<Begin Segment 13>

JA: How many of you were there in the one apartment?

HT: Mom, me and my kid sister. Three of us.

JA: What was that apartment like?

HT: Like I say, I like to say it was a holy place, knotholes. I can joke about it now. [Laughs] I think we were given one rafter for each person, so since there were three of us, we had three, three of those rafters. I don't know what you call that? What would you call that?

JA: Those would be rafters.

HT: Rafters. Very barren. Of course, later on, that's when the drywalls came in, and we started putting the drywall up inside. We had no chair. We had no table. It was very barren. The only thing that we had that we could use to sit on was the cot. And my mom, she didn't have any -- anything to sit on. I felt sorry for her.

JA: Sure. What did your daily life become like?

HT: Beg your pardon?

JA: What was daily life like once you got settled in there? For you?

HT: Daily life, my mom just kept telling me, "Make the best of it," and that's what we were trying to do: make the best of it. As days went on, we realized what family is where and our social life started to pick up, or at least tried to pick up as time went on. [Interruption] Yeah, once we got settled down eventually, we found out what family is where and especially the womenfolk, they started visiting one another's apartment. And by them being able to talk to one another as mothers talking to one another, they, they became more... they were so, when we first entered there, they were so uptight, and then eventually, they, they became more relaxed. But for mothers, I guess they had worries about the family, about what's going to happen.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.