<Begin Segment 12>

LP: Something that's sort of striking about Tule Lake was some of the artwork that came out of the camp. Do you remember... I mean, some people used the shells that were part of the lake bed.

RM: Yeah, shells.

LP: Do you recall anyone making anything in camp that was artsy?

RM: Oh, yeah. See, my mother and my aunt... see, my aunt was an artist. They used to make shells, and it makes all kinds of things. And my aunt, when we went to Jerome, as far as I know, my aunt was the only person to make articles out of the Jerome mud. I donated a piece here, and I have some others that I want to donate here. And I asked her why, she said, "You know, there was nothing else to do." So she took the mud and she made models of my brother, models of her parent. I still have the one of my brother, which I want to donate to a museum, parents and all that. The only one left is the one of my brother. Her brothers and sisters had 'em, she doesn't know what happened to 'em. So I thought that she took those and she kind of burned them in the kitchen oven, they would just dry naturally, she painted them and all that. But they're still with us, so I have that. And I could say nobody else made that. And you know, you heard about everybody doing birds, she carved horses and all kinds of things. So when she came back she lived in Walnut Grove, she was a real good artist and she did all that. So in camp, my mother and all my aunts, they all carved things and made things, that's what they spent their time doing.

LP: Was there anything... wasn't there like two holes or there were two, something shaved out of wood you brought pictures of to the pilgrimage? Wasn't that you? There was pictures of something that were made at Tule Lake that you said you were donating here. Some sort of sculptural thing that was out of wood.

RM: Oh, okay. I have one from Tule Lake. My father used to sneak out of camp, no moon. If he'd got caught, he would have been shot. No moon, you sneak out of camp, and you've got these vines or whatever it is, and I don't know how many he had when we left Tule Lake, but we only took one, his favorite one. I still have that at home. And because of, you only have so much packing space, you took his favorite one. And I don't know what kind of vine it is, what kind of things, but that's what he did. He took it and we'd carve it and clean it up, and take Johnson's Way, so I still have that. And when we left camp, I don't know how many we left behind anyway. That's what he did. And then I still remember that one of the things that we, was arrow heads and shells, we had a bunch of those. When we left camp, we left it there, except for this one piece. You know why we left arrow heads and shells there? Because it's federal land, right? The government said it's federal land, so you can't take anything away, so my parents didn't take anything. I'm saying how foolish we were. I wish we would have had that. And that's the one thing, when we had an exhibit here of all the camps, the first thing I looked for was artifacts from the people who donated the things or loaned to the museum to display. I looked for arrowheads and things made out of shells from Tule Lake. Do you know how many I found? [Pantomimes zero] And I wondered why. I wonder if they did the same thing that my parents did, federal property, so you can't take it out. I mean, that's my thought. You know, my buddies and stuff, we had all kinds of arrow heads and shells, things out of shell. But I think Tule Lake, now they have things made out of shells that people made in camp, right?

LP: Yeah, there's, like, some pins and different things that people donated.

RM: Yeah, but that's what they used to make, all kinds of things.

LP: Something that just came into my head, and so this is later, this is after the segregation era, but one of the things that men used to do was make out of, it was either coat hangers or something, but hooks with line, and they would bait them and catch birds, and apparently they would catch seagulls and they would paint red dots underneath the wings so that when they were flying around they would go, "Oh, look, there's a plane, there's a plane." Everyone would come out and look and they'd all do stuff like that. Was there anything, did you ever hear of anything like that, any kind of pranks or anything?

RM: No.

LP: What about, sort of, like, foraging or hunting within the camp was, did anyone ever...

RM: My wife will tell you stories about hunters. But at that time we didn't, it was the first year, we didn't have any of that.

KL: When you guys found the arrow heads, did you have any knowledge or did you speculate about people who had lived at Tule Lake before?

RM: No. Well, we kind of guessed there were Indians, so the arrow heads, that's what it was. Never really... we just said there were Indians' arrow heads, that's all we, kids always thought about.

LP: What about Abalone Mountain? Was there anything...

RM: Okay, everybody talks about Abalone Mountain? When I was in Tule Lake, never talked about Abalone Mountain, only Castle Rock.

LP: And could you talk a little bit about why it was called Castle Rock, or is there any...

RM: I don't know why they call it Castle Rock, all I know is that when I was there, we took off to Castle Rock because wintertime we'd go in the snow. I have no idea why called it that or anything else, it's a way for us to get out of camp.

LP: Do you recall any of the, like, potato storage areas or the hog farm or any of the agricultural...

RM: Okay, see, just before I left Tule Lake, they started the farming. So about maybe three weeks before I left, one of the fathers in our block was working in the farm, so he took us out to where they were growing the chickens and pigs and cattle and all that, he took us there, showed us that, so we spent a day there. And then in two weeks he was going to take us to the vegetable farm, but I left camp so I never got to see that. So they were just starting just when we left, I left, anyway.

LP: Was there ever, as a kid I guess sometimes the scale of things can seem skewed, but did it seem like a big operation when you were being shown it or was there anything kind of, that stands out?

RM: No, since I grew up on a farm, so we just wanted to, we were happy to see that happening, got to see, and never really think about the history of it and why, the historical significance. Never give that kind of, I didn't give it that kind of a thought.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.