Densho Digital Archive - Kitako Izumizaki Interview (denshovh-ikitako-01-0015)

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MA: So what type of work did you find in camp?

KI: Well, I was trained by a Ms. Aihara, and she taught us how to be a nursery school teacher. 'Cause every block had a recreation room that you could use in certain ways. And like our block was used as a canteen-like, but the 220 block, or was it 221 block was used as a nursery school. And we used to scurry around the kitchen trying to find egg boxes, crates, and make, like, little cupboards for the kids with their name on it. We had fun. We were taking, we used to take the kids for a nature walk, because it's boring just doing nothing much. And I remember this little boy, he had found little rabbit droppings, and he had picked them all up and put 'em in his pocket. And when his mother was washing his pants, she saw and says, "Oh, why'd you, where'd you get these?" And she says, he says, "Oh, we went for a walk." And she said, "Why did you bring 'em?" and he said, "Oh, they're so round and so cute." [Laughs] He didn't even know what it was, see. And so we said, "Isn't it sad?" I says, "kids don't even know what rabbit droppings are." But there was a lot of teeny-tiny blue, little teeny-tiny dragonflies. There was a whole bunch of them, too, and says, but I don't know if they were able to catch those or not.

There was one fellow that, a local boy, who, even when he was living here, he used to trap all kinds of animals. So when he got to Poston, he trapped foxes and he skinned them. And he made quite a bit of shoulder wraps. And there were others that went to the Colorado River and caught snapping turtles, and the cooks would make turtle soup. And oh, there was a couple of people that got rattlesnakes, and I'm glad that he didn't live in my block 'cause I know he kept it right close. I knew when we were out one day, a sidewinder, you know, the snake that... came and I thought, "Oh, look at that, look at that," and my brother says, "Oh, that's a sidewinder, get away." They were scouts so they knew what it was.

MA: Did you ever have any interaction or contact with the native Americans who were living around that area?

KI: Well, one day, I think this woman, she said, "Let's go to Camp 1," and we were walking.

MA: And how -- I'm sorry, how far was that? A few miles?

KI: Couple of miles. I don't know how many miles, but it was within walking distance, but it was much better riding in a, in a truck or a bus. But I don't know what made her, she said, "Let's go," so a couple of us went. And then a car came along, and I think he was an Indian, and he stopped and said, "You guys want a ride?" and says, "Oh, yeah." And so he was asking a lot of questions. And this woman, she was saying, she was telling him that most of the women there were widows or their husbands weren't there because, just because hers wasn't, because he was being, at Crystal City, you know, that was, for those, she was over there. But of course, like my father was still... so he says, "Oh, really?' 'Cause he's, and I said, and then she asked him, "What do you do?" And he said, "Oh, I'm working at Camp 3," or something, 'cause they were building another camp, see. So then he says, "You mean to tell me all these ladies are widows, or, you know, or single over here because they're separated?" but just... oh, there was enough, I guess, separated, but then, yeah. So that's the only one, outsider, 'cause like I say, I was only there for six months.

MA: So did, then, a lot of the Native Americans who lived around that area work in camp, maybe just to build the camp?

KI: Not that I... I don't know. Maybe he wasn't an Indian, so what do I know? He said he was working. But do you, have you read some articles lately that our camp, they put us in there because they wanted free labor to build the canals and stuff that we did build? Yeah. You know, they build all those -- because my mother even had to go make her quota of adobe bricks, yeah. Everybody had a quota, they had to go and, and the bricks were all made into those schools. See, I wasn't there at that time. And when you think back on it, I said, "Hmm," because the canal is very useful, 'cause we made that desert bloom. 'Cause I never ate better melons than what was grown there. It was just, it was so sweet and everything.