<Begin Segment 8>

KL: So you moved into the barracks in the Puyallup Fairground. Was the building finished when you came?

SS: The barracks? In Puyallup?

KL: Uh-huh.

SS: Well, finished... it depends on what you call finished.

KL: What was it like? So you said the building had six apartments in it?

SS: Six rooms, bare rooms with nothing in there except your cots. It was temporary. And when we got there, do you know what a mattress ticking is?

KL: Uh-huh.

SS: They gave us mattress tickings and then they told us to go there and fill it with the straws they had out there. That was the mattress. They gave us blankets. And then the bathroom facilities were all outside.

KL: That's a shock.

SS: Yes, shock to everybody.

KL: What were the interactions like between, like, you and your family and other people who were forced into Puyallup? Were there guards? Who else was around?

SS: Were there what?

KL: Were there guards or...

SS: By the entrance probably, yeah.

KL: Did you interact any with the administrators?

SS: No. Not in Puyallup, no. What you would call administrators were all inmates, the people in camp who took over. It's different from like Minidoka, they had administrators there. But in Puyallup, I think we were all on our own more or less. Maybe there was somebody that... I don't remember.

KL: Did anybody organize a library or any services in Puyallup?

SS: No, I don't think so. We weren't there very long. April... maybe four months is all, four or five months.

KL: One of the most amazing pictures I've seen since I started this work was of a lady who had planted a vegetable garden in one of those assembly centers.

SS: Oh, really?

KL: And I thought that was amazing that she didn't know how long she would be there or anything. How did you get the news that you would be leaving Puyallup?

SS: I don't remember. There a lot of things I don't remember. I think I tried to forget it, a lot of it. Only recently have I been kind of thinking about it, going through my, whatever I have, trying to recall it. But in the past I tried to forget.

KL: What brought on the change, do you think?

SS: Well, I volunteered at the Legacy Center.

KL: Oh, okay.

SS: But I've always been a collector. I like to collect articles of interest, or anything concerning Japanese. So I have a lot of those things, and I have lot of... a lot of these newsletters that we had in "Camp Harmony," I have those, and I have some of those from Minidoka. And I always have some newspaper articles about the war from Seattle. They're real old, 1942, '41, '42, still have those. Even in, while I was in Washington, D.C., anything concerning, to do with the evacuation I would clip out and save. So I have all those. I've been sending it to the Legacy Center for their files.

KL: Yeah, that would be a good collection to see what, I always think it's interesting to see what newspapers in different parts of the country say and what people were saying in the '50s and the '60s.

SS: Yeah, there are other people who have been saving papers, too, because I go through them at the Legacy Center. Some are real old, but they're interesting.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.