<Begin Segment 9>

KL: I should mention for the tape that you have written about this visit to Manzanar that we are kind of alluding to and that I do want to hear more about. And in your writing you said that there were things in your life, personal things, that changed after the U.S. became involved in World War II. Would you tell us how your life changed after that time?

KP: Well, there was one particular incident that happened during the war. People were out of work before... well, I guess in the '30s they were out of work, and the Depression. And I remember a man coming to our back door down where we lived, south of the motel, by the airport. And he said he was hungry, he wanted some work so he could have some money for some food. And, of course, my mother fed him and gave him some coffee and so forth, and let him rake or whatever, for fifty cents or whatever we had, because we didn't have very much either. But I remember that very vividly, that he came there during that time.

But Manzanar just sort of happened, and then I was in school probably hearing about it and how involved they became with their own people and having their school and their activities, and knowing that they had the scout group and then we had the Camp Fire girls group. I was younger than the scout girls that were in Manzanar, but we were invited to come up to Manzanar as a Camp Fire group. I'm not sure if my sister came with us or not, because she was three years younger than me. She may have been a little too young to come. I forgot to ask her if she had actually come, too. But what I remembered was the beautiful green grass and garden. Seemed to me that it was kind of south central of the camp, or more toward the east where the actual garden was. I've seen some of the gardens in that area in the last few years driving around where they've cleaned them up, and you can see the pools, where the pools were, and the waterways. But there was a red bridge across the little creek. They used the creeks that ran through here to do their little gardens, and it was a beautiful little red bridge they had painted, you know, the arched bridge over the creek. And then the rocks were implanted in the green grass like, well, like a Japanese garden. It was just beautiful. So natural, so simple, not a lot of other plants, probably some flowers, wildflowers, were in it. Because I'm not sure what time of year, so it had to be spring or summer that we came up here. And then they had, they fixed us sukiyaki, which was a wonderful Japanese dish with lots of soy sauce. And I ate it and loved it, and some of the girls weren't sure about eating something that strange, you know. But it was just salty, that's all. But I ate it and enjoyed it, and one of the Japanese scout girls came over to me and they were interacting with each of us, which was really great. And she talked to me and I talked to her, and she was probably twelve, and I was probably eight or nine. Because she asked me if I wanted to see where she lived and her barracks, and I said, "Of course, it would be great." So she walked me -- I don't remember how far it was, it didn't seem to me that it was very far. When we walked, the main door to her barracks was on the west side, and it was just steps with no railing up to the door, because it was up on the foundation of some kind. And then we walked in, and right in front of the... and to the left of the front door was a dresser that I found out later that they actually built from scratch from the wood that they had. And it had a picture of her brother on it and a U.S. Army uniform, and I was just horrified that her brother was actually fighting our war in Europe, probably. And here she is, a prisoner in a camp like that. And there were, that I recall, blankets between the sections of the barracks, it was actually just a square, elongated barracks, with blankets between the rooms inside. But then that was all I remember, and we went home after that.

KL: What was the ride home like?

KP: We were pretty quiet, because we were all... I don't know how many other girls actually got to see them, but I imagine they did, because that was part of their program, to let us see where they actually lived. And she was just a really nice normal, ordinary girl, to me, because we were raised with the Indians, the Paiute children. And we just accepted other races, I certainly did, from a Christian background, too, you just accept everybody because we're all the same, and we're all hurting the same and we're all having joys the same. So I didn't think anything of that at all, I just enjoyed meeting her.

KL: Do you know her name?

KP: No. But later on I did meet a Japanese girl, Hidemi, from Japan, when I got to go to Japan. She had come to Lone Pine and stayed with the druggist and his family. And I met her there. And then when we found out we were gonna go to Japan on a tour, with a touring company, I contacted her and her family and she met us at the airport, and her family and we had a wonderful couple of days with them in Tokyo. So I had, I got to go to Japan, and I also was dragged screaming to Hiroshima. I did not want to go to Hiroshima because of having been to Manzanar, but my cousin wanted to go, so he was with us, so we went. But Japan was beautiful, just beautiful. So green.

KL: You said that you were kind of stunned at her situation.

KP: Yes.

KL: Did you tell her about how you were feeling?

KP: Oh, I'm sure I did. I'm sure I did. She could see it, that I was really upset about her brother working in the army. I didn't meet her family or anything, just her. And I wasn't aware of, at that time, all of their clubs and their school, and all the school activities, and the fact that they had the gardens, the big gardens, that they were actually raising produce out and around the camp. And certainly not that they were out fishing. Found out in the paper this week about the fly fishing film festival.

KL: What was her response to your take on her situation?

KP: Oh, she probably expected it. She expected that we would respond that way, she probably did.

KL: Where did you guys have lunch?

KP: I just felt bad that I didn't have more of a relationship with them. Are you out of film or something?

RM: Just a couple more minutes.

KP: Okay.

KL: Where did you guys have lunch? You said you had a lunch...

KP: They had lunch right by the garden, they had tables there, and they brought it there where we had lunch. But I remember the sukiyaki really well because I was so impressed with it. [Laughs] One of my first experiences eating something other than home food, you know, something from another country.

[Interruption]

KL: You mentioned in your writing that you had a group leader with you from the Camp Fire Girls, Mrs. Sadie Iler? Am I saying that right?

KP: Yes.

KL: What do you remember about her? What makes her stand out?

KP: She was very strong in the church also, but she was also a teacher at the elementary school. And she was quite a bit older, gray-haired lady, she was just great with the scouts. She took us to Whitney Portals camping overnight, and we had a rainstorm, washed the portals out, and we were very fortunate we got out of there in time. [Laughs] But I was thinking when we took our break that I don't recall how many barracks were here when I was here. It didn't seem to me that there were a whole lot of barracks finished, but they must have been. It would have had to have been the second or third year. There would have had to have been a lot of homes in the camp.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.