<Begin Segment 19>

LH: So your brothers were actually teachers while they were in camp? What else did your siblings do?

FF: Well, they worked in warehouse situations, the sisters did, and Fudge did well and Rinko did well. But when they found out they could leave camp to go out east, I think that's what they were looking forward to. But they worked within a year or a year and a half before they left camp and I think to assimilate and, that's after they got their high school diploma, though. And they wouldn't leave until that, and Kinko got her high school diploma in camp, and then she went out to Chicago. But she really enjoyed leaving camp in the sense that there's more freedom and individuality and it wasn't easy for her to break with, or stay in camp and just exist.

I think everybody sort of had an ambition or goal to leave camp if possible. I didn't have any idea what was going to happen 'cause I was too young yet. So when I left camp, I was, what, fifteen or sixteen and that made it... you know, there was a big question mark. I didn't know what I was going to end up doing. 'Cause most of us were so poor when we left camp and I'd say maybe -- my feeling, I think I talked to somebody -- I'd say 7/8 of the Niseis were, when we left camp, or rather the Japanese American families, were really having a hard time. And I think that hard time is not just physically taxing, but I think it was mentally taxing and the effect of internment, what has it done to you. And so I still remember so much about some people who are still bitter personality-wise almost because of that. And it's because they were never able to achieve what they sort of wanted to do.

They weren't too sure, but I think Seibo, my oldest brother, who was an Aeronautic Engineer, would have been a terrific engineer because he used to make gliders and rubber band airplanes and he had such good hands and he was very creative. Yet he's one of them that never had this real bitter -- inside he might have -- but he'd talk about camp if you asked him. But the older Niseis, who are in their what, seventies now and above or even late -- yeah, I'd say seventy and above -- a lot of them don't wanna talk about camp or reflect back. I don't know why, but I just feel we should perpetuate this experience because it probably will never happen again, and if it does happen at least you got some history to go back and say, "Hey, we don't want this to happen again." That part of it, I feel strong about how we perceive as educators, since I was a teacher. That to continue this education of the Japanese American story.

It's so vast, it's amazing, from Hawaii all the way to, to the States, to the stateside, 'cause Hawaiians came to our camp. They didn't go to other camps, they came to Tule Lake from Sand Island, that's it, from Hawaii and I think there's so much stories that I've heard of those people who came. Some couldn't even speak Japanese. It's sad, they couldn't stand the weather in northern California on Tule Lake. They couldn't understand the coldness, and the bitterness of just being away from their warm tropical breeze. And I felt for them, even then. I looked up a couple who when I went back Hawaii years after, they feel bitter that their, that it ruined their -- what would you call it? The stability within the family structure. That's what one said. And they got sick in camp because the weather was not in tune, you know, the breeze and cold come through the window. Snow, sleet, rain, mud, and I think it was tough.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.