<Begin Segment 18>

RP: Now your half-brother, Jim, who volunteered to come to Manzanar and help --

MN: Yeah.

RP: -- build the camp.

MN: Yeah.

RP: What did he end up doing in camp?

MN: Okay, he, after the camp was built, he got a job as a night, night janitor at the Manzanar orphanage. And him another, his partner, go after the orphanage mess hall is through, then he go, they go in there and clean up the floors and buff it and mop and all that. But after doin' that they start recruiting people to work seasonal outside, go seasonal. So he, he got on the bandwagon with that. And he went to Idaho, beet, beet thinning and beet topping and things like that. Then he'll come back. Then season comes along, he'll go out again. So actually he stayed in camp about not even a year. He come and go. So finally he found a place in Pocatello, Idaho. And he decide to get a job there so this city had a bus line service and they need a mechanic. So he got a job as a mechanic. So he worked off bus line service for a long, well, when we, couple years, couple three years, until Phillips 66 he had a chance to get his, lease a oil, gas station under Phillips 66. Then he built a garage, a mechanical garage so he could fix cars. So he had a gas station and a garage. And this is where he wanted me to come and help him that one summer. And I was in Van Nuys, California, at the time, going to school and everything. So I went there and I think it was 1946, summer of '46. I was there working and in nineteen, latter of '46, or forty... no, latter, beginning of '47, a recruiting sergeant for the local draft board paid me a visit. So he, he says, "You Masahiro Nakajo?" I say, "Yes." Says, "Well... according to, we have a quota here that you're subject to a military draft peacetime." So he says, "Your name on the list." So I says, "Who else is going on that list?" He says, "Well, there's one other person that's been native in Idaho." I say, "How about the rest of the guys at our age?" Well, he says, "They're farmers. And they're farmer's son, and they're deferred." So, I says to him, you know, funny, when I went to Manzanar, I says, camp, I says, my local draft board was Bishop, California, north of the Manzanar. Now after I got out of the camp I had to, I was in San Fernando Valley so it was in their draft board. So when I went to Idaho, I had to report to the Pocatello, Bannock County draft board. And I said, I think any time when you move they catch up with you and they grab you. I said that's how I got grabbed.

RP: Grabbed. You talked about Jim leaving the, leaving Manzanar to go on these furloughs.

MN: Yeah.

RP: You went on a furlough too for a short time in the summer of 1943?

MN: Yeah.

RP: Where did you go?

MN: Well, before that my brother was always relocating.

RP: Where did he go?

MN: Pocatello, Idaho.

RP: That was your full brother?

MN: No, no. That was my half-brother.

RP: That was Jim, okay.

MN: So after he [inaudible] he came into camp and took mom and the three kids, my sister, me... with him to Pocatello, Idaho, to spend some time. I think two weeks or something like that. So we spent time with him. We went swimming, things like that. Then we came back. Then in 1944 there was a fellow living with us, same block. He was... well, first I got to know him. He was a kendo sensei. And then talkin' about establishing a kendodojo. And that's how I got to know him. And he advised how, how to get the kendogi and all that. So we got that and we had kendo, he taught us kendo and all that. Then in meantime he used to, he's lab technician at a hospital, at that time he was working. So he wanted to go outside and see the outside, see how it is. So he asked my mother, mother's permission if he could take me with him. So that's how I got... like he was a older brother. So we went from Manzanar. We didn't have no bedding so we had to take our own bedding. So we wrap up a mattress, roll it up and cover with the blanket. And oh, hobo, like a hobo. But anyway, we got on a Greyhound bus and went to Bishop. And from there we went into Utah, Idaho, Oregon. There's some seasonal, cannery work. We worked at one cannery in Utah. Place called Layton, Utah. And...

RP: Tomato cannery?

MN: Yeah, tomato cannery. And another place we went to cannery named Woodcross cannery. So those two places we worked. And from there we went to Nyssa, Oregon, and there was a labor camp there. So we had a job goin' out in the field. So after that was over we started back to camp.

RP: And his name was Herbert Higuchi?

MN: Yeah. Herbert Higuchi.

RP: That Japanese name was Hisachi?

MN: Hisachi, yeah.

RP: Uh-huh. And you mentioned that he wanted to go out and see what it was like outside.

MN: Yeah.

RP: What was it like outside?

MN: Well, all I know is we stopped in at, I don't know which, either Reno, something... anyway he wanted to get a, he said, "I want to get a haircut, shampoo, and a shave." So I had to wait for him to get all this. So when he came out I asked him, "How much is a haircut and all that?" He says, "Four dollars." I said, "Four dollars?" You know, four dollars at that time, man, it's just like this. [Raises hand into the air] So he says, "Well I got the whole works." Shampoo, all that. Four dollars. He got charged that. But he said boy, it was worth it.

RP: Were there other things that you did while you were outside that you couldn't do in camp?

MN: I didn't, well, I saw him doing gambling but all I could, I was a minor then, see. So I, all I could do is watch. But he liked to play dice. He didn't like the slow blackjack game, he liked the fast game. So his favorite was the dice.

RP: And he played that at the labor camp? Where, where did he...

MN: No. He played at the casino.

RP: Oh, at the casino, okay.

MN: Yeah. I think the oldest casino in Reno, Harrah's Club, that was the only one there at the time. So I think that's where he played.

RP: Were there any businesses or occasions where you were not welcome in a certain establishment or...

MN: No, no, we didn't have any problem, no. No, no signs saying that...

RP: "No Japs."

MN: Yeah. But, you still could feel it, the prejudice. You could feel it. So you try to kind of stay away. Other than that it was... no, anybody try to pick a fight or anything.

RP: Well you got a kendo instructor right there with you.

MN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: And you know judo.

MN: Yeah.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.