Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Shigeko Sese Uno Interview
Narrator: Shigeko Sese Uno
Interviewers: Beth Kawahara (primary), Alice Ito (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: September 18, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-ushigeko-01-0015

<Begin Segment 15>

BK: And then you went on to Puyallup?

SU: And what a scene. It was dusty. And all those womenfolks had kerchiefs around their head to keep the dust out of their hair. And barbed wire fence. And then there were people outside looking in on the camp, as if we were the zoo. I felt, here we are, and they're looking from the outside. But some of the people who were there on the outside were Japanese people who hadn't evacuated yet from other sections, from Tacoma and Sumner, around there. But those Sunday, Sundays, when those hakujin people would come by and gawking. Oh, it was terrible, the feeling of it.

BK: And here you were bringing a brand-new baby to this kind of environment. What kind of feelings did you have at that time?

SU: Felt terrible. Couldn't even sterilize her bottles or her formula, because we have didn't have a kitchen. So I asked Dr. Suzuki at that time, "What shall I do?" And he says, "Give her water." I mean, use the same water and just put the powder in. And well, she survived. Now she's a mother of seven children.

BK: Right. So she survived beautifully.

SU: But she's not tall. She's like Alice. So she says, it's because she came out one month early.

BK: Right.

SU: But don't you think Naomi looks fine now?

BK: Oh, she's beautiful.

SU: And I gave her a biblical name, because I thought, well, we needed it at that time.

BK: Does she have a middle Japanese name?

SU: No. My mother used to call her Naomi. That's Japanese name. Naomi. So...

BK: Right. As you remember back to Puyallup, what, do you have any memories, good or bad, that you could recount? I mean, life must have been very, very difficult, and especially with children, but, we've all heard descriptions of the barracks and that kind of thing. Do you have any memories?

SU: Oh, yes. The hot water, we had to share -- Puyallup was divided into four sections. We were in the parking, former parking lot in the barracks. And each section had one laundry room. And we were told that the hot water would come in at six o'clock in the morning. So all the mothers were out there in lines. They had various doors that would open. So we'd stand outside the closed doors in the morning, with your pail of dirty diapers and your soap, scrub board. I never had used those old-fashioned scrub boards before, but with that -- and if you forgot anything in your barrack, then you'd lose your place in the line. So we had to remember to bring all those things in. And as soon as a door would open, oh, the women would just rush in. And in five minutes, the hot water would be all gone. But we learned how to wash in the cold water. She never got sick or anything, which is very fortunate.

And then we had to stand in line. I remember from the very first for brushing your teeth, or going to the bathroom, stand in line to get into the mess hall. It was all, we had to take turns. And it was a lack of privacy, I think, which got to many of us. Well, like a newborn babe, they cry, especially at night, it seemed like. So I would have to get up and walk with her so she wouldn't bother the people down the barracks, because these barracks had, just had wood partitions that didn't even come up to the ceiling. So about 6 feet high, and then the noise could go all the way down to the barracks. The barracks were divided into about six apartments.

So after the first night, a lady next to me said, "I would have had a baby just like yours." I said, "What happened?" So she told me the story of how she and her husband were farming people that lived in South Park. But when evacuation, no, oh, because she was expecting, as I was, she moved into, they moved into Seattle to be able to go to the doctor and all that. Well, one night -- and then we also had curfew. And we had to be in our homes and not out in the street after eight o'clock, I think it was.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.