<Begin Segment 16>

AR: Now weren't there some single men in the Clovis community, and if so, when they were moved here, where were they housed?

RE: Over there, in the adjacent cottage to where my sisters lived in.

AR: Okay, but you described a couple, I can't remember the names, but you've described...

RE: Mr. Hataye, I think, was one, and Mr. Nishibata.

AR: Uh-huh, and they were married, had wives? You're not remembering?

RE: I don't think so.

AR: Okay, all right.

RE: I'm not so sure.

AR: Because I'm trying to think, you know, thirty people, there were probably eight or ten people in your family, probably a similar number in the Kimura family. So we need to account for another ten people, that's probably close.

RE: I think originally the Hatayes were here but they got a release to go work somewhere else, so that sort of depleted a number of kids.

AR: I see, uh-huh.

RE: Yeah, that's what I would assume, yeah.

AR: Okay, all right, and we're not seeing anything on this landscape here where the two u-shaped buildings were, right?

RE: There's absolutely nothing left.

AR: Nothing left here.

RE: Now, facing in that direction was another prefab building, short it may be, but we utilized that as a recreation building. So the movies were shown when they could come and bring some movies. I recall seeing movies like Deanna Durbin, who was a film actress who was very popular back in the '40s. And so you would see some movies of her or there were other...

AR: Hollywood style movies, but maybe...

RE: Hollywood, yes...

AR: ...older movies, or current?

RE: Older. Oh, I would not say there were current, but they were back from the late '30s to the early '40s, I would assume. There were some. I remember a character named Ishkabibble, or something of that sort, so it was always, I could always remember there was a horror story. There was a hand reached out from behind a bed thing, and reaching in to grab somebody and that left me with fear every night when I went to bed, you know. But movies were shown, games were played in there, whatever.

AR: It sounds like the camp administrators made some effort to give you guys some semblance of normalcy there.

RE: Yes, they did. And that's where my sister also was trying to teach us to learn, get a little more education, yes.

[Interruption]

RE: This is where the recreation building was, right here. I would say it was about 40 feet long, one-story, prefab building.

AR: Does this impression in the ground mean anything to you here?

RE: No this depression, I really don't understand why it was there. It could've been behind that building, for reasons that we never saw that.

AR: Where was the sewage leach field that you described?

RE: The leach field was somewhere back in there, behind the administrators building and behind where, that little one story building where my sisters, two sisters, lived. If you got close to it you could smell it, you know. But it apparently was not functioning well, so yeah, the sewage system was not good. But right in there was the center of the whole compound, so to speak, right in there.

AR: And you didn't have running water in the barracks area, but you had the latrines facilities behind it?

RE: Well, it was toilet, flush toilets and everything. The running water, but the running water was not within our quarters. I think we all had to, I think my mother went to the back in the latrine area to do the laundry, as well as washing the dishes and things like that.

AR: But there was cook facilities in your quarters?

RE: Yeah, there was always a little potbelly stove, and my mother utilized that to do her cooking. It was wrought-iron type of stove, yes.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2008 New Mexico JACL and Densho. All Rights Reserved.