Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Akiko Okuno Interview
Narrator: Akiko Okuno
Interviewers: Kristen Luetkemeier, Alisa Lynch
Location: Saratoga, California
Date: January 31, 2013
Densho ID: denshovh-oakiko-01-0020

<Begin Segment 20>

KL: So you said you remember the typhoid inoculation.

AO: Yes, I remember the shot going through between... I don't know, it seemed like just going, entering in. But the one memory I have is that the shower room was a big room, must have been like about twenty foot square, with these showerheads on the wall. No stalls or anything. And then the toilets were just toilets one after another with no barrier in between or anything. So your elimination and your shower were with, it was a community thing. And you managed to watch when there was nobody else using the toilet to run in.

KL: Did people keep watch for each other?

AO: Yeah. At first it was, you had to, because you didn't go alone. And, but we would not shower in front of other people. Well, I wasn't going to. I wouldn't have gotten naked in front of a stranger. I mean, we do it between ourselves because we had had Japanese style bath, we'd done that with just my sisters. So my mother solved it by waking us like about three o'clock or so, and then we'd go quietly to the shower room where nobody else was around to take our showers. I have no recollection of going for meals or anything.

KL: Do you remember where you lived?

AO: No, not in the assembly center. But I remember having to walk a little ways to the shower room.

AL: Was the assembly center like at a fairground or was it a new construction?

AO: Yes, it was the Salinas fairgrounds. They called it the Gymkhana Grounds. So we were fortunate, our family, all the stables were used up already. And so it was a brand new building.

KL: Had you been to those fairgrounds before, ever?

AO: No. I don't think I had been to... I always thought I had, but I'm not sure. And my sister tells me that there was just one mess hall for the whole camp, there were three thousand, and that we went in shifts, there were so many buildings went at such and such a time. But I don't recall that at all, I have no recollection of any of the meals, what kind of food it might have been, which is really strange, because I love food.

KL: Do you remember your arrival there aside from the vaccination?

AO: Other than the, going through the gate and getting a shot... I guess it was on a train, yeah, because Gilroy, there's a train station there, so we were all put on trains.

KL: Do you remember the departure?

AO: Nothing. Just... it's totally wiped out. I remember that by the time we were getting to really leave, the school building, the Japanese school building had been taken over by the army and some soldiers were staying there.

KL: What was their purpose?

AO: It was housing for soldiers. And I don't know whether they needed them... I really don't know. I don't think they were there to watch the Japanese community.

KL: I wonder if they condemned the building or how they...

AO: I really don't know. But we were able to leave, there was like the stage and area where we put all of our stuff to be... but I remember the soldiers being nice, and one of 'em giving my mother a coat. Because she said they couldn't, I mean, he didn't have a use for it, and maybe we could use it. He was very nice to us.

KL: Did you just pass him, when did you have contact with him?

AO: I don't know if they moved in before we were evacuated, and so we had seen them, but it was that morning as we were leaving, he gave my mother the coat. So I have really wiped all of that out of my memory, even as much as I try to recall something, I can't.

KL: When did your sister tell you about the mess halls and about her memories?

AO: Oh, because the Japanese American Citizens League of Monterey and Watsonville got together, and it was the 70th anniversary of 9066, they had a thing. And I was asked to be a speaker, and so I said, "But I don't remember anything." So I started to ask all my sisters. So Kazue, who I guess was like about twelve, yeah, had memories of it, and she's the one who told me about eating in shifts, about how we had to walk by something to get to the shower. But I had remembered the shower, going to the shower early morning, and that was about all I did.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.