<Begin Segment 10>

RP: And how about your first impressions of the camp when you arrived there?

FN: As I say, it was kind of cold and dusty and we felt like prisoner. In fact we were prisoners.

RP: And you were assigned to Block 14?

FN: Yeah. Block 14, Barrack 13. 14-13-3, Room 3.

RP: And so there was your parents, you, and six other brothers and sisters.

FN: All in that one room.

RP: In one room.

FN: Boy, I mean, we was just... no place to move. And my cousin had Room 4 and he had sisters and I mean, they were cramped in there too.

RP: Is that George?

FN: George, yeah.

RP: Uh-huh. And he had a large family?

FN: Yeah. Two or three plus the sisters, two sisters so he was pretty cramped too. I think there must have been about six or seven in that, his room too. But they relocated to Salt Lake so, so soon as they left we got his, so we divided up the family into the two so it wasn't too bad then.

RP: And did you start working right away when you got into camp?

FN: Oh, yeah, I think, unless you worked you don't get the... they paid you at first only twelve dollars but they raised it up to sixteen dollars and if you didn't work you didn't get sixteen dollars.

RP: Now, you mentioned to me when you came to Manzanar about a month or so ago, you said that you kind of appreciated Manzanar for the fact that it freed you from a lot of responsibilities.

FN: Yeah. Because when we're outside, my brother, my sister, and I we used, used to pool our money to support the family. But I was responsible to pay the electric bills and all the... so when I went to Manzanar, oh hell, you got the free food and a place to stay and no, no electrical bills to pay or and no gas bills or anything 'cause no automobile. Oh yeah, it was really great because that was a real responsibility gone and I was just, I felt like a free man. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Because that was a big burden off my shoulders.

RP: You, you also mentioned it felt like paradise to you.

FN: Oh yeah. It was, yeah, Manzanar was a nice place. I mean, I loved it. You didn't have no responsibility. You got up, it was just... you had a job but I mean that job wasn't no, you got the eight to five you just, you just really relaxed. I mean it's, the job, it's the people you knew you got the good jobs, easy jobs so it's, it's who you knew in the camp that you got a... that's why I knew quite a good people and they got -- excuse me -- the fire department and camouflage, I was a time keeper. You got the easy jobs. You didn't work like the other people.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.