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Q: What were the prison conditions like?

MY: The specific prison that I was put in was the Multnomah County Jail. And I will give credit to the jailers, they really wanted to be sure that I was protected. They felt that if I were in the common jail with the rest of the prisoners, some harm might befall me. So they gave me a private suite, in effect, a solitary confinement cell, and there I languished for nine months. It's about 6 foot by 9, an iron cot with canvas stretched across the bunk, an open toilet bowl, a open washbasin, and that was it. And you couldn't see the outside, there was no sunlight or starlight or anything. So it was a rather desolate existence.

Q: How did you pass the time?

MY: Well, first I started, of course, asking for a typewriter. And they wouldn't give me a typewriter because they thought Japanese were so clever that I'd fashion some kind of a key or a weapon out of it. Consequently, they did give me paper and a stub of a pencil, so I was doing a lot of writing. I got so bored, frankly, that at one point I was trying to transcribe the Bible in shorthand until I ran across words like Nebakanezer and Balthazar and so on. So I gave up on that.

Q: Did you receive any visitors during the time?

MY: Yes. I received a series of visitors. One in particular, the Olivers, Buddy and Cora Oliver would come up, oh, probably every other week. And particularly, they would bring in Chinese food. I also had a law school mate by the name of Bernard Clicks, who used to send books, would come up to visit possibly once a month. And then occasionally church people, particularly from the Methodist church, would drop by with some kinds of messages. But existence in a solitary cell is hardly to be characterized as living in a resort. It was a very dreary existence. I think the thing that sustained me is that I felt then and I feel now that I was right in my position. And that, of course, was the basis on which I continued to endure this.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1983, 2010 Densho and Steven Okazaki. All Rights Reserved.