sudden feeling she has to live up to responsibility of being the head of the household. I think that it must have been really tough on her. So between my mom and my sister -- I was just a kid so I don't know much about her -- but between my mom and my sister, they paid a high price. And then so, as far as filling the mattress with straw, my sisters did that. As far as getting -- they used to bring me to get the coals to put into the little pot belly stoves, but I wasn't much help I'm sure.

LH: Was your mom ill the whole time that you were at Minidoka?

MN: Seems like it. That's my recollection, that things were really gloomy. And there was a picture of my father that sat there and she used to refer to that picture quite often. She used to say, "Your father's not the same man. He's serious now and this episode has really made him a different person so you guys" -- kind of using that as a disciplinary thing -- "You're going to have live up to your father's expectation now." [Laughs] But he was in a suit and I thought that was my father. By the time we got reunited with my father, I didn't recognize him. And I wanted him to look like this picture, this distinguished looking man in a suit, behind the...

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.