<Begin Segment 9>

KL: So you said you don't have any memories of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor or hearing that news.

MM: No.

KL: Did your other family members or neighbors or friends ever tell you anything about that day? Do you have memories at all of the intervening months, between December '41 and spring of '42?

MM: Just speaking on one side of the gate to Dolly Jane on the other side.

KL: And where was that?

MM: In the Salinas, on the rodeo grounds where we were first imprisoned?

KL: Can you describe what living conditions were there?

MM: Well, we lived in a barrack, and my mother said, "You got to remember our family number, 13141, because now they don't know us by our name but by our number. So if you get lost and all the barracks look alike -- and you could easily get lost -- you have to know your number." So she drilled it into all of us, and we remember it to this day. I remember that. And then -- this was years later my mother told me this, that we could only take two bags per person, so my mother said, "We didn't know where we were going, and we didn't know how long we're going to be incarcerated." So she got a duffel bag and she made duffel bags, two per person. That's all we were allowed. So she filled one completely with Kotex pads, as many as she could stuff in there, because we were going to be away and no way of buying these kind of items that we would need. So she thought ahead.

KL: We often have, that's a question that a lot of, especially high school girls visiting Manzanar are curious about, how did you provide for feminine hygiene.

MM: Yeah, and then when I ran out I had to use cloth. It was, it was hard.

KL: You were, how old were you when you went into the assembly center?

MM: Nine. And I was twelve when I got out.

KL: You mentioned barracks in the Salinas Assembly Center. Would you, do you have memories of them at all?

MM: Not really. And I don't know if we, if the people in the Salinas Assembly Center stayed in horse stalls, 'cause I know we didn't, and I thank God that we didn't have to stay in those stinky, smelly horse stalls like some of the, Tanforan and all these other temporary housing. That was awful.

KL: Do you recall leaving your home or arriving at Salinas?

MM: That I don't remember either. That's a blank to me. I guess it was kind of traumatic, because we don't, I don't remember it.

KL: You know something about sort of arrangements for your belongings and stuff.

MM: Yes, we left it, our landlady had a great big granary -- that's what we called it, but it's a barn -- and we put all our stuff there. And my mother even took off her wedding ring, and she stuffed it in the trunk, locked the trunk, and when we came back everything was opened and looted and stolen and gone, and our car was just a shell. So we were really, we had nothing.

KL: The car stayed on her property also?

MM: Yeah.

KL: Was she still there after the war?

MM: Yeah.

KL: Do you have a sense for whether she was involved, or whether people --

MM: No, she wasn't. She wasn't. People came in, or could've, my brothers think that it was the children, the foster children that... but we have no proof, we have no proof of that, so I'd rather not even think that.

KL: And they were close to you in age, right? You said you'd all play together [inaudible].

[Interruption]

KL: This is tape two. We're continuing an interview with Marion Masada on the 9th, excuse me, the 10th of September, 2014, and we left off, I had just asked you for more details about Dolly's visit.

MM: I don't remember what we said or did, but I do remember she was on the outside and I was on the inside, and it probably wasn't a good feeling.

KL: You, I think, told me last night that -- this reminded me -- that things did change for you in school, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

MM: You mean in the public schools?

KL: Yeah. Or did I make that up?

MM: No, I don't think I said anything like that. Yeah.

KL: Okay. Dolly was just a close friend and she remained a close friend.

MM: Yeah.

KL: Okay. Do you, do you have a sense for what daily life was like in Salinas? Like what a typical day was, what you did during the day, where you spent your time?

MM: In the, while incarcerated?

KL: Yes, in the Salinas Assembly Center.

MM: Not really, except for what I wrote in that little autobiography, which was just one scene of the men from the outside coming in, taking pictures of the camp. And I think it was in the laundry room I saw them. I was a witness. That's all --

KL: Were they Caucasian?

MM: Yeah. Yeah.

KL: What else did you write about that? Like what was their purpose? Were they part of a newspaper or part of the government?

MM: I have no idea. I have no idea.

KL: I apologize to be asking you multiple questions about stuff you say you have no memories of. Sometimes it'll trigger just a little something if you're specific.

MM: That's okay.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.