<Begin Segment 2>

AD: How did you guys, tell me the fun story about how you guys met at camp. Maybe you can talk about that, Heidi. How did you guys, how did you guys know each other?

ET: You better, you better say something.

AD: Tell us how you, tell us how you met at camp. How did you guys know each other?

HT: Well, see, I was in Tule Lake, you know, and he was in Minidoka. And when Tule Lake became a segregation center for the "no-no" people, we were all, you know, sent to different camps. And happened to be next door. He wasn't there, though, his sister and I were.

ET: I went out fairly early, but she moved...

HT: We had lots of fun, though. And I think a lot of us felt guilty because we had so much fun, whereas the other people were so unhappy. There's a lot of people that were unhappy. Young people, we all had fun.

AD: Why was it fun for you?

HT: Well, we met a lot of people our own age.

ET: I think that the "fun" that she talks about is not, really, it was there. It's something that we just have to, to plan ourselves, to keep ourselves entertained, like sports, we had...

HT: Crafts.

ET: Yeah, crafts, social occasions, we had [inaudible] dance. And actually, you figure that we were from Seattle, and we're near Twin Falls, it's a very... compared to, of course, the Seattle life, or life in Twin Falls is still, it's pretty... well, I wouldn't say behind. Only thing was, our type of music was, you know, so far ahead of what is available in Twin Falls. And I remember we caused some problems because cowboy musicians were outdated themselves, soon as we were heard playing, those days it's Bing Crosby, Bob Crosby, Glenn Miller. [Laughs] All these, the very popular music. And we brought that into Twin Falls, by, not by accident, but we happened to be there, and we were enjoying ourselves. And pretty soon the youngsters heard us. And so we were actually welcomed by all these people, and that's the type of fun we're talking about. It is something that we ourselves never had to do that too much, but suddenly, we were organized.

[Interruption]

HT: It wasn't that bad, but there were families that had it pretty hard before, before the war, you know. But being Japanese, they would never ask for help. And they had several kids, these were island people, you know, Vashon Island. And they never asked, they would never ask for help. I don't know how they got by, you know, but anyway, they got by somehow. But going to camp, at least you got three meals a day, even if it was chickweeds in there. [Laughs] But you got three meals, you never had to worry, you got a roof over your head, and you've got heat, even if you have to, you know, bring in the coal and all that, you still had heat. So for lot of people, I think, it helped them out.

[Interruption]

AD: ...how Ed's family was a little bit wealthier than your family, so for him it was, it was different for you guys.

HT: Oh, I think the feeling would be different, you know. They lose everything. But like us, sure, we lost, but it's nothing compared to what they would do when they have businesses. And so our feelings would be a little different. And another thing; my dad was sick and they took care of him for us. The minute we went into camp, they took him to Fresno General Hospital, that's where we headed for, and he was in the hospital all the way through until we got transferred to Tule Lake. And then they had a hospital, so that's where he went into. But other than that, they took good care of him, as well as expected. I have no qualms about it. [Laughs] That's why they talk about it, but to me, lot of things. It was bad, but it wasn't that bad. There's always a good and a bad to everything. It isn't all bad. It wasn't all good, but it wasn't all bad, either. We enjoyed ourselves, being young. And sure, it's hard on our parents, but... and just like one of our relatives said, Mother never talked about it because she felt so guilty, having so much fun in camp because she was young, and everybody else talked about how bad it was. She enjoyed herself. [Laughs]

ET: Well, historically, of course, it's not a good thing that evacuees went in and everything turned out fun. But I think it's, like I said, youth has a different attitude. I'm definitely youth, and it wasn't very much effort for us to find the fun instead of agony of life. So it's easy for us to work, most of us were pretty busy. I know my father was sick, and eventually you could... when you stop to think, her father died, and you cannot really blame that to the evacuation. My father died, and I think I blamed the evacuation a lot. But at the same time, I think he was sick enough, I don't think he had a chance in the world to survive. And so you could make your story very tragic, very hard, and definitely, of course, civil rights were violated, and you could make a real case out of it. But that's not our thing. We were a small, small group of minority Japanese Americans, surprising, you hear so much about them, yet we are one of the, probably the smallest minority. Even today, we are small. And what chance do they have to really make any kind of a stand for their personal rights. We did probably internally develop the feeling of empathy and sympathy, too, to some of the people that went through the same experience. But I don't think the Nisei Americans would never let the evacuation or incarceration or internment camp for citizens of these minorities. Again, that'll be the once and all. Which is a good thing. Good thing because of the fact that we certainly believe that that's the way to go. It shouldn't be anything to fight against.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.