Densho Digital Archive - Sachiye Okamoto - Miho Shiroishi Interview (denshovh-osachiye

<Begin Segment 13>

KL: When did you leave, when did you leave Block 9?

SO: Shortly after we got there. It seems like someone got the measles, I don't know if it was her, and then she had to go to the infirmary where they were quarantined. And it seems like... now, I don't remember an adult watching us, but our mother had to go to the infirmary to look after her. And then the next sister got sick, and she ended up in the infirmary also. And I remember, like, "I hope I get the measles so then I get to go with Mama," to be with Mama. But I remember being alone, sleeping alone with whoever was not in the infirmary, but our mother was gone. And I don't recall anyone coming to help us, do you? You got the measles.

MS: I don't remember.

SO: Well, I do remember that.

KL: Was that in the spring of 1942? It was right after you arrived?

SO: It was shortly after we arrived, yes.

MS: I think we were happier in, at Block 8.

SO: Oh, yeah, we were.

MS: And maybe it was because our mother was happier. So I remember that.

KL: Did you go and visit in the infirmary? Do you remember anything --

SO: No, you couldn't go. It was quarantined, yes.

KL: Was it far away?

SO: I don't remember. But I do remember being frightened that there was no one to look after us, and our mother had to be with whoever was sick. I was scared at night when we were sleeping alone. I do remember that.

KL: Do you know your address in Block 9, what building number you were in?

SO: No, but I do have... I thought the printout that the ranger gave me...

KL: Yeah, we can look it up, too.

SO: I thought she told me, "Okay, you lived on such and such barrack number and the unit.

KL: And then you moved that summer?

SO: To Block 8?

MS: We didn't stay at Block 9 too long. Well, moving was no problem because all we had to do...

SO: Pick up the blanket? [Laughs]

MS: Right? No mattress there. [Laughs] And the kids again.

KL: Do you remember the people in Block 8 that you met?

SO: Uh-uh, I don't remember.

MS: But I know that it was better for us.

KL: How was it better?

MS: I think we were happier. I don't know why, because we didn't stay at Block 9 too long.

SO: I think the people were friendlier to my mother.

MS: That's probably it.

SO: Yeah, I think.

KL: And you said she and your father wrote letters to each other while she was in Manzanar?

SO: Well, we don't know, but this picture we have is like, she told me that we sent it to him for Valentine's Day, and that's why it's cut out in the shape of a heart. But I don't recall writing, do you? Did we write to him?

MS: I don't recall that.

SO: But we must have sent that picture to him.

MS: I found a small book like this that's that thick, of my father's, and it's all in Japanese. So I don't know if it was his diary or what, but I would think that it was, had something to do with North Dakota.

KL: He wrote it?

MS: He wrote it, yeah.

SO: Do you have it?

MS: Oh, we can't read Japanese.

SO: Do you have it?

MS: I don't know what it was about.

SO: Do you have it?

MS: Yeah.

SO: Oh, okay.

KL: Yeah, that'd be interesting to find a friend or a translator to see.

MS: Yeah, it would be.

SO: But my father used to write letters for his friends back in Japan. I don't know if it's because they could not write, but he was very educated in English and Japanese, so he was always writing.

MS: He was a good writer, that's why people would come to him and ask him to write letters and things like that.

KL: Did he keep a journal when you were children?

MS: Well, this journal I found, I don't know when it was written, but there's quite a bit in there. So I just don't know what's in there.

AL: We might be able to assist with getting it translated if you ever want to.

SO: Really?

AL: It's difficult to do translations from older Japanese because a lot of modern Japanese speakers can't read the characters, but we do have volunteers who assisted us. So we can't promise, but if it's something that you want to do, we might be able to assist or at least try. Sometimes they can't translate it verbatim but they can give you a gist of what it's talking about it.

MS: That would be good. That would really be good.