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JD: Do you know... do you have personal memories of what Manzanar was like, or... had your mom told you what it was like when you all first got there?

FK: I, I don't have personal... I have a few personal memories. They're all memories that kids would have if they do something wrong. [Laughs] I remember being scalded by hot water in the mess hall 'cause I was running around and bumped into a woman who was serving hot water for tea. And I remember... every time an adult sees me that used to know me in concentration camp in Manzanar, they say, "Oh, you're that little kid that used to hang onto your mother's dress all the time and was crying all the time. I felt really sorry for your mother." So I must have just cried constantly while I was there. And it's not only, you know, one or two people that have said that, so I know this has gotta be true. [Laughs] I know everybody talks about the dust being there and, and how the bread was covered in sand. And the mess hall line and how you'd be chewing on sand rather than food when you ate. And they talk about having to take these canvas bags and stuff 'em with straw to make their mattresses. So, although I don't remember it personally, I'm sure that it was really a tough situation. Being one of the first groups there, I'm sure that a lot of the facilities weren't up to snuff yet, as far as toilet facilities, and the barracks and so forth, that they were still building a lot of the things there when we got there. And the conditions were probably not as good as, as they were maybe later on, although they probably still weren't very outstanding. I know my mom said that first week there, everyone got diarrhea. And then I remember somebody calling it the "Manzanar runs." But they said, she said, that this elderly Issei, first-generation woman came up to her and said, "They're gonna poison us and we're all gonna die. And we'll never leave this place." My mother told her she didn't think that was true 'cause she didn't think America was that way, and it was the food rather than the fact that they were actually trying to poison us. But, but that feeling probably was real to some of the older people there, 'cause they didn't know how they'd be treated.

JD: Were there many kids your age, do you know?

FK: Yeah. It's interesting, 'cause you look at these old photos of kids there and, I mean, families during... and most of the families had kids of corresponding ages. You know, like my sister had three or four people in her class, and my other sister had three or four people in her class. I had... there weren't, there weren't a lot of kids there, but, but... yeah. You know, like, like my, after the war I'm sure there were a lot less of us, and that's what I remember about school. But I don't think there were very many... maybe there's not any more than three, maybe, in my class. But I think before the war there were, like the senior class had thirteen kids in it.

JD: What led to many of the Bainbridge Island people moving from Manzanar to Minidoka?

FK: Well, I think the official reason is that we wanted to go there because most of our friends were in Seattle, and everybody else in Manzanar was from California. And so the Bainbridge group kind of petitioned to be moved to Minidoka to be with more people that they knew. One of the unofficial reasons I hear from some of the parents is that they were afraid for their kids, kids, 'cause the Bainbridge Island teenagers were getting into fights with the kids from Los Angeles. And they said, "You know, the kids from Los Angeles were dark and the kids from Bainbridge were light." So, you had this... which is kind of interesting, you're talking about color of skin. So they used to get in fights and stuff. And, but I was talking to someone who was a teenager at that time, and he said, he said, "Yeah," he said, "we didn't get along very good, but we finally learned how to get along with each other." So he said, "It wasn't that bad." But, he said, "By the time we went to Minidoka, we learned all these kid -- all these tricks from these Manzanar kids so we could use them when we got to Minidoka." [Laughs] So, you know, what could you say? But I think one of the unofficial reasons is that the parents didn't like the influence that the Los Angeles kids were having on the Bainbridge Island kids. And I think besides that, Manzanar was really getting crowded. And, and Minidoka was a newer camp and they were very willing to move us to Minidoka because Manzanar was getting really crowded. 'Cause Manzanar originally was supposed to be a holding camp where people were dispersed to other camps, and then it became a permanent camp. So I think it, it made sense for them to move us to make more room. And besides that, people from Tule Lake were being moved to different camps, too, so...

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.