<Begin Segment 7>

AL: So how was it that your father ended up going from Tanforan to Manzanar?

SO: Well, the young people that he served in Los Angeles heard that my father was in Tanforan, and they didn't have a Buddhist minister there, so they asked the government to send a Buddhist minister to Manzanar in particular since my father was at Tanforan, if they could send him, and they complied. So we took a train from San Francisco to Mojave, and a station wagon picked us up and took us to Manzanar.

AL: Do you know when you arrived at Manzanar?

SO: I think late '42.

AL: What do you remember about seeing Manzanar?

SO: Well, I lived in San Francisco where all the houses are stuck together. And so I just remember as a child looking at this massive, the barracks, but they were all separated. And I couldn't believe that that's where we were going to live.

AL: So you went into Manzanar probably not knowing that many other children.

SO: Yeah, I didn't know any.

AL: How were you accepted?

SO: Well, we were all in the same boat. No one wanted to be there, but I made friends. I don't remember any negative experiences.

AL: So one of the places on the roster it says that you lived in Block 14, Building 1, Apartment 4.

SO: Yes.

AL: Do you know if that's the first place you lived?

SO: Yes, that's the first place we lived. Then looking through my father's papers, I found that in late '44, they moved the church to Block 18. So I think towards the end we moved to Block 17 so that my father could be closer to the church.

AL: So the original church when you first went there was...

SO: Thirteen.

AL: Thirteen in the recreational hall?

SO: Right, 13-15, I think, was the address.

AL: Right, so that'd be just across the street.

SO: Uh-huh.

AL: What do you recall about your apartment there in Block 14?

SO: It was snug. [Laughs] Because our house, you know in San Francisco, the homes are pretty big, and so I thought it was a small space, but like I said, our family was together, so as a child, I don't think I felt anything missing.

AL: So did you have to share an apartment with any other family, or did you have your own?

SO: Well, we had our own, I think there were four... weren't the barracks divided into four sections, I believe? So we just had the first unit.

AL: So there were only four in your family.

SO: Correct.

AL: So that's actually pretty low population, because there are some families that had eight or nine, but it was just your immediate family.

SO: Right, right. But I think, weren't the larger families given maybe like two spaces?

AL: Some were later on as there were, people got furloughed out, but early on, there were a lot of people who were just eight, nine to a barracks.

SO: Oh, really?

AL: You know, the first few months. So do you think that your father had a little more space in his housing because of his position in the church?

SO: No, I think it's because there were only four of us in the family, and I think each family was given that space.

AL: Do you recall anything about how your apartment was divided or set up or anything like that?

SO: Not really.

AL: So you had your own cot?

SO: Yes, I had my own cot. We all had individual cots.

AL: So some people talk about they hung up blankets or they built partitions. Do you recall any of those things?

SO: No, my father wasn't very handy, so I think we stayed the way, the apartment stayed the way it was.

AL: Did you ever have any pets?

SO: No, I don't know if anybody had pets.

AL: I think some people did later on as people started dumping puppies and kittens near there. There's actually a pet cemetery out by the real cemetery.

SO: Oh, you're right. But I don't remember seeing any cats and dogs.

AL: So what was, how was your life different at Manzanar in terms of the work your father was doing?

SO: No, it didn't change much, because my father went to the church and he stayed there all day, came back at night.

AL: What about your mother?

SO: My mother just mainly stayed home with us.

AL: So did she have any sort of official role with the church at Manzanar?

SO: She used to go help with flower arranging, but other than that, they had someone to clean the church. So other than taking care of us and doing flower arrangements at church...

AL: Would a minister's wife, I mean, even before camp, would she be compensated? Like you said, she was a janitor at the temple.

SO: No, no, there's no compensation.

AL: Just volunteer?

SO: That's right.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.