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WH: Tell me about how you started taking movies.

ES: Taking what?

WH: Movies.

ES: Movie? Somebody had a movie camera, and he projected it, and I got thrilled because here I'm taking still picture and all it's, do is still, not moving at all, and here a fellow showed me his moving picture, and they're active and just life in it. So that's how I started having an extra camera, movie camera, and that was two years, just about two years before World War II.

ES: Now, when World War II came and you had to evacuate San Jose, what did you do with all your cameras?

ES: Well, the proclamation order said that all persons of Japanese ancestry has to turn in the cameras and other things. So instead of turning the camera in, I had a good friend that's just graduated high school, and I thought I'd give it to him or loan it to him, because I didn't want to turn it in. I worked hard for the camera and I didn't want to turn it in. So he took it in for me, but wartime he got so busy he didn't use the camera. So when I was able to get, use a camera, I wrote to him again and asked him if he can send me the camera. So that's what he did, I just, the way I packed it and gave it to him, that's the way I got it. So in that package I had some cut film, roll film, and some chemicals and some printing papers, so I was able to do things immediately. But I immediately ran out, because taking picture here, taking picture there, you know how fast it goes. So I began to wondering behind barbed wire fence, what can I do? And they had some Caucasian personnel that commutes daily to camp, and I asked them, "Can you get me certain size film?" And he said, "Well, I'll look." So I wanted 120 and 620. Well, he bought all he can find of 620 and 120, and I borrowed money from my brothers and sisters and my dad to pay for them, because nineteen dollars a month, $3.75 extra that I'm working, doesn't pay very much. So gradually I got the courage to ask my folks for a little bit more, and the folks willingly loaned some more money because they said, "Well, that's a good hobby and I want you to pursue it."

WH: This was in which internment camp?

ES: At Heart Mountain Relocation Center.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2005 Densho and The Japanese American Film Preservation Project. All Rights Reserved.