<Begin Segment 17>

KL: What about other places in camp? You mentioned you guys have, each of you have just an amazing memory for places.

KM: The park.

KL: Which park?

KM: There was a park at the end of the camp, and they had a garden.

KL: On the north or the south?

KM: North.

YI: West. On the west?

KL: On the north is Pleasure Park, Merritt Park, and then there was also kind of like a grill, a picnic area.

YI: Was there a creek?

KL: There was a creek that ran through the corner of the camp on the southwest on the way to Lone Pine, Bairs Creek, where you were talking about the swimming hole.

YI: Because I remember, that's where we got those mint leaves that we wrapped the chewed-up flavorless gum in and made, like chlorophyll gum. It was really sticky, it stuck to your teeth, because that mint combination with the gum just... but it was better than nothing. So I remember doing that.

KM: They had a Japanese park, and there was kind of like a nature park with a couple of birds and a wild rabbit, and not very many things.

KL: What did you do in the, you mentioned the Japanese park, what did you, what are your memories of it?

KM: We used to walk there and just enjoy the waterfall and the little creek that ran through there. I think we could get lunch, a picnic lunch from the place. There was my youngest brother who was very innovative, he and his friends would go wandering. And then when it was lunch, they would go to the nearest mess hall.

KL: When did this wandering start? Was it when he was a toddler or when he was a little older?

KM: Pre-school.

YI: He was like three, I think. Well, three when he went in? Eighteen months? So he was young when he went in, but...

KM: Adventuresome.

YI: He got, they got picked up by the police because they scrambled underneath the barbed wire.

KL: The little kids?

YI: Well, he was a little older by then, he was probably about five, maybe. Anyway, they crawled under the fence and the police had to bring him back.

KM: They were marching down 395 with the MPs coming from the camp to Manzanar. "Hey, what are you kids doing?" So they had four or five little boys going, "Wah."

YI: Crying.

KL: Was he unusual in that?

KM: He was very independent.

YI: I guess, I don't know. He was just a kid, I think they just had nothing better to do.

KL: Well, I mean, some people said they felt, and their parents felt that it was very secure in the camp. There was a perimeter fence, and they knew a lot of people.

KM: Snakes, rattlesnakes. I worried about those things.

YI: I remember finding those flintstones, the Indians had left there, and gosh, I wish I had saved those. I mean, we had 'em for a long time, but every time you move you lose a few.

KL: What was your awareness as kids of Indians or anyone else who lived there? Did you talk about people who had lived in Manzanar before, have ideas about them?

YI: All we knew was that the Indians had left them behind, and that was it. And they were nice, they were black and looked like a flint. It was too bad that we didn't save them.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.