<Begin Segment 5>

JA: What do you remember about the weather and the winds at Manzanar?

DB: Oh, they were just hideous. It was hot in the summer, bone chilling in the winter, and there was always the wind. There was always the wind. And if it wasn't blowing cold air or hot air, it was blowing dust, fine sand. Get in your eyes, get in your ears, it was miserable. It was always blowing.

JA: We'll wait for that plane to finish going over. That seems to be a memory that most everybody has of Manzanar.

DB: Oh, the dust was so fine that you'd go to visit people and remember, the Japanese people, like all people, are very proud people. I'm proud of my house, you're proud of your house, everybody's proud of their house. We couldn't be proud of our houses because the dirt would come in, and everywhere you would look would be a row of dirt where the dust had blown into the house. And try as people would to keep it out, it just always came into the house. [Laughs] Yeah, the wind. Yes, the wind always blew. There was no getting away from it.

JA: That's a very definitive statement.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.