Densho Digital Archive
Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community Collection
Title: Matsue Watanabe Interview
Narrator: Matsue Watanabe
Interviewer: Debra Grindeland
Location: Bainbridge Island, Washington
Date: October 7, 2006
Densho ID: denshovh-wmatsue-01-0006

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DG: And I guess... can you tell me what sort of things, you, as a young ninth grade girl, took with you to camp?

MW: [Laughs] Well, that's, I think I, we only took what we had to take, 'cause we only had one suitcase that we can take. And, of course, in that suitcase you're trying to put maybe a sheet or so, that you can have for sleeping. And the rest is your clothes and your shoes. And so you're not taking any toys or anything like that. You might -- and I don't recall if I put any books in there. Like, it would be only schoolbooks that you would put in there if you did take any books because one suitcase for the rest of your life, that we thought, isn't a lot of space to put things. And that's the way we traveled, and with a tag on the suitcase and a tag on our body. And of course everybody wore their best clothes because they didn't want to put it in their suitcase. And I remember, you know, my girlfriend, one of my girlfriends now, she sees the pictures of my sister and us walking down the dock and she could see that they're dressed up and they have hats on and everything. And she says, "Why did you dress up to go to camp?" And I said, "Well, we had no place else to put it except on our body, because you had one suitcase to carry." So, the good clothes you wore.

DG: That makes sense.

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