Densho Digital Archive - Joyce Okazaki Interview II (denshovh-ojoyce-02-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

KL: Your father had an operation, I think, in the Manzanar hospital?

JO: Yes, uh-huh.

KL: Would you tell us about that?

JO: He had a hernia operation, and I remember he told me he had to go to the hospital and be there for a while. I can't remember his doctor's name. I would recognize if I saw it in print, but I don't remember.

KL: When was it?

JO: This was probably in, sometime in 1943, I would think. Because he went to pick potatoes in the fall of '43, oh, the summer of '43, I guess, whenever potatoes are harvested. And then he sent us the dresses, and then Ansel Adams came, we wore the dresses.

KL: So he had the operation before he went?

JO: It could have been before, it could have been after. I think it might have been after, only because after doing this strenuous work, he hurt himself.

KL: But your aunt and your husband were already gone?

JO: Oh, yes, they were already gone. In fact, they didn't stay in camp very long at all, as you know. They were gone by December of 1942.

KL: What did she tell you, or did she, about what it was like to set up that hospital and what the dynamic was like among the staff?

JO: Well, it's only what I read, she said they didn't have anything. Even when she set it up, there still wasn't enough, because there was no money to buy the needed equipment and things like that.

KL: Did your dad give any reviews of his care there or his time there?

JO: No, but he had good care. He had to stay for two weeks, though, for an operation. And so we missed him. We went to the hospital, my mother took us to the hospital outside his room, and we yelled through the window to talk to him, because we couldn't go in, we were too young. In those days, they didn't let young people into the hospital.

KL: So you yelled from outside?

JO: To talk to him right by his window where he was.

KL: Was that allowed, did anybody care?

JO: Nobody. That was allowed. Well, we didn't... it wasn't that loud. And he was right there, but we couldn't see him because the window was up high, I think, so we couldn't see him.

KL: Your aunt, I think, had two babies in Manzanar, two if I have that right, Kimiko (Hasegawa)?

JO: Yes.

KL: Do you remember that, or what did she say about that?

JO: Yeah, I remember when she had the babies, Jeanene and Arlene. We loved it because... well, we were able to go and see her and feed them, I was able to feed them. Actually, I didn't do it because I was too young. Arlene was born, let's see... Jeanene was born in '43, January of '43, she lives in the valley. They have nothing, they will have nothing to do with Manzanar. They don't want to know anything about it, don't want to see any pictures about it. Arlene was born a year and a half later, I guess, so that must have been '44. I don't remember what her birthday is, it must have been in the fall. See, we had left in August of '44, so it might be that she was born after that, I don't really know. Anyway, they quickly moved to Chicago, because we moved to Chicago, they moved to Chicago also.

KL: Did she ever say anything about the Manzanar hospital or quality of care, or what it was like to give birth? Those were her first babies.

JO: I didn't hear anything from my aunt Kimi about it. She was not one to complain about anything, everything was just, she was a very positive, upbeat person, happy, so she didn't say anything.