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KL: The hospital had kind of a strong connection the Manzanar riot. Do you have memories of the events in December of the first year?
UN: Well, I was working for the hospital at the time they had the riot. And I saw the people being brought in, and they would have a little tiny hole in the back, and a great big hole in the front. So the military was using...
KL: Did you see their bodies?
UN: Yeah.
KL: Oh, wow.
UN: They were bringing these people in, the ambulance was bringing them into the hospital, and the doctors were inspecting the bodies. And then the morgue was behind the hospital, so the doctors made sure these people were actually dead, and logged how they died. And it seems like the government, the soldiers sprayed these people when they were trying to run away, and so they got shot in the back. And by the time the 50-caliber machine gun bullet came out, you know, it made a big hole. It was awesome.
Off camera: How old were you at the time?
UN: I was around sixteen or seventeen years old.
KL: I've heard that earlier in that day, too, there were people in the hospital, a big group of people searching for Fred Tayama in the hospital, Dr. Kusayanagi says they were searching for her and her husband Dr. Goto. Do you remember crowds of people coming into the hospital earlier that day?
UN: No. In fact, earlier in the day, I wasn't at the hospital, so I can't tell you. I was studying at home, and my father says, "Aki is with a crowd, so go get him." And so my father knew that violence may erupt, and so I start walking towards the rioters. And my brother decided that things were getting kind of out of hand, so he was already coming back. And while he and I were walking home, we heard machine guns going off. And so I naturally just went to the hospital and watched the ambulance come in.
KL: What did your brother say about how he knew things were getting out of hand or what people were saying or doing? What did he tell you?
UN: I didn't ask him. We just, you know, soon as I saw him, I said, "Dad wants you," and so we started walking home.
KL: If I were a parent, I think I'd have a reaction to my teenage son seeing that kind of violence. How did your parents deal with that day and your involvement?
UN: Well, I guess we never discussed, because then we heard that Dr. Goto, who was in charge of the hospital, was discharged. And then we had an American administrator come to administrate the hospital. And it didn't concern me because I was a junior cook in the hospital kitchen, and I made the puree and soft food for the patients, and so I just did my job. [Laughs]
KL: You were talking to the administrator or Dr. Goto.
UN: I found out that if I keep my mouth shut and keep my job, the chief cook used to call me, he would say, "Come over here." And so I would go to the chief cook because he had no way of rewarding us monetarily, he would slip a pie, he would bake a pie and slip it to me. And I would take it home and we would all feast on that pie. In other words, this guy was a wonderful chief cook, and he knew who was doing a good job, and he treated me like a son. And so I made my puree, and I made my soft food every day.
KL: Did you guys have a table in your barrack apartment, did you gather around when you had, like, the pie?
UN: Oh, yeah, we made our own tables. We made our own chairs, and...
KL: Who made those?
UN: My dad. And, in fact, I'm still using a chest that he built, and we use it every day.
KL: Where did he build it?
UN: And he built it by, you know, these lug boxes would have, he would take it apart carefully and use that wood, and they would make all kinds of things with it.
KL: Where did your... your parents worked for the social welfare office in Manzanar? Where was that office?
UN: The office was all around Block 7, in that area.
KL: Did they ever talk to you or to each other at home about their work, the cases they were seeing, what they thought?
UN: Yeah. I wrote a lot of the reports for my dad because his English wasn't as good as my mom. And so I would type it out. He would write the report and I would type it out. But I just, they would, there were some husband and wife would have conflicts. Because here they jam, in one mile square, ten thousand people. And the wives would be in contact with other men, and so they would have problems that occur. And the social welfare people would go there and straighten it out between the families.
KL: Did your parents have that role also, counseling?
UN: Yes.
KL: How did that affect their life in camp?
UN: I just wrote the report, you know. My father said that if you get between these two people, that both of them wouldn't love 'em. They'll come together, and he's done his job. He straightened things out, tried to get him to go to church, but they're kind of ashamed to see him, because they had this problem. So he just, he would help people, but people remember all these things. When my dad died, we had his funeral in West L.A. We must have had six, seven hundred people come to the funeral. We couldn't get him into the building, and we opened up the Sunday school area, and we put sound system in the Sunday school class, and they were just parading. And later on, the city of Los Angeles gave him an honorarium saying that he helped a lot of Japanese people, and I have it yet.
KL: When did he die? When was that memorial service?
UN: He died in 1987.
<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.