<Begin Segment 8>

FK: Did you have any feelings when you first saw Manzanar, when the bus first pulled up into the area?

SK: All I remember when I saw that place, I says, gee, it was bleak. It was nothing but sand and tarpaper buildings. I remember walking up, walking up from where they dropped us off on the bus, walking up to Block 3 and having to jump over trenches 'cause they were still in the process of building a lot of things there. And we saw the water pipes or the, whatever pipes there were. And then, of course, the dust storms just, one of the first things that happened was the dust storms and that was just awful. [Laughs] That was the only thing that I really didn't like about camp.

FK: How did you find the food or the facilities there?

SK: Oh, yes. They were, there were... we didn't have snakes come up between the boards, but some of our neighbors had snakes coming up through the floorboards, 'cause they were, the floorboards were about that far and so the small ones were... but we did see, that's the first time I ever saw these huge king snakes. I never ran into a rattlesnake, but I was told there were scorpions, and so we were, we were told to be very, very careful. And I used to see dead scorpions, but I never saw a live scorpion 'cause I didn't go play where they were. But there was, I guess one of the things they did after we got to camp was... of course, I saw the building when we walked in, and there were eight two-by-fours going across the ceiling, and then I saw one, one light and a bunch of windows. And of course, the wind, when it'd come up, the dust would just come right up into our house. And so everything was just coated with dust, and that I didn't like. Of course, there were seven of us, and so we had seven cots in the place, and we, my sisters all divided up the place -- for a place to sleep and a place to, kind of a living area. But that's kind of hard when you have seven people living, sleeping in one room together.

FK: How big was the room?

SK: There were seven of us, and we had about, I saw about eight beams going across so that was, that was for a family of eight, basically. I think that's what I was told. But those sandstorms were awful. [Laughs] I never liked them, and I had to... yeah, I remember we used to walk to school and having to fight that sandstorm. And at first, it was very close to our place. The recreation hall was our first schooling place, and we used to just sit on benches just to get school started. I don't think we learned anything, and that's where I... we were just starting into multiplication, division, those kinds of things in, here on the island. And I went there and of course, they just kind of covered things very so-so, so fourth grade was lost. And so I, so I know that my math was not good 'cause I didn't get to complete what I had on the island. And so then by the time I was in the seventh grade, then things were beginning to look better and they had some better teachers. But when I traveled to Chicago, I thought, "Oh boy, this is gonna be hard." But Chicago I found very, very easy and the teachers, the teachers were very good there. And then, of course, I was only there only for six months. And so I came back, of course, I came back to the island, and of course Bainbridge was so advanced, or so far ahead, I was totally lost. And thank heavens for some good teachers, they helped me through my English and my math, and I was able to complete all the courses that were required for college, so that made me feel good. But it took a while just to catch up. And I credit the teachers on Bainbridge Island who really, really helped me. And of course, the kids were, my classmates were very nice, and they did whatever they could for me.

FK: How do you feel that the concentration camp period affected the family unit or family life?

SK: Family life?

FK: Yeah, the family as a unit.

SK: Family life kind of got distorted in camp, mainly because the parents were working -- either in the kitchens or at something -- and then of course we had all our friends that we played with. So when it was time to go to lunch, we went to lunch with them. And then of course we'd continue playing right after lunch and my folks would come home later in the day, my mother especially. And my sisters were, took odd jobs, they were, my sister was, worked in the camouflage department. My brother became an electrician, and he enjoyed that. And then some of my sisters became housemaids for, for the camp personnel, and I think they, they earned, they earned about sixteen or nineteen dollars a month. You were sixteen dollars when you started and you ended up with nineteen dollars if you did very good.

FK: Tell me, tell me more about the camouflage department?

SK: The camp what?

FK: The camouflage department. Tell me what that was.

SK: I don't know anything about that other than the fact that my sister worked there and they made the camouflage things, and I just remember seeing pictures of it. I never got to go there. All I know is she worked there and at least she was making some money, and that's all I know. But my brother, my brother was one who enjoyed working with anything electrical. And he told us once that, he says, "When I got into the business of working with radio and television," he says, "it wasn't work, it was play." To him, that was the greatest thing he could have done. But anyway, he enjoyed his electrical work and then he, and of course, he went on to Chicago, and that's where he learned all about television at the time. So that was, when he came back to the island, he not only worked in with the, with the family farm, but he did some work with repair, repairmen and so forth.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.