<Begin Segment 35>

EO: When you came to Tule Lake, what Violet said was Tule Lake was in awful condition.

HU: Oh, terrible. That's why I don't know... Tule Lake is, some people, they don't like to move out, not because they're going back to Japan or anything, they corrupted camp. Because when I went Tule Lake, you could buy any Japanese sake, any kind, depending on the price, you get good one, cheap one is a poor one. Those people, they're making a profit in the camp. And while I was there in 1944-45, there's a insurance man from Sacramento, Shitomi brother, he was a canteen boss. I think a '44. Canteen boss and one is a manager in a warehouse, in other words, manager warehouse buyer for the, all the material they use in camp there. And Richard Drinnan, he wrote, he was the number one informer for Best, that's why he been killed and when he gets killed, about nineteen or twenty people been detained and questioned. And they used a baseball bat and knock 'em, hell out of them. The chief of police was Willard Schmidt, he used to be a policeman for the Berkeley and he's 280-pound, almost 6-footer. He used a baseball bat. And I tried to get a confession out of twenty people, but none of them been guilty. It's a terrible -- that I hear that after the war. During the war time, I didn't hear that. Nobody talk about it.

EO: You arrived in Tule Lake in December.

HU: December 6th.

EO: Of 1943.

HU: Yeah.

So, you missed the riot that had taken place there. But do you remember the hunger strikes or any of the other activities that were going on that went on after you arrived there?

HU: No, I get out stockade and then what I did is I took the, I went to the placement for the job but they said right now there's a strike, you can't get no job. So I went to the administration. A lot of people from Leupp take over the administration. So one of the construction heads was a huntsman, they called, he was in Leupp, you know, small community, so we see every day, and we know each other. So I asked him if there's any job for me. He said, "Yeah, I give you a job." Then he give me a job as maintenance. So then I use about, I change a lot of roofing, already roofing someplace are poor jobs, so they're leaking. So sometimes I had forty, fifty people work, changing roof paper. And after everything settled I had about fifteen or sixteen people working with me.

EO: Did you know Violet...

HU: Yeah, Yamane is his brother's maiden name, I guess, her maiden name.

EO: Matsuda was her maiden name.

HU: Is that...?

EO: Matsuda was her name. And Toki Yamane was her brother.

HU: Oh, her brother, yeah.

EO: Did you know either of them in Tule Lake? Had you heard of them?

HU: No, in Tule Lake I didn't hear anything like that. I didn't hear. Only thing I know, all the doctors in Tule Lake, I lived in a doctor's block, they all belong to Hoshidan, they're not active but they belong to that. And about three or four people, they want to get out the organization, you know, Hoshidan, but they afraid because they get discrimination. So one time when Best called me in, every time I working near the hospital, he see me, he call me in, and then he ask me how's the family, this and that, you know, he never questioned about other people, you know. He knows I'm not going to spill any inform to him. But I ask him, did my driver belong to Hoshidan. He want to get out, but if he say to the organization, he'll get out, his parents get discriminated. He came from Poston, I think. What -- best way to take his name out, he said, just let me know. Then he's out, so we're not going to bother him no more. So I give him three or four people working with me, I give him names, and one guy's working in the hospital, he passed away already long time ago but he was in a x-ray machine, so I told him he want to get out. He don't want to make, let the Japanese organization to know that, but he want to get out. So I give him names. So they didn't detain him, you know.

<End Segment 35> - Copyright © 1994, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.