<Begin Segment 9>

KP: This is tape two of a continuing interview with Taira Fukushima. And we just got into Manzanar, food's not good for the first couple of weeks, there's outbreak of disease. What else do you remember about those first two weeks?

TF: Well, the first two weeks was really, just get used to the different people there, and it's surprising how you connect so easily with people in the same situation. That even today, we look, we who lived in Block 5, looked at that as a unique event. In fact, we sort of brag about how Block 5 is the center of the universe. [Laughs] This is for, off to aside, but a couple years ago, there was a fellow that moved to Las Vegas and found out that they were having a Manzanar reunion. And so he came to the thing and he said because he lived in Block 5, he'd go to table 5 to see if there's anyone he knows. And at that point, Seigo (Yoshinaga) and I were at that table, and he said who he was, couldn't remember who he was until he said his family, his sisters who were older than him. And then we realized that, yeah, he's the same fellow that we knew as a youngster. And it was surprising how we got to know each other, because by coincidence, he just came to table 5 because of Block 5. And now he comes all the time. And I brought a picture of us in Block 5, the adult male with young kids all got together for a picture once. I don't know where, how, why, or who took the picture, but there it was. And I pointed out the picture and said, "That should be him," and it is. But when you took at the two, you'd never put 'em together. And it's this kind of experience that, it's kind of fun now. In fact, there's a gal who said she lived in Block 5, Building 2, Apartment 4, but she didn't recognize Seigo who has been coming all the time doing a lot of the background work. And so I brought the picture, and then he pointed it out to me. And I asked her, "You're in Block 5?" And she said, well, she went to school with this guy's older sister, you know, this one who came a few years go. And so I said, "I brought this picture of Block 5 kids, and I'm going to show her tonight to see if she recalls any of the youngsters." Because having this picture seems important. Because in this picture, there's this one kid who we used to call Blackie. And he's the same age as this fellow, and he calls him Eddie. I said, "How come you don't call him Blackie?" And he said he didn't want to get beat up. [Laughs] We have a good time reminiscing that way.

KP: You also mentioned when we were doing the pre-interview about, you said there were some gangs in Manzanar?

TF: Oh, well...

KP: What were you aware of?

TF: I'm sure there were gangs outside of camp with members who came in. And there was other people who came from certain locales who came as a group in those areas, and so it made it so you had to watch out for them because as a group, they were a lot different than if they were individuals. And we heard of certain other groupings in terms of loose-fitting gang words, you could say they're a part of. Rather than say, oh, it's just that it could have got worse other than the adults were trying to diffuse it, especially the high school coach who tried to make sure that there'd be none of this business because we're all caught in the same boat. Because if you start having a fight in there, you have no place to go. And so there wasn't a real big difficulty there.

KP: Back into your block and the food, you say after two weeks you started getting fresh food?

TF: Oh, yeah, we started getting fresh food. and I'm sure that... well, I'm not sure. It's just that us teens, being the, growing up, we'd help as people would come in, we'd kind of help carry their stuff and show 'em the different places. And then you always get to eat, so we used to eat. And pretty soon it got so even when they weren't coming in, we might go to three mess halls for lunch. Nobody checks you out, and nobody knows who you're from or whether you're supposed to be there. And so we used to go to one and eat, and go to another one, and go to another one. But that didn't last for a long time. But we used to... not all, us, quote, the "Nisei ones," the ones that were educated in Japan, I think listened to their parents a little more and ate family-style. Whereas us educated here, I guess were more ragamuffins, that we ate amongst ourselves and didn't eat with the family, to the chagrin of our parents, I'm sure.

KP: So you were talking about the Kibei eating with their families?

TF: Yeah, usually. And you know, this is the kind of stuff that goes.

KP: Did you have a lot of Kibei in your block?

TF: Oh, yeah. Well, Kibei is used in the sense that they got their education back there. And I use the word loosely because my best friend's father died, and so his mother, they had a chop suey place. And the mother took the two boys and went to Japan. And when the... they must have known that the war was coming because she decided to send the boys back. And so they came back and it was a lucky thing, because the next boat came was the last boat. Because times were getting kind of tense, I guess, both sides. But it came to Los Angeles, it wouldn't unload. It turned around and went back to Japan, so the boat that my friends came back was the last boat. So they were lucky, so I have my friend right now. He doesn't come to these things, but it's one of those things where his wife is Block 5. When I talk about Manzanar, it's Block 5, or wish everybody were Block 5.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.