<Begin Segment 11>

SY: So by the time you all got together again, then was it about how long do you think, that the family unit was together?

KS: After, in camp?

SY: In camp.

KS: I would say roughly, maybe less than a year or somewhere in that period. I don't know the length of time.

SY: So it was a good, but it was a good length of time at least.

KS: Well, it was several months, or at least... and it could've been easily well into a year, but then I can't say for, I can't say for sure. I just, like I said, it existed in the relationship as to how long it had, was there. I know it wasn't two seasons 'cause it didn't snow and then it was...

SY: That's a good way to know.

KS: So we had wandered off as children, after the regulations in camp were relaxed. We had gone out the gates and we walked out maybe two, three miles outside of camp to some of these other locations, like the creek and stuff, and we used to go out there and play. But there wasn't much activity that we can do. We used, I walked around the cemetery area and walked around the hospital area, not in, on the property but up and around that area. That's the extent of our wandering around as kids.

SY: And did you end up staying close with the people at the orphanage, the kids at the orphanage? Or did you just separate?

KS: We never went back. I mean, I never went back to build up any kind of relationship with them because we didn't have that kind of a relationship to begin with. It was nothing urgent to have us go, for me to go back and try to renew or try to befriend, needed their friendship to do whatever we were gonna do, 'cause it was not, nothing of that kind built up.

SY: And as far as the kids outside the, in the regular population?

KS: Same thing.

SY: Same thing, you weren't very close.

KS: Yeah, they were there in the class we saw them, we say hi and that's it. You don't, we don't go to their house, we don't see their parents.

SY: But when you went to, like, do all these, go over to the creek or do things like that, were there other --

KS: Usually by ourselves.

SY: You and your brother.

KS: Yeah, my, me and my brother. And I don't recall if there was anybody else that we had gone with. I think there were maybe two or three other persons, but I don't recall who they were. We just kind of go as a group independently.

SY: So you weren't involved, like in, I don't know, you were still pretty young, so they didn't have too many boys groups or clubs or...

KS: No. Usually, if, we usually, the ones that I know, like in the orphanage, there's a little clique, about maybe four, five of 'em that always stuck together, and then there's the family unit that sticks together, brothers. And then there's some loose, independent people that is not quite part of the group and not quite our group. They were just kind of independent like we were and not really tied in with anybody, and we never made friends. We never really united to do anything. They went their way, we went our way. We never looked back. [Laughs]

SY: And your father was working. Was your mother working too? Did she get a job while you were in camp?

KS: Not that I know of. She was more of a, she was not an independent, resourceful person, and she had problems even after we got out of camp. She was, she tried. Best as she could, she tried, but she had her problems.

SY: And your dad, during camp, was, he did this carpentry kind of work and he worked, he worked on the auditorium.

KS: Yes.

SY: So that was, I mean, specifically, that was, did he do the construction?

KS: It was, it was a major construction job, to build up an auditorium for the high school, school that was located in that area, for place to graduate, place to do all this stuff. I guess with the anticipation that the camp was gonna be there forever. [Laughs] That building still exists. In fact, that's where the museum is in Manzanar, that building.

SY: That's right.

KS: Yeah, we used to drive by, I says, "Yeah, my dad at least was, had his hand in building that thing." [Laughs]

SY: And do you remember when they first talked about the fact that maybe you'd be leaving camp?

KS: There was no conversation that I am aware of. There was something said about it, that we're gonna have to go back and we have to pay taxes for food and all this other stuff, that kind of thing. But there was no real set thing that, well, we're gonna have to move away from here in the next two, three weeks or next two, three months or whatever. It was not that urgency.

SY: And your father and mother, did they have friends now that they had developed?

KS: They had, yes, they had friends in Manzanar. They developed some friends that related to them after they'd gotten out. I guess they're the ones that kind of helped him get some footing out there and made contacts with, like this Chinese farmer, so that he would have a place to go. And unfortunately that failed after a short period of time, and the friends helped him out. As to what they did, financially or otherwise, I don't know. It's just that we existed in one house and then moved to another house, managed somehow. And then my father got a job at Fukui Mortuary sometime later on as a, what do you call it, sort of a maintenance person, just do general housecleaning and repairs and stuff like that, which was within the scope of what he was able to do.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.