<Begin Segment 6>

YY: Then it was that fateful day, December 6, 1942. Tension was building up in Manzanar and it was... there was discontent, especially among the Kibeis, those who were American born but educated in Japan. They, because they were indoctrinated in Japan, they had this loyalty to Japan. So there was this friction between the loyal and the disloyal Japanese there in camp. And that came to a head and there was a riot that evening, or that day. There was a lot of tension. I can still remember this big brawl because we were in Block 3 and all this took place just several, two blocks down the way. We could hear the noise. Pretty soon there was a truckload of these Kibeis and they were singing the Japan National Anthem, Kimigayo, you could hear that, and we heard some gunshots. Well, one person was killed and another wounded. Then it was... martial law was instituted and so everything closed down. They had to shut everything down except the basic services, the hospitals and the post office and all, and the churches were allowed to remain open, but other assembly was not permitted. And so here we had another break from school. Then this took us into... but, oh, excuse me, prior to that time, they were, because of the manpower shortage, they were permitting young able men to leave camp to go to, like, Montana, Idaho, to help with harvest. So my brother Tosh went with his friends and they went to Montana to do sugar beet topping. They were there a month and then they returned to Manzanar.

Schools finally opened again, I believe in January, later in January. Then, because the Bainbridge people feared about this tension and all, they requested transfer to Hunt, Idaho. So that occurred on February 24, 1943, that most, not all, went to Minidoka. When we got there it was basically the same setup, the same rules and meeting new people, going to school, doing different activities. However, by that time, things were pretty, things were beginning to loosen up a little bit. People were permitted to get day passes to go to Twin Falls to shop or go see a movie or whatever. And then of course you have to come back, but there was a bus service that went to... back and forth. The one thing is that we had... thing that was different over there, there was this canal. We went swimming in that canal which is really very dangerous because there was big drop-offs, and if you couldn't swim and you went into one of those drop-offs, you could drown. And a person did drown in that canal, but we were young and daring. The first summer in Idaho we went to vacation bible school, that summer. And the following summer, there was -- because the older ones were leaving camp by that time, some of them were going out to work, relocate permanently. There were others who were... wanted to go to school -- there was a shortage of manpower. So they sent out notices saying, "We need nurse's aides." So my friend Yuri and I signed up. And here we were mere fourteen, fourteen going on fifteen. They gave us training for two weeks. They taught us how to make beds, how to take care of patients, and all that, and how to read these medical terms in shorthand. So that summer, she and I worked at the hospital. And that was good experience because I had much earlier decided I wanted to be a nurse and this was a wonderful opportunity. So I really enjoyed that. Then of course when school started again in the fall, I had to go back to school.

Interestingly enough, in Idaho, because of the manpower shortage on all the farms in that area, they closed the school for six weeks, October through part of November, and giving the able persons to go out and help with the harvest, in apple picking, onion topping, picking potatoes. So the 7-Ups went out and that's what we did. We stayed at a camp bunkhouse in Twin Falls. Toshi's mother went with us, she became our cook. Then every morning the farmers would come, pick us up, and take us to the farm where we would work and earn some money, which was great. Then, that was over, we went back to school, returned to camp and went back to school.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.