<Begin Segment 11>

DG: And can you compare what it was like to be a teenager, compare how it was for you here on Bainbridge Island before the war to what it was like being a teenager inside Manzanar?

TK: The difference was, you know, I was free. In Manzanar there was nothing, but at home we had a little... every time there's spare time we had to be out in the field weeding or cultivating, taking care of the farm, strawberries. That was our source of revenue. But in camp, you know, the government's giving us food so we didn't have to have... well, I had a job as a plumber, but...

[Interruption]

TK: Yeah, at home, yeah, we were mostly, you know, like I had to chop the wood at home to, for the fire and to keep warm. I had to saw the thing and then pile it into our, our shed. Then we'd chop it up so we'd bring it inside and keep warm all day, I mean, all night, until it ran out. Then it's real cold in the morning in the winters especially. But in camp, you know, you had all of that. We had our... well, we had the coal stove would go out, but the coal would last longer than wood stove. And then in the morning, you had get up and go to the mess hall. Dinner was served, and the parents had nothin' to do with it. You never got together as a group, I don't think. I never seen families -- some of 'em did, ate as a family, but most of us teenagers just ate whenever we could. We had a certain time we had to eat by, though. And, you know, from seven to I think nine or ten, and then from eleven to twelve or twelve to one was dinner or lunch. And if you weren't there you don't get it, you got to wait 'til supper. But you just go to the... that's all. I mean, other than that you were free to do anything. And to me it was, it was pleasure. [Laughs] Boy, at home when I was at Bainbridge, I had to... man, I had to work. And it was cold in the winter, you know, we were so poor we didn't have good clothes. And my hands would be... couldn't even grab anything it would get so cold, weeding, you know. But in camp, when you got in camp, it was like another world. [Laughs]

DG: So now, as a grown adult, do you have an opinion on maybe how that affected families and kids?

TK: I don't think it... well, it didn't affect my family, I don't think. I don't know. Because we weren't in there long enough to mold... we were only in there, what, '41 to '43, that's only two or three years. And you can't mold a child in that... they do, from one to seven, the child, you can mold 'em. But you, that's five to seven years. But in camp we only had three years and that wasn't long enough to do anything. It didn't, it was really, it was three years, but I can't remember because it was so short, I guess. We didn't do the same things long enough to have a lasting memory in our mind.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.