<Begin Segment 22>

KL: You said your mom was ill a couple of times at Manzanar or had some injuries.

KM: Yeah, she had gallbladder surgery, and her sister came from Poston.

YI: Oh, I thought it was appendix, no? It was gallbladder?

KM: She had gallbladder that I know of. Maybe she had appendix, too. And she had to come take care of us kids, because I don't know how sick she was.

KL: Your aunt came to take care of you?

KM: Uh-huh.

YI: From Gila Bend, Poston? Where was she?

KM: One of those two.

YI: One of those camps in Arizona.

KM: She went where our cousins went, Pasadena. We didn't have to go anyplace once we got there.

KL: How long did she stay with you? Do you have a feel for that?

YI: I don't remember.

KM: Not very long. Because she came by train, I remember, and she brought candy.

KL: What was it like to see her?

YI: See? Candy, she remembered candy, Auntie brought candy. [Laughs]

KM: She was so good to us.

YI: She really was, she was a good auntie to us.

KL: Did you visit your mother in the hospital at all, were you in the hospital ever?

KM: I remember seeing her from the outside.

YI: I don't think they let children in, in the building itself. I think we had to...

KL: You saw her outside, like through a window?

KM: Yeah, you could stand out in the yard and wave to your mother. Because they were more strict about visiting.

KL: She didn't... I mean, obviously she didn't, I wouldn't think she would want to go in and have surgery or have that treatment, but did she... what did she think about the hospital?

KM: She said that it was, when she had surgery, that the anesthesia wasn't working well, that it was painful. So I don't know how real it was, but if it hurt, maybe it happened.

KL: Did she feel pretty confident about the hospital's capability, or did she...

KM: I think she had no choice. I don't know if the doctors were army or what.

YI: I think they were Japanese, weren't they? Weren't they from within camp?

KL: Largely, but there were Caucasian administrators.

YI: Also.

KL: But one of the things that I've heard about the hospital is that it was kind of a transitional time for medicine, transitioning from being very private and in a person's home to being very public in a hospital, or comparatively public. So I think people had very different thinkings about that, and, of course, the hospital evolved like everything else at the camp, it started off that the facilities were pretty primitive, and ended up with much better equipment and stuff. So I'm always curious to hear what people or their family members thought of the hospital, if they thought it was well-staffed, well-equipped, or...

KM: All I remember is my mother saying it was painful.

KL: Do you know when she had those procedures in years?

KM: No. I used to know that, too. Offhand I couldn't tell you.

KL: Your dad knew Ralph Merritt. Did he say anything about his impressions of Ralph Merritt?

KM: No. Like I said, they never discussed politics with kids. So we knew who Ralph Merritt was, but...

KL: Do you think most kids, how did you know who Ralph Merritt was? From your dad?

KM: Yeah, because he got extra gifts, Christmas...

YI: He got the whiskey. [Laughs]

KM: The Christmas tree, wasn't he lucky to get that?

KL: What was the Christmas tree?

KM: Well, not everybody got a Christmas tree. The Christmas tree lived in the mess hall.

YI: One tree for each block.

KM: And the mess hall for everybody. I remember my mother buying a Christmas angel at Sears, and the bottom tube was like a toilet paper role, and it would go on top of the tree

YI: Like a cone.

KL: So you had one in your apartment?

KM: So we were lucky in that way.

YI: My father liked children. I hate to keep saying all these nice things, but he did. We always had Fourth of July, he'd buy sparklers. This is not camp, but I'm just saying that this is the kind of man he was. Easter, we always had Easter baskets, we had new clothes and shoes, and we didn't even go to church. We got these new clothes...

KM: Had to show 'em off in the mess hall.

KL: Just walk up and down the street, yeah.

YI: And you know, at Christmas we always had something. Yeah, it was good memories. Like even in camp, he would do those, making the toys and things like that, to make every kid something.

KL: Did your mom participate in that? Did she like having lots of kids around? You said she kind of kept to herself.

YI: She was busy...

KM: Yeah, she was private, more private.

YI: But I don't think she was unique in that way. I feel like a lot of the mothers were like Ma-chan, don't you? To themselves, look at Mrs. Kuwaro... they kind of, well, they came, a lot of them came to be married, you know what I mean? Not always arranged, but...

KM: It wasn't arranged, but was it? It was arranged.

YI: Pretty much. And so I can even see amongst my friends that their parents, the mother kind of were to themselves. The men were more dominant for sure. They were the boss. And I don't know. I feel like a lot of the mothers were like my mom. I don't feel like... can you picture anybody else that was different?

KM: No, they were all pretty much alike.

YI: Yeah. I think that that was kind of like Kazy and I being the ones that had to do the dishes. [Laughs]

KM: Which was so hard.

YI: The guys, they just sat down and ate dinner, you know. We had three brothers, and they could just sit down and eat dinner.

KM: That was their job. Our job was to clean up.

YI: Yeah. We had to work. Well it was, growing up times when everybody else was at the beach, you know, or my group anyway, they would be at the beach, and I'd have to stay home and watch my brother because he was a baby.

KM: He was a baby.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.