Densho Digital Archive - Saburo Masada Interview (denshovh-msaburo-01-0006)

<Begin Segment 6>

KL: You mentioned the other night a couple of other, another teacher that you were close to, from elementary school.

SM: Yes.

KL: Would you tell us --

SM: My first, second, third grade teacher was Dorothea Gallaher. She married a Martinson. But she was my favorite teacher, because I learned penmanship and writing and everything in the first three grades, and she had us do all kinds of fun things, painting wooden hangers. And I mentioned we had a study on Holland, and I remember we drew tulips and we drew wooden shoes, and one day she brought, I didn't know what it was, but what it was was cheese, and she sliced and gave us pieces and I remember I really enjoy it. I remember the taste so much that even today, when I buy gouda cheese it brings back, it brings back that fresh memory, as a second grader or, I don't know what grade I was in.

KL: And Mrs. Fike was the principal and was your teacher --

SM: In the sixth grade.

KL: In sixth grade.

SM: I talked to a friend -- he was in a younger grade -- and he said, "Did you get our letter when you, in the Fresno --" I forgot what, he didn't say Arkansas, I think in Fresno -- "when you were in the camp?" I said, "No, I never got anything." He said, "Well, our teacher had us write letters." And I don't know what happened to the letters, why it never, why we never got it. I don't know if they were, I'm sure they weren't censored, or maybe they were just kept from being passed on to us.

KL: I wonder. He was not in Mrs. Fike's class?

SM: No.

KL: He was younger.

SM: He was a younger class.

KL: But she was the principal?

SM: Uh-huh. No, but he said, "We sent the letters," so he was surprised that I don't, I didn't get any letters. But there were people who wrote to people in the camps, corresponded a lot.

KL: Yeah, I wondered, did you hear from your close friends?

SM: Never, not once. During the, after the loyalty oath questions, those answered "yes-yes" were allowed to get paroled to a school or to get another job somewhere on the East, and my two sisters qualified their answers and so they had to appear before the board at the camp to explain why they didn't say "yes-yes," unqualified. But, so they explained how stupid the questions were, and so they were approved to leave if they wanted to. So one of my sisters, Lily, she did go to Detroit, Michigan, and two brothers, Kats and Tosh, they also went to Naperville... Ohio?

KL: Illinois.

SM: Illinois. You're right, Illinois, for a seed company, and they worked there for one year. That was during the Rohwer year. So when we went to Rohwer they went to be paroled out. Course, most people say that they were, they were free to leave the camp, but they weren't really free. They had to account for where they were. If they didn't, then they would be breaking the rules, so they couldn't go anywhere without letting the camp authorities know where they were going. But since they stayed where they said they're going, didn't have to worry about that. But they weren't free to go anywhere they wanted, like most people thought.