Densho Digital Archive - Sumiko Yamauchi Interview (denshovh-ysumiko

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WP: What was your first impression of Manzanar when you got there?

SY: Dust storm, okay? Does that tell you everything? I remember we said, "We can't see where we are." They said, well you just go, just follow the line, and then you'll go into the building where they sign you up and all this stuff. And it was so dusty you could hardly see. And I thought, wow. Anyway, after they had paper, went through the line doing the paperwork, and then they fed us and we had, I think it was hotdog and piece of bread, and I remember we kind of threw it together. And after that, they said that, "Your suitcase is in the firebreak." Well, you couldn't see the firebreak, the wind was blowing. And they said, "Well, it's in this firebreak between this block." But they said, "You can't go out there and find it because the dust is blowing so hard, but you have to go find your room, and that's more important." But this is the bag that you get, canvas bag, and behind the latrine is the haystack. That was funny. You couldn't keep the bag open long enough to get the hay in. And once you got the hay in your hand, by the time you got it in the bag, the wind was blowing and you just couldn't get much hay in there. You try to get as much as you can.

And then when we got, finally got... and then we had to walk from way down the highway all the way up to Block 17, the wind was blowing, we didn't know where we were going. Everybody was telling, "I think it's this way," and, "I think it's this way." And we finally found it, and then we have to get the bag with the straw in it. And you go into the room and there's nothing but an army cot. And you have to lay this canvas with the hay in it, and that's your mattress. Fortunately they did give us a couple of wool blanket which was nice and warm. We used the one to cover the bed, and used the other to cover ourselves. And we had to actually cover our heads because the wind was blowing so hard, the barrack wasn't finished yet, the wind was blowing in and the dust was coming in. And you walked on the floor, and the floor had openings and the wind was blowing through there, and it was whistling all night. You had the lights going, and searchlights going back and forth in the window, through the window, and you had to hear the jeeps going up and back. It was really a nightmare that first night, and I thought to myself, "Oh my gosh, what are we into?" I think that was the most scary thing there was, was trying to, that first night, everything is very strange anyway. And I think that dust was coming in, and when we got up, our blanket on top was just thick with dust. I don't know, I think... we thought nothing could get any worse than this.

But later on, though, as we progressed, they put linoleum on the floor, and then the dust wouldn't come up anymore. We used to go to the mess hall and get the cans, we used to cut those and cover up the holes on the floor and try to make, do as much as we can with that. And it was a fight. And if you remember in those days, the vegetables and the fruits came in with wooden boxes. They weren't, nowadays it's all cardboard boxes. And so we used to run to the mess hall when the supplies came, because we wanted those boxes because those were the woods that we used to fix some of the barracks with it. And as they were fixing the barracks, they were so busy making barracks that if we lived in Block 17, and the Block 24, they were building it yet. Well, if you run over there, you could always pick up nails and boards and tarpaper and things like that, and you would pick that off the floor, and we used to use that inside our barrack to cover up things that needed to be fixed, you know. And we used rocks for hammer and things like this. It's amazing what a human being can do when you haven't got it. You take it for granted, a hammer, a chisel, a screwdriver, you know. You don't think of it, but you know it's there in your house.

WP: And how did your parents react to that first night being there? Did they talk about their experience?

SY: No. They were going through the same thing we were. They did not complain. It's a funny thing how they didn't complain how the living quarters were or how, what they had to do, what they had. I think we did the complaining and that's probably the reason why they didn't complain. But they didn't complain that much once they got into camp. I mean, you could tell that they were discomfort and all this stuff. But she said that after we got out of camp an everything, she said the best time was in camp. She says, "I didn't have to worry about making money and where my next food was coming from, or clothing, buying clothes for the kids or anything." She said it was one of the easiest living, and nobody had any more than she did, and the food was there, whenever it was, she said it wasn't too bad. In fact, my mother, when she wasn't working in the mess hall, she used to do a lot of needlework.