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HM: And we got off the train. I don't remember boarding the buses that took us to Manzanar, but I do remember getting there. It was... everything was just flat, flat, flat. There were some black, long black housing. And I thought, "Oh, look at all those rhubarb houses." Because my, my dad had a rhubarb house. "I wonder what those are for?" And then I found out it was our housing. And they were just, still building Manzanar at that time because our community was the first community to come. Then we saw all these men, working, pounding, building the houses. They were very, very dark because they were out in the sun so long. There were ditches all over. They were still putting in the sewer and they were still putting in the pipes and things like that. It was very, very dusty. And so the first thing we hit, I think was, a dust storm. And it was... it's like being sandblasted. You have to get down like this, close your eyes, close your mouth, and just scrunch down. Still you'd get all that dirt and sand and everything. So that was, I guess, my first impression of Manzanar.

We had... another thing I remember about Manzanar was our first Christmas there. They gathered us in the evening for Santa to come, and so Santa had come, and he brought out, had toys, and then we had numbers, they would call numbers. And I can't remember what my number was, but anyway, he called my number, I went up there, and he gave me one of those plastic bracelets. And it was kind of like a slinky, and you put it on, and I thought that was the most wonderful thing I ever had. I still remember that present, that gift, from all, everything throughout my life, what I got for Christmas. And I think it was because you didn't have anything, you couldn't bring anything, and so here was a wonderful gift, and so that made a big impression on me.

And another thing I remember about Manzanar is that my father was released from Missoula. And he came back to camp, and all that time, I thought he was a criminal because he was in prison. And so I must have been really ashamed of him because I went running into the bathrooms and I hid in one of the stalls. And I could hear people calling, "Hisa, Hisa, Papa is home now." But I wouldn't come out and I wouldn't come out. And I didn't come out until dinnertime when that mess hall bell rang, then I came out. 'Cause I always kind of lived by my stomach anyway. [Laughs] Anyway, so that was one of the things that I remember from Manzanar.

I also remember the "Green Hat Boy" who was a peeping tom and "Leapin' Lena" who was from Hawaii. And I remember some of the Californians and they used to wear their zoot suits and swing their chains, you know, their fobs around, and things like that. Eventually we moved... oh, by the way, our family number was fourteen. So you can see that we were at the very beginning of that evacuation. Anyway, so, going back to Manzanar, I don't remember much about that riot thing. But I do remember on Halloween I made this mask out of a paper sack and went to go trick or treating and there was Neil, Mamoru, playing with, with cut up pieces of wood and making blocks and towers and things on his little porch. When I went up I said, "Boo!" And he threw that block at me and it hit me right on the head and I went crying home. So, you know, those are little things that I remember, but I don't remember a lot of the really heavy important things because that wasn't my job as a child.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.