Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Doris Nitta Interview
Narrators: Doris Nitta
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Date: August 10, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-ndoris-01-0011

<Begin Segment 11>

RP: So a lot of the Florin community was sent down to Fresno and you weren't there very long before you came down with measles?

DT: Two weeks. Two weeks when I was there I caught the measles from my girlfriend in Florin, so two weeks later I caught the measles and they wouldn't allow me to stay in the barracks because there were too many kids around and on the top of the barracks, you know, we didn't have any ceiling so the partition went up so far and then the top it was all open. And I think one side they had a family of kids so they thought that they will have to take me to hospital and I hated it and I cried, and my mother wanted to work at the hospital and they said she couldn't work. She says I'll take a janitor's job, anything to please me, but they said no. So only way, she couldn't even come into the hospital so we had to hang out over the window you know, have to stand up and hang out over the window. And I cried every day and she would bring popsicle and anything. So the two weeks went by... no, and then before two weeks went by they moved me to another bed and it was a bed... no, I got mumps the first time so then when I moved, I moved to area where the boy had measles and when I went home two weeks later I got the measles and I had to go back in the hospital. Oh, one month out of... let's see May, June, July, August, one month out of five months I spent my time at the hospital. [Laughs] Miserable, but they just thought everybody would get it.

RP: Doris, describe for us the hospital, was it in a barrack building?

DT: It's a barrack and just partition.

RP: Did you have your own separate room or area?

DT: Oh, no, it was just a partition around my bed and if there was a partition I think it was just between my bed and next bed I guess and it was all open. So I could've got that kid's measles anyway. I don't know but I know I moved there and I was hanging out the window so I figured I caught it from him.

RP: And what did you do to pass the time while you were in the hospital?

DT: Just slept. There's no television, nothing, no one to talk to, the nurses wouldn't, I mean they had no use for a twelve year old kid. So I don't think my mom, I think all she brought was candies and popsicle I guess, I can't remember reading. Well, she doesn't read English so I don't think she gave me any books. [Laughs]

RP: No air conditioning either.

DT: No air conditioning, no heater, or no nothing. The only thing is bedpan. [Laughs]

<End Segment 11> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.