<Begin Segment 7>

RP: Where was your family assigned to in Manzanar? What block?

MT: 15-9-4 sounds very familiar. I said I'll never forget those numbers, but recently I've tried to... where did I put that, I can't remember. And 24-9-4 seemed very familiar, but then when we got here, we found that it was too close. But 15-9-4 sounds familiar, but I need to go back and look at that.

RP: What did you do the first weeks that you were here in camp? Did you find a job? You did mention that you got involved with the church.

MT: I think first thing we did was just getting oriented.

RP: Get your bearings?

MT: Yeah, what is this place supposed to be? And how is the place after I found my bearing, is a place I didn't want to be. So I instituted the process of getting out.

RP: Right away you...

MT: Right away. It took me seven months to do that, to inquire what I had to do to get released. And so, well, that occupied some of your time, but I worked at the Shonien and I also...

RP: And did you volunteer to work at the Shonien?

MT: Yes, uh-huh.

RP: Can you tell us a little bit about what you did there at the Children's Village?

MT: At the Shonien? Well, I just went there to be with the kids, kind of socialize with them, and they had concerns, particularly the older kids. I made some close friendships with some of the older kids while there, and you know, how they were taking the experience and what their future held for them. I saw a picture while here, Dennis Tojo?

RP: Bambauer.

MT: Yeah, Bambauer, and I remember Dennis so well.

RP: What do you remember about him?

MT: That he had a hard time here. Looking, you know, visitors may come to the Shonien, they wonder what he was doing there. And when he told them his, one of his parents was Japanese, that's why he's in the orphanage. But Dennis had a hard time here at times, I think.

RP: Did you spend a little time with him?

MT: Oh, yes, I spent time, yes.

RP: Give him a little extra attention?

MT: Yeah. I'd be more or less being here, playing with them, guess you call it general counseling if you want to put a professional word to it. I don't know, Mr. Matsumoto would say, or Mrs. Matsumoto, but the other person we worked with there was Marvin Crites, I don't know, that name, Marvin was a Brethren teacher.

RP: Church of the Brethren?

MT: Church of the Brethren. Red-head, red-head, big stocky man with red hair.

RP: And how did you spell his last name?

MT: C-R-I-T-E-S, Crites.

RP: C-R-I-T-E-S. Had he come in early, too?

MT: Yeah, he came in as a teacher. I think he came as a physical ed. teacher, because he was built like that. He was a big man. Yeah, he came in... and his wife. So he worked with the Shonien.

RP: The Matsumotos.

MT: Yeah.

RP: And what other impressions did you have of how the kids were handled and what was provided for them from your perspective?

MT: Yes, of course, they were in some sense isolated because they were, you know, those were Shonien kids. The unit wasn't in and among everybody else, but the Shonien kids, you knew where the Shonien kids lived, because that's where they lived right there in that complex. So it put a little bit of a stigma on those kids, that they were Shonien kids, Shonien girls, you know, and boys. And they, for that sake, they had to stick together to get their own support for each other. So they pretty much stuck together. Although if I recall rightly they had competitions, they had athletic competitions like basketball, they played, had competition with some team outside of the Shonien. They were known as the Shonien team.

RP: They were?

MT: Obviously, yes.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.