<Begin Segment 4>

SY: So then you ended up at the Shonien. Do you, I mean, I'm sure you, can you talk a little bit about what Shonien is?

KS: I can talk about it 'cause I had some very fun times in the Shonien. In fact, when we first got there they kind of briefly broke us in as to what is going to be, "This is going to be your bed and we'll get you up in the morning. You wash up and we have breakfast," and all this sort of thing. And there's a, there was an auditorium like place attached to that. And my recollection of meeting one of the kids that was there, and I had a very fond memory of this child, but she was, she was an invalid. She had something wrong with her legs, I guess a polio like condition, but she was a very pleasant person. And she came and says hello and all the, we chit chat and all that. She was very friendly and just kind of helped us get into the situation of being part of the, part of this group. And I only saw her maybe one or two, I can't remember, a short period of time, and then I never seen her again after we went into Manzanar. 'Cause she wasn't exactly Japanese in a sense of being Japanese. She was probably a mix or something, so she didn't go with the Manzanar group, as far as I can determine.

SY: So when, did the entire, so not the entire Shonien group went to Manzanar. It was just a...

KS: 'Cause that was, they had a mixture of kids. There were ainokos and all Japanese people that, in this same circumstance I was in, plus I imagine there were other Japanese mix people that were abandoned, that they were there. They went, but I wasn't conscious about them. I mean, I didn't recall intermingling with them in Manzanar's orphanage either, though I imagine some of them were ainokos. But then, like I said, like you said, I'm very naive about people. I was just getting to know, or associated with a few of 'em. You know, Japanese people are not very open and warm to begin with. They don't take in things very easily. [Laughs] And we had a bunch of girls that were up in the mid-teens and that kind, and that's about all I remember. But we didn't associate with those people while I was at the Shonien. It was an exposure of maybe, as far as my mind and time period's concerned, like just a few weeks.

SY: So do you remember what your life was like there? Did you get up and play?

KS: Well, I know I've had my problems, but we got up and mischief, I had some mischiefs and I got away with it, but then I know I had some incidents with not being able to get up or finding the bathroom, that kind of thing. It's all new.

SY: Right.

KS: But other than that, those things stuck in my mind. And I probably got in mischief in scraping a screen with some kind of chalk or something like that and getting away with that, or at least they couldn't, they didn't pin it on my, anyway.

SY: And the people who were in charge, were they, do you remember who they were?

KS: I know one, I don't... there was a lady there that was very affectionate and very helpful in many ways, and she probably inspired me to kind of hang together, so to speak. And she followed us, I think, if can remember correctly, she followed us all the way to the, Manzanar, and she was part of the group there. But I don't recall what happened to her, and I didn't stay in touch with the adult side, other than, "Oh hey, I ran into..." in, during one of our reunions. And I recall him sitting and reading the book at the time, and all this stuff, every night. And there was this gentleman called John -- I only know him by John -- who had heels or soles about three inches thick 'cause he was, so I found out later, reading a book, that he was polio, that was what it was. And I remember him hobbling and having a difficult walking, but he was a very nice gentleman. And him and, the two of 'em that kind of supervised the kids, our age kids, I recall -- those are the only ones that I do recall -- but I've had my relationship with other kids, and that's where some of it still stuck, the agitation that they would have, 'cause they didn't accept new people either.

SY: So it was mainly --

KS: So I would say a family of, there was a family of brothers there and they ranged from young teens to I think about the same age as my brother, about four or five of 'em. And the older one, you can't say bully, but it's, he took kind of advantage of the fact that they were older. "You do this." And you, they give you a nickname, and I hated that nickname for...

SY: We won't make you tell us what it is, then.

KS: I, it probably wouldn't be a very good thing to do, but I run into some of these people here in First Street and all that stuff, and every now and then I hear it, "Hey." The name, I was called Gopher, and the reason of it, I don't know specifically the reason for it, but in terminology, as I understand today, Gopher means "go do this, go do that." Gopher. But in my mind it was the other kind of gopher, the one that digs in the ground. [Laughs]

SY: Didn't like that, huh?

KS: I didn't like that.

SY: So it sounds like, then, the thing that you disliked the most might've been the conflict with the other kids.

KS: Yeah. So I guess that influenced the fact that I don't associate with the, my community, so to speak. I don't go to the Manzanar thing every year. I drive by there, I go by there going fishing and stuff like that. I stop by Manzanar, but on my own, and talk to the ranch rangers there and all that. We chit chat and I describe some of the things that were around Manzanar that they weren't aware of, and I says, "Yeah, when we were here," after we'd gone there it was just a barren land. There wasn't even a fence there. It was just three barracks, the mess hall, the girls, and the children's, younger group, and then our, and then there was the, I think it was a pear orchard, adjoining that. So they, it's all become part of the historical thing that they're trying to rebuild and they're trying to get the pear orchard to come up again. And I says, well, that's interesting. 'Cause that was something we, I remember in the orphanage, a punishment for going to the orchard and picking fruits out of there and eating that. They says, "You're not supposed to do that. You come over here." And says, "You're going, I'm gonna give you castor oil," a spoonful of castor oil. I hated that. [Laughs]

SY: So the people in charge actually, it was punishment, they...

KS: It was a punishment. The castor oil was a punishment. Though I had some of the other kids, they also got in there, but they loved castor oil so it didn't bother them. [Laughs]

SY: So did you, do you remember being close to your brother during this time?

KS: I didn't see them. I didn't see my sister, and we didn't associate with the younger, we didn't mix with the younger portion of the Children's. There were the diapered ones, and there was the two-, three- or four-year-olds, or two- or three-year-olds, and then there was the four year old, that small group, and then we were in the five, six, seven year old grouping, and then there were the preteens and teens.

SY: And did you have a sense that all of these kids were without parents?

KS: You know, I never consciously even thought about it. We were there, that's all I know. We were there, and some of the kids were easy to get along with and the other kids were a little bossy and difficult to relate to.

SY: So was it a more strict environment than your own home, growing up with your mother and father?

KS: Well, it would be a more controlled environment than what we had at home because both my father and mother were out in the farm fields, and so essentially we grew up on our own. We do what we wanted because there was no supervision.

SY: And here there was.

KS: And there, there was. You had to get up a certain time, you wear the certain clothes "that we lay out for you." And when you go to the mess hall, things that I remember, when we go to the mess hall we sit at this one bench table, arranged kids on that side and kids on this side, and because it was a Christian structure -- and I wasn't aware of this -- we pray for, grace for the meals and all that sort of thing. And we were asked to, that we eat everything that's on the plate. And I said, that was not a problem with me. In fact, when they had certain dishes, like okra, large percentage of the kids didn't like okra and I loved it, so I didn't have a problem. And we did have other problems that, following directions, sit upright, bring your food up to your dish, I mean your mouth, don't stoop over and eat. They come back with a needle and, ooh. [Laughs]

SY: Really?

KS: Yeah, get you to sit up straight. Posture, important posture. I mean, the needle was just a, just enough so you feel it, you just kind of jump, to remind you, sit up straight, bring the food up to your mouth, don't slosh it around your mouth like that. I mean, those things we never encountered at home because that's normal. And then I remember one day when we had fresh oranges, and she gave instructions, "Okay, you can peel the oranges and take the orange out after we finish here." I took, peel the oranges, the juice got on my hand, I [licks hand]. "You eat that orange here." Very strict in that sense that you follow directions.

SY: Very interesting.

KS: But you know, it's an amazing thing that table manners, that was the first time I was introduced to table manners, and it was the first time I was introduced to being correctly postured and all this stuff about what you do when you're eating, the etiquette of eating. And it had stayed with me. I mean, it enters my mind all the time I sit down, so it did have some good in it. [Laughs]

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.