<Begin Segment 6>

SF: When did you leave Santa Anita for the first time?

GH: Santa Anita?

SF: Uh-huh.

GH: I think we left in September and went to Heart Mountain.

SF: What did you think you would find at Heart Mountain? You knew you were leaving this assembly center for this permanent WRA center. Were you expecting things to be a lot better, or what was on your mind, what did you think when you moved to Heart Mountain?

GH: Well, actually, they took us by train from Santa Anita to Heart Mountain. That took about three days, I think, and all the curtains were closed and you weren't allowed to look out or anything. Once we got to Wyoming, I mean, it's entirely different than Santa Anita, which is in the heart of Los Angeles. It was, it was a big difference. It was desolate and sagebrush and barracks and barbed wire fences, and that's all there was there. There was one area that they had that was the commissary area, or the logistics area, and other than that, there was nothing there.

SF: What was the, the climate like there? What was the climate like in Heart Mountain?

GH: Well, it was nice, typical sunny day, but then just a couple of weeks later, it snowed on us. We got our first snow, I think, in about, first, first part of October. 'Course, it was windy in the afternoons, and dust storms would come up.

SF: So did you know many people at Heart Mountain that were from, say, San Jose that were family friends, or were they all strangers at Heart Mountain?

GH: Most of the people from this valley went to Heart Mountain, and they lived in more or less the same area. I think that was Block 23, 24, and -- [pauses] -- maybe 20, 23, 24, 26. Twenty-six, 27, maybe, or something like that. So they were, yes, they were kind of in a group.

SF: So you hung out mostly with people from those blocks that were kind of San Jose people, or did you kind of wander around the camp and make new friends?

GH: Well, we're still pretty young then, and we used to run around all over the camp. But yeah, we hung around a lot in the immediate area.

SF: What did you do? You played baseball or horsed around in gangs, or, what did you do mostly?

GH: I guess we just hung out, you know. And we did play a lot of different sports; we played football. All they had was a helmet, that's the only thing they had. They didn't have any, didn't have any football outfits. And weightlifting was a big thing. Other than that, just hung out.

SF: I've heard that, in the camps, that a lot of times, the teenagers would hang out in gangs, and they would make close friends such that they wouldn't eat with their family at the mess hall, that is, all the kids would eat by themselves, and the parents would eat by themselves and so forth, and so it was kind of hard on the family. Do you remember how you, your family handled that? Did they eat together or did you eat with the high school guys and so forth? Did everybody eat in shifts like that?

GH: There were some families that were, that they required everybody to be home at, say, dinnertime, and they all ate together like a family. But, of course, my brothers left rather early, and, of course, my sister was already married, and so it was just my dad and I mostly. At the beginning there were four of us; my two brothers, myself and my dad, but we didn't go as a family to eat dinner or anything. Usually I ate with my buddies or something.

SF: So do you think, looking back, that the camp experience sort of weakened your family ties because you guys didn't eat together or do things together, or didn't really make much difference?

GH: I think it did; I think it did in most families, except the ones that required the family to get together. But I think it, it made a big difference on the closeness of a family.

SF: So did you get into any kind of mischief when you were in camp?

GH: Well, yeah, lots of mischief. But I didn't think we did anything that was, that would hurt anybody.

SF: What would be an interesting example of your mischief?

GH: Well, I remember we used to take a lot of cars and hotwire 'em and run around camp with it. Couldn't go outside, but you could run around the area. And that was a fun thing, you know, had a great time with that.

SF: I remember, I think you said something about taking a police car, even, is that right?

GH: We used to take the cars, and when we dropped 'em off, we usually drop 'em off at the police station, then all scatter.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.