Densho Digital Archive - Joe Kino Interview (denshovh-kjoe-01-0005)

<Begin Segment 5>

HM: Do you remember anything about the process of your leaving your home and getting down to the ferry and then from the ferry to the trains? Do you remember anything about that whole trip and what were you thinking?

JK: Well, during the trip, we can't see anything because we got, they told us to leave the blind down, and we can't look outside or anything else. So everything was dark and we only had a lamp from railroad. Until we arrive in L.A., Los Angeles train station, we can't see anything. We couldn't see anything because the blind was down all the way from Seattle to California. And then after we got to L.A., then get off the train and get on the bus, went to camp Manzanar. And when we went to Manzanar, why, our Block 3 wasn't ready so we had to make our own beds and go get our own army cot, set up everything else.

HM: What was your impression of the camp, of Manzanar?

JK: What was that?

HM: What did you think of camp?

JK: Oh, when I went to Manzanar? Well, there isn't too much thing to say or think, it's all desert and there's Manzanar camp buildings here and there. And it's just a bare place. Hot, and every time the wind blows then they it blew the sand with, you know. So I remember that one day, when we were in Manzanar, they opened up the camp so we could go out behind the camp. Not front of the camp, but behind the camp which is you're going toward that mountain there. There was a high mountain there. There was a creek there, and there was big trout swimming in the creek, but nobody had equipment to fish those. And then they told us to watch out for rattlesnake. So then we have to kind of be careful where we're stepping because there's a lot of rocks and things on the desert.

HM: Were you still going to school at that time? Did you go to school in Manzanar itself?

JK: Go where?

HM: Did you go to school in Manzanar?

JK: Oh, school?

HM: Or had you already graduated?

JK: Well, no, I hadn't graduated yet, but I tried to go to school, but Manzanar people, they were kind of against the U.S. that put us into the camp. And at the school, the schoolkids is always speaking Japanese instead of English. So I thought, oh, I'm not going to learn anything from them, so I quit school. And then I start working for the, we went out to work outside the camp.