Densho Digital Archive - Martha Nishitani Interview (denshovh-nmartha-01-0018)

<Begin Segment 18>

SY: If you were to think back on your camp experience, who do you think in your family was most affected?

MN: Well, for the better, I would say my mother, because she worked hard all her life from six o'clock in the morning she was up watering the greenhouse. And late at night, she was busy in the greenhouse. And it wasn't easy work. So now in camp, there wasn't anything for her to do really, so she spent her time sewing. She made, she was working making quilts and she had five daughters, and I think her ambition was to make one for each one. But I think one of my sisters got a finished one, and one of my sisters got one that wasn't finished, and I never got one. [Laughs] So I don't know. But I think that it was a time for her to get some rest and to have some social work with other Japanese women because she was stuck out in Lake City and she didn't go to Japantown very often. So I think it (...), socially it was good for her. But for my brother, he was separated from his wife, and I don't think that was very good.

SY: How did it affect him?

MN: Well, he missed her, but she did come and visit one time. And she stayed for a few days. They had a good time together. They were given a separate room, so they could be together.

SY: And so she left the Lake City property and visited?

MN: Well, she came to visit.

SY: Wow. How did the evacuation affect you?

MN: Well, it was kinda like a vacation. I didn't have to go to school. I didn't have to be a mother's helper and so there was kind of a relief not to have to do that, but... and I got to meet a lot of friends, new people. And I got exposure to the Issei and how they were different from the Nisei.

SY: How were they different?

MN: Well, they, primarily, I felt that they didn't like us very well. They didn't approve of us dancing. Well, it's just that -- I think it was a chance for the young kids to kinda get away from their parents, too, so they weren't -- they didn't have to buckle under to them so much.