<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Okay, so let's... when your family went to camp, do you remember that?

JG: Actually I do because I was appalled by the house, I mean, our quarters because could you imagine going from a brand new house, I mean a brand new house with brand new lawn with a nice dog and then being in a little small space. And I can actually see the tarpaper and the studs and the pot belly stove. I mean, I can still remember that, I don't know why. And the other thing I can remember was the bathroom. I mean, here we had this lovely bathroom and here we had no privacy and I think that must have bothered all the Japanese Americans, huh? Because at that time the toilets were totally open. There was no privacy. You just sat down in front of everybody and the showers too. And that was so, I mean, we hadn't gone through junior high where you had to take showers in front of girls but can you imagine taking showers in front of everybody? And later then they put up the curtains and stuff but all I could remember was the open showers and the toilets. I had a real problem with that because I can remember too having to go the bathroom and we had no place to go the bathroom on the train so my mother said, "Come over here," and between the two trains she laid down newspaper and I went... I defecated. I remember that to this day and here I was under five, three or four, can you imagine that kind of memory? It was so embarrassing, so shameful, but it was a memory I have. So when you ask me do I remember camp and memories of camp, yeah I have some very unpleasant memories. Now I know the junior high kids and the probably school age kids... see, I did not like their kindergarten.

TI: In camp you mean?

JG: In camp and I was also pre-kindergarten too and I didn't like kindergarten. I had this nice nursery school with... I don't know why I didn't like... you know what? What's really strange and I have to admit this because it's kind of saying that I'm a little racist too, I had never seen so many Japanese people in my whole life because I was in this community with all Caucasian people. Isn't that strange? Maybe we'll edit that out too. [Laughs]

TI: No, I think that's interesting, we've heard that quite a bit.

JG: Really?

TI: Yeah, depending... I mean, there's some Japanese Americans who grew up in a Japanese American community and things didn't change that much. But if you came from a different environment where there weren't that many Japanese, it was shocking to come to an environment where there were thousands and thousands of Japanese.

JG: Well, thank you for saying that because I was thinking that's terrible to admit. And there were a few... there was some family members, okay, and there were maybe one close family friend that my mother stayed in contact from the Japanese community but other than that I had no other contact. And then I had a very unpleasant situation too where, I think which prompted my leaving is that there was a young man who was curious so he invited me and another person there and he was a twelve year old, and he exposed himself and I went home and told my mother about that. And shortly thereafter we ended up going to the Duvenecks'. Maybe that prompted our leaving because when she wrote the letter... no, when Mrs. Duveneck wrote to the Topaz Times and offered the opportunity for a person from Topaz to go back to California and she offered a place to do a transition, a job so they could transition back to life in California, my mother took it and maybe that prompted her to get me out of camp. Because one, I was unhappy because of that situation, two, I didn't like the food, well no one liked the food. But I was used to... everybody was used to better food.

TI: I'm curious, when that twelve year old boy exposed himself, what were the repercussions? Did you see anything happen to the boy or anything?

JG: I don't remember. All I know is I got out of there and told my mother and my mother took care of it.

TI: And when you say took care of it, what did she do?

JG: Well, what she did was she got us away from camp and me out of this situation where I had memories of... I really don't have many good memories. I do remember my Aunt Ruth, who is nine years older than I actually went for a walk and I can remember getting a lot of mosquito bites but we must have walked, it seems to me that we walked outside the gates. Because how could we walk far if we hadn't walked outside the gates? I don't know where we walked to but I got a lot of mosquito bites.

TI: And so this was again Topaz?

JG: Topaz. And then the other thing I do remember is that man getting shot at the wire so there was a lot of unpleasant memories for me as a young child. I did not have like school or things like that to get my thoughts off of it. Whereas I understand that people in the school age had better memories. My aunt said that she had a very good teacher, a very caring Caucasian teacher that she liked very much and then I've heard that there are other people who had good experiences. I remember that Japanese man whose actually became later a television star, I'm trying to think of his --

SF: Jack Soo?

JG: Yeah, Jack Soo, he was a neighbor of my mother in Oakland and he tried to organize things for the young people so they could forget. And then I went to a production of something at the Park Street Church in Oakland where they did a celebration of the relocation and they talked about the song, playing that record "Don't Fence Me In," that kind of thing. So some people had very good memories of their life there whereas I could remember things like my mother getting asthma and being hospitalized, the tension in the camp because my dad volunteered and my uncle volunteered, that kind of thing. So they may not have said anything but I felt it. Because I think as a child you feel things, you may not be able to put them into words but as an adult and talking about it you realize what might have contributed and that's my guess.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.