<Begin Segment 14>

KL: Block 22, that garden outside of the mess hall, do you remember the big garden at all?

MN: Yes.

KL: What do you remember about that?

MN: Fish pond -- I have a picture someplace -- but a fish pond there. Block 22 people made that.

KL: Do you remember when it was being built?

MN: Oh, yeah.

KL: Yeah? Tell us about the garden. Could you describe it, and who worked on it?

MN: Well, people that lived in, whoever was available, each in 22 or 21, 20, each had some kind of garden because people who lived there liked to have pretty things, so they made a garden by the mess hall. And it was a nice fish pond.

KL: There's a man named Harry Ueno.

MN: Yes.

KL: Did you know him?

MN: Yeah, he was in our block, same block. There was about thirty-four blocks and I was in 22. He had a nice wife and three sons. But he was against America, so called a "no-no gumi." He's one of the disloyal to America, so they sent him to, and family, to Tule Lake, and from Tule Lake they went to Japan.

KL: He says that he started that garden.

MN: Yeah, maybe. He lived in the block.

KL: What did, you said he had a nice wife.

MN: Yeah, he had a nice, quiet wife and three sons. They all went to Japan, but they all came back. They, I guess they didn't like Japan, so they all came back, I heard.

KL: How did you know his wife?

MN: Well, because we lived in the same block, so we'd see each other three times a day at the mess hall and we share the same bathroom and laundry room. We weren't good friends, real good friends or anything, but I knew who she was. Her husband was strictly against American way, so he was...

KL: He worked in the mess hall too. I think he was a cook, like a junior cook.

MN: I think so.

KL: He also started the mess hall workers' union.

MN: Yes.

KL: Do you, what do you remember about the workers' union?

MN: I don't know, because... I don't remember those things, but I know he was very active in, like a union.

KL: How did he and your husband get along?

MN: They got along okay, I guess. They weren't good friends or anything.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.