Densho Digital Archive - Hanako Hoshiyama Fukumoto Interview (denshovh-fhanako-01-0024)

<Begin Segment 24>

KL: Are there things about Manzanar I'm leaving out? Oh, I did wonder if, you said that your neighbors from San Fernando sent the furniture. Did you ever have visits from Mrs. Girdelli or anyone from the outside?

HF: No, they didn't.

KL: What about letters? Did you keep up with San Fernando in the camp?

HF: No, I didn't.

KL: Did you ever interact with anyone from the WRA or the army?

HF: No.

KL: What about local people from the Owens Valley? Did you ever leave the camp to go to Lone Pine or Independence?

HF: No. They wouldn't let us go.

KL: Did anybody ever come from those communities into the camp, like to, you know, to a baseball game or to like a demonstration day or anything?

HF: Not that I know of. They might have, but I don't...

KL: Did you read the Manzanar Free Press?

HF: Yes.

KL: What was your attitude about that paper? Was it a good source of news, or was it kind of for gossip?

HF: It was a good source of news. Otherwise we'd have no news, because the camp was so big. We don't know what's going on over there.

KL: Did you read any other newspapers in camp, or ever have access to a radio to keep up with the events in the country at large?

HF: No, I didn't. Our news was mostly by word of mouth.

KL: Did you hear any... did you hear any wild stories from word of mouth or any... what role did rumors play in the camp, or speculation?

HF: The only one that, when the boy, the little boy went after the baseball, crawled under the fence, and he got shot.

KL: Was that somebody that you knew, or that was a story you heard?

HF: No, I didn't know him.

KL: When did you hear about that? Was it after you were married?

HF: No, it was before.

KL: Before? How soon after coming into the camp did you hear that?

HF: I don't remember.

KL: Yeah, I hadn't heard that story before, so I was curious about that.

HF: I don't remember when that happened. They tell me it was shortly after we were in camp, but I don't know.

KL: Oh. I wanted to just kind of get your take on the physical landscape of Manzanar, and I guess starting with the climate. What are your recollections of the climate there? You said you thought it was better than the other camps because it was dry.

HF: It was dry, it was hot, and we had scorpions.

KL: What do you remember of the scorpions?

HF: Well, they said, "Be careful, the scorpions are, don't touch them."

KL: Did you have an encounter with them ever? Did you see any?

HF: No, I never. They showed us pictures of it, but we never encountered. But I guess some people did.

KL: Who showed you pictures?

HF: Probably somebody in camp.

KL: What about other animals? Do you remember any other animals that were strange or different to you?

HF: No. There were no dogs or cats.

KL: Now we have roadrunners.

HF: Oh, you have... oh.

KL: And elk. [Laughs] But I don't think the elk would come into the camp with ten thousand people living there like they do now.

HF: No, they wouldn't.

KL: What about the mountains? What were your thoughts about the mountains?

HF: Well, you know, in San Fernando we always, we had mountains, too, so it wasn't anything different.

KL: What do you remember of water in the camp? You talked about seeing the sewage when you arrived, and the faucets and the ponds. Do you have any other memories of water in the camp, the streams or the rainstorms?

HF: No. We must have had rainstorms, but I don't remember. I think different people remember different things.

KL: Yeah, for sure they do. One person I talked to, she said that she didn't, she has no memory of the mountains at all in her childhood. It was when she came back years later that she noticed them and wondered how she had missed them.