<Begin Segment 11>

RP: And so where did you... what block were you assigned to when you got to Manzanar?

MN: Oh, we got assigned to Block 4.

RP: So you were one of the really early groups.

MN: Early... Block 3 was occupied by Bainbridge, Washington, people. And they took the whole Block 3. So we were the second group to occupy Block 4. Then you had your Block 1, Block 2, those are administrating building, police and fire and all that. So, Block 3 was occupied with regular evacuees and we were second, Block 4.

RP: And so you lived in Block 4 and barrack... do you remember the barrack?

MN: Oh, barrack, Block 4, Barrack 4, Apartment 4.

RP: 4-4-4?

MN: Yeah, right.

RP: That's easy to remember.

MN: Yeah..

RP: Oh wow. And your block was quite a melting pot of different groups.

MN: Yes, yeah.

RP: Tell us, tell us about it.

MN: We had people from Montebello, we had people from San Fernando Valley, and we had people from Gardena way and let's see, we had oh, we had people from Peru, families from Peru.

RP: One family from Peru?

MN: Yes.

RP: Japanese family?

MN: Yeah. Japanese family. I think he was a minister or something. And, anything connected with Japanese thing, culture, religion or things like that, they get picked up and evacuated or they get sent to Crystal Springs, places like that.

RP: Oh right, Crystal City. And you also had folks from Hawaii?

MN: Yeah, Hawaii, yeah. A family from Hawaii.

RP: Oh, wow.

MN: Then, let's see. Well, we had people from Fresno too, Fresno area.

RP: In your block?

MN: Yeah. A lot, lot of different areas. In like L.A., southern Cal like Glendale, Burbank, North Hollywood, all those areas.

RP: So did you have any people that, other boys or friends that, that you had in, in Los Angeles, were they in the camp there with you, in your block, close friends, acquaintances?

MN: No, no.

RP: So you had to start from scratch in making friends.

MN: Right. But we had younger group like Murakamis, George and Roy. And we had Kazumi Ando from Montebello. And, several people, some boys from different area, I don't remember, but anyway we had about ten, ten young guys.

RP: That was your group?

MN: Yeah.

RP: You palled around with?

MN: Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

RP: And some, some of you guys gave each other nicknames.

MN: Oh, yeah. We used to call one guy Bozo. Then, what did I say before?

RP: There was another guy that was real tall. You said he had big feet or something?

MN: Oh, yeah. We used to call him Feets. Yeah, Feets. His last name was Honjo. But his real name was Tadashi. But we, we all picked... easier, easier to pronounce, get names so we could call 'em. So he had big feet so we used to call him Feets. Things like that. You just pick it and put a name on it.

RP: Yeah. So what did you do with your close-knit friends in Manzanar?

MN: Oh, from day to day?

RP: Yeah. Block 4, Block 4 boys.

MN: Well like, you know, talk about it, we used to be a real mischievous kids. I mean, we always looked for adventure. So we, I lived in Block 4. Apartment is facing the main road going off from the main gate, straight up. And across from our place you got warehouses. They had different warehouse for maintenance and they had warehouses for perishables, thing like that. So, one with the perishables, warehouse, you got a vent, stacked vent, ventilate. So a lot of time we used to go climb the roof and go through the vent down and they had like potatoes, sack of potatoes and things, perishables. We used to haul 'em around. Well anyway, each of us, some guy, kid go get the lard from the kitchen, mess hall. And little frying pan, and we have French fries. Sliced it up and we used to have French fries. Then...

Off Camera: Where did you cook those?

MN: Right in the... you have recreation. Behind the block leader is, had number one apartment. Okay, so number two and number three combined, we had a little recreation. They give us a recreation room. So we used to get like boxing gloves from Sears and stuff and we used to practice. We'd hang a punching bag and all that. So, we had, we didn't have a regular electric stove or anything. We'd fire up the regular stove, heat it up real high. Yeah, fry French fry from that. Then we used to go nighttime you had a FFA, Farm, Future Farmers of America. See, they used to raise rabbits, chickens, and all that. So nighttime and chickens are cooped, cooped on the fence. We used to go snatch them and we used to have fried chicken, cut it up. We used to have a ball. We saw, we saw, we send... if we were too big, we sent the little kids up the... they could crawl through all that.

RP: Through the vent.

MN: Yeah. So we had, we had a lot of, we used to do a lot of things.

RP: So, there were other groups in camp, other boys. One group in particular from Terminal Island, the Yogores?

MN: Yeah, Yogores, yeah.

RP: So, how did you get along with them or did you?

MN: Well, yeah, but they, when they get together, they talked among themselves and they don't talk Japanese. They talk, I mean, they don't talk English. It's all Japanese but it's a real rough Japanese. But you could understand what they're saying. But anything, I mean conversation-wise, they don't... when they talk to you they ask you in, talk to you in English. But among them, they're all the Wakayama-ken, you know, dialect kind talk. Real, real rough fishermen's language. But I got along. I didn't have any problems or nothing.

RP: So, do you think they... they got a reputation for being really rough.

MN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: And, you know, getting in fights and things like that. Did you see any of that or...

MN: Yeah it's, well, in fact my, well like Murakamis in the Block 3, they had, they had little bit but nothing serious. But I know, I heard a lot of people got beat up. They gang 'em, gang type thing and get, beat 'em up.

RP: Did your group get in fights?

MN: No, we never had any fights.

RP: You were too busy stealing food. [Laughs]

MN: [Laughs] Yeah.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.