<Begin Segment 6>

CI: I was working in the recreation and education department in Santa Anita, so we began to organize classes for the children because we felt, this was, I had gone in April and April, May, June, we felt that the children should have some education. So we were very fortunate in the sense that among the evacuees, there were many people who were qualified to teach and we had, we had some PhDs teaching children because, you know, they wanted to share their knowledge with the kids. So we did develop elementary school and high school for the children in camp. The rooms in Santa Anita were the grandstands, so that we had children sitting with their teachers in the grandstand trying to teach whatever they had very, of course, we had no, no supplies, very inadequate supplies. Again, what people on the outside had donated that came through the libraries, and these were basically the American Friends Service Committee and the churches did donated some, some books and things, and everybody scrounged around to see what they could use to teach with. But being good Japanese kids, they were, you know, in classes and they were being taught their... then recreation, in terms of recreation, we organized a lot of, again, activities, with the people so that... if you remember, the average age of the evacuee at that time was nineteen. And so that we had a lot of schoolchildren who were still, you know, of that age. So I think we had a nursery school, too, for the children. But it was, when we got into the more permanent relocation centers, that these things began to then develop in a much more organized fashion. And at that time, I was working social services but I do know schools were there. My brothers went to school. And they had Topaz High School, I remember, and Topaz grammar school. And also that he children's education -- one of the things that I felt was very ironic was to hear, kids used to love to sing and they would sing God Bless America and, you know, sitting in camp and hearing the children sing these songs is really very touching. It was hard.

EI: Pledge of Allegiance too. [Laughs]

CI: Yeah, yeah. I do remember that was hard.

EI: Yeah, that was one of the things. Well, one of the things, one of the good things that came out of the camp was that they organized a co-op in there, cooperative, and they were able to get things through the co-op for the people. And we were fortunate to have this fellow, Emile Sacarach, from, he came out here and he was a co-op member here, became one of the heads out here. But that helped a great deal, too, in alleviating, helping the people out, getting things and things of that sort. And then the other thing was that she said we were both in the social welfare, not social welfare, social department but --

CI: Social welfare department.

EI: Social welfare department, was it?

CI: Yeah, we worked with families.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1983, 2010 Densho and Steven Okazaki. All Rights Reserved.