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-01-0024

<Begin Segment 24>

KL: How long did you usually have to wait before you could eat? How long did it take to serve a whole block lunch?

AO: Oh, not too long, not too long. Because you served the bowl on the table, you know, and everybody helped themselves. It wasn't like people coming through the line and you served them.

KL: Could everybody fit at once, or were there shifts?

AO: No, everybody came in. Not everybody came in at once, people kept coming.

KL: How did that work? Did it... how did that work?

AO: Well, it was fine. The kids would all eat together and the men would all eat together, and finally they began to realize that any family life was breaking down, so they assigned tables to families and made the families eat together.

KL: Who assigned the tables?

AO: I guess the adults must have met or something and realized that they need to do something, because the kids were running wild.

KL: Did that happen throughout the camp or just in your block?

AO: Well, each block, I think, pretty much came to this conclusion, because I heard stories, similar stories all around, that they realized the family structure was breaking down.

KL: Were the mess halls used for things other than eating?

AO: Yeah, we had parties in the mess hall.

KL: Tell us about those.

AO: Yeah. At first they'd have a party, just food and stuff, and then occasionally there's be a dance. And there might be a few musicians and so you'd have... otherwise it was with records.

KL: What kind of music?

AO: Oh... I'm forgetting. Who's that musician who... anyway, the music of the '40s.

KL: Like big band, swing, kind of stuff?

AO: Yeah, uh-huh.

AL: Glenn Miller?

AO: Yeah, Glenn Miller it was, yes. His... what was that one piece called that was always the final piece? The one that kind of goes on and on and on.

KL: It's not "Mood Indigo," is it? Is that Glenn Miller?

AO: Yeah, I think it is. I was fifteen at the time. In fact, I never went on a date until I was about twenty.

KL: Did you dance at the dances?

AO: Little bit, yeah. I don't know that I really knew how to dance, but you know, jitterbug and stuff like that.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.