<Begin Segment 11>

KL: Who was with you... did your brother and sister go into Manzanar with you and your parents?

RF: Yes, we all went as a family.

KL: The five of you? Were there other people in your apartment?

RF: No, we were the only ones in the unit.

KL: And you said you thought you were maybe in Building 10?

RF: I think it was either 10 or 12. And the end unit, so it would be number 1. I'm not exactly sure. I should have checked with my sister, she might have remembered. It was in the middle of the area, it was right across from either the laundry room or... yeah, probably somewhere near the laundry room. In the center there was lady, women's latrine and men's latrine, and in between was the laundry area. I think it was close to the laundry area.

KL: Do you have recollections of those buildings?

RF: Well, the men's latrine was pretty stark and not very much privacy. That's about all I remember.

KL: What did you think the next morning?

RF: Getting out?

KL: Yeah.

RF: I guess I don't remember. Well, it's strange, but also it was kind of an adventure, it was a new place, a desert. A little better, I think, because you could see the mountains, everything. But all these black huts, very regimented feeling, and feeling of, I think, uneasiness, not knowing what's ahead of us.

KL: You liked the mountains?

RF: Oh, yeah, they were really majestic mountains, beautiful mountains. The contrast of that with this desert area with the black huts, it's hard to believe that it's one and the same place. Then, of course, the wind and the dust that comes with that, sand all over your place, sand everywhere you went, can't even get the sand out of your system. It's in your hair and your clothes, take a shower, it still gets in your hair and clothes where you walk. And the desert sand with sandstorm is hard to believe what's that like.

KL: It hurts. [Laughs]

RF: And it gets cold there. We ultimately got, were issued peacoats, but it was hardly enough to ward off the cold winds.

KL: What do you remember about getting to know your neighbors?

RF: Well, I don't remember how I met them, but on the other side of the washroom facilities was a family friend called Nakadaira, whom I knew before the war because of the Hiranos. Hiranos, they taught... Mr. Hirano, I think, taught Japanese school, and would go over to the valley every Saturday. And one day I went over with him and his son Henry went, good friend, we went over to the San Fernando Valley and we met the Nakadairas there and became friends with a fellow you see in some of the pictures I showed you, his name was Hiro. And so it was a nice thing to see an old acquaintance in the same block. So I spent a lot of time with that family on many occasions. Their older brother was my brother's peer, so they competed in baseball together, so they knew each other quite well. And they had a large family. They must have had five or six in the family besides the parents. So I got to know them pretty well, and it provided a little bit of comfort, I think, to know that there were friends there. All my Sawtelle friends were way on the other side of camp, which is a long trek for me, at least initially. I can't say initially, a long trek to the other side of the camp.

KL: But you still saw a lot of each other?

RF: Yeah, because there was a lot of time, which is a problem itself. Because schools were not open yet, and we had nothing but time on our hands to just socialize and play. And so there was a lot of playing going around, playing a lot of sports. And to do that I had to be with my Sawtelle friends, so we'd get together either on their side of the camp or wherever the play activity was going on. And then I spent a lot of time with the Nakadaira family just lounging around and socializing. And wherever we can get some work, we were doing work. I remember driving a truck around even though I didn't have a drivers license. Then we ultimately worked on the camouflage nets and then...

KL: What was your work in the net factory?

RF: Pardon?

KL: What was your work in the net factory?

RF: I was stringing the fabric in the nets. I'm not sure what we were on, we called it being on a ladder. I think it was a platform, they would raise and lower the nets, we'd have to string the fabric through the nets. And I worked in an office, I'm not sure which office it was and why I was there. Primarily I was doing errand work I think, like a messenger boy. but that wasn't steady work. So there was a lot of time to play.

KL: How long did you work in the camouflage net factory?

RF: I don't recall, it wasn't too long.

KL: It was a short time?

RF: Couldn't have been too long.

KL: I've heard that it was kind of controversial. Did people, what did other people think about your --

RF: Well, to me it was something to do, and that was about all I knew. I didn't know the social or...

KL: Nobody gave you grief, though, or it wasn't a big deal?

RF: Nobody told us not to work, nobody tried to stop, so I don't know.

KL: And you ran errands sometimes too?

RF: Yes.

KL: Do you remember tension in the camp?

RF: Oh, yeah. Let's see. There were always rabble rousers there, people who felt that it was an injustice, shouldn't have been there. And there was... while I was in the middle, knowledge about the people who were targeted as being disloyal to the group, and being associated with the government, that sort of thing. And some riots that occurred, some people being beat up, and ultimately I think, I recall these people were sent out of camp to some other place, which I learned later was somewhere in the Death Valley. [Coughs] Excuse me. Then, of course, the riot on the annual, the Pearl Harbor Day.

KL: Did you witness any of that? Take your time, take a drink. [Laughs]

RF: Pearl Harbor Day where the riot was down at the entry gate, and we as kids, we follow where activity is, so we were down there. And then, of course, learning that somebody got shot.

KL: What did you see there? What are your memories of watching that?

RF: It's a lot of angry people, that's about all I remember.

KL: Were you kind of back from the crowd?

RF: Yeah, uh-huh. I don't recall being front and center.

KL: Were there many other people who were like you, probably other seventeen year old boys?

RF: Yeah, yeah, there were quite a few people that had gone down there. There was nothing else to do in camp, except if there was crowd, you'd join it.

KL: See what was going on.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.