<Begin Segment 17>

AI: Well we want to kind of go back again, pick up where we left off. And I was about to ask you a bit about what a change it must have been for your mother, coming into camp. Because, here she had been -- her time in the U.S. it sounds like she was pretty much isolated from other Japanese women, and now suddenly she's in a place where people speak her language, she's one of many. Did you have a sense of what that was like for her?

KO: Well, unfortunately, we were all too involved with our own problems, but I'm sure that it must have been a welcome situation for her to have other people to talk to, and who had similar experiences as herself. And having the normal chitchat that most ladies have, which she missed during the times that we were in all of these cities that we were the only Japanese family, and we'd only occasionally get together with other Japanese families.

AI: Well, as you point out, people did quickly become really busy with their own interests and concerns in camp. And I was just wondering what some of your brothers and sister were doing at this time?

KO: Well, most of 'em were going to school, my brothers particularly, but my sis was working in, I think she was working in the recreation department. I won't swear to that, but I think she was. And so she had her thing to do. And my dad ended up being a cook in our block kitchen.

AI: And your brothers were still in high school?

KO: That's right. I think my brother Shig might've graduated from Heart Mountain, where we ended up eventually.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.