<Begin Segment 14>

LP: I wanted to ask, one of the, sort of, big features of the site today is the jail and stockade. Had you ever heard of either of those places at Tule or do you know anything about them?

MW: About what?

LP: The jail and the stockade?

MW: Oh, vaguely I've heard people tell me that. And I don't remember where it was located, it was back east somewhere. New Jersey? No.

LP: No, Tule Lake there was a jail.

MW: Oh, Tule Lake? Yeah, I heard something about the... what did you call it?

LP: Stockade?

MW: Stockade. And I said, "What's a stockade?" I had heard, but I really didn't understand it. And they said, well, you know, when people are bad. Like what? How could they be bad in here, what were they gonna do? They killed their own. I used to think that way. So I didn't think too much of it, but I had heard when I was in there, and I remember my sister used to work for a photographer. And I never could figure out how she had gotten that job, but anyway, that's what she was doing. My sister-in-law had two kids, so she had to stay home. But I had heard but I never knew anyone who was in it. Tule Lake's been there a long time, wasn't it, before Manzanar?

LP: It was one of the... it was a camp at first, just like Manzanar and all the others, and then after that questionnaire, it was converted into a segregation center.

MW: They were segregated, a lot of people. I used to say, "Why do they segregate so many people?" I used to wonder. Because it was so different than Manzanar. Manzanar was kind of, everybody was the same kind of thing.

LP: The jail, so some of the people that I've been interviewing throughout the trip, one person in the Bay area, his brother was put in the jail and he was part of the Hoshidan, did you ever, when you were at Tule, hear of that group or know anyone that was in the Hoshidan?

MW: No, I never heard of it, I didn't even know. But I had heard of segregation, I heard of stockade, I have heard things like that but I never questioned anything or asked anyone, because nobody seemed to know, so I didn't. And there were a couple of guys that were mail, delivering mail and things, used to always talk to me. And they're the ones that would take me in their truck to go wherever. But I didn't do much looking around and things like that at Tule as much. We were busy going to school and working, we didn't have too much time to mess around or to go around and see. They didn't have things like we started having dances because there's a recreation department in one of the buildings, the whole building was left open and it was a recreation. And what happened like in Manzanar is they had this Maryknoll Catholic school which was all Catholic, east side of L.A., and then they would be, they said I think all of them were Japanese students. And then when the war came, they emptied the school all out. So the father and the sister, the father especially, used to come into Manzanar and bring different things like the records to play for the people, the entertainment for young people, and everything like that. They would bring movie screens and movies, we would sit outside on the dirt, but it was outdoors. And they brought things for the young people. Because all of their students were in camp, they're all Japanese in the east side, Boyle Heights, that side of L.A., and they were all Japanese people. And so they were a big help in bringing things. I don't know who else brought 'em, but it had to go through the administration, but it was still entertainment.

Because young people had a hard time, it was so hot in Manzanar, all the young people started to dig underneath the barracks to stay cool. And it's amazing how they can dig without the barrack falling down. I guess they didn't go sideways enough. But it was a lot cooler, and we would all sit down there and talk and kid around or whatever, like what young people do. And so we didn't really... well, you could, you could go to different places, it was too hot to walk out there in the desert, and there's nothing but walk, there's no way to get a ride. Nobody had a car, unless like my brother had a truck that they had to deliver things, but he could never take people on it, so he never did. But it was just a... it was different, Manzanar and Tule. Tule was not as friendly. I guess people were in for different reasons and things like that, and they probably had their own ideas of what they thought was fair or not fair.

LP: When you were at Tule, did you ever get to see the hospital or the administrative area, do you remember any of those species?

MW: No, I didn't. My sister-in-law went to the hospital, because she had a couple of kids. I noticed that she had gone before, but I never had the desire to go with them, but I never did go to the administration. I guess we were in school, we were working, and it was just busy all day. And then I could have gotten a ride from those mail truck guys, they said they would take me, but I didn't have the desire to. So I just never took an interest. I think that's why I don't remember Tule as much, because I didn't take any interest in it. I was ready to leave. And the war wasn't over yet... when did the war get... '44 or '45? '45? Yeah.

LP: One of the bigger things that comes up with sort of recreation for people at Tule is art and what people would do to pass the time in that way, in the popular craft, people would make was pens and different things out of the shells. Do you remember shells on the ground at Tule? It was a former lake bed.

MW: Yeah, there was. Yeah, I remember that. Why is that? Is that a water bed?

LP: It used to be, it's a former lake bed.

MW: Oh, lake bed. It had to be, because there was a lot of shells. That's why you don't go barefoot, you know, 'cause it would hurt. So we just never did go barefoot.

LP: What about arrowheads? That was another thing, because of native people in the area, people in camp used to collect arrowheads and make different things with them.

MW: No, I never did see someone collecting arrowheads, but I know there was a lot of shells. I used to think, "This is odd," it looked like it should have been a riverbed of some sort, but I had no idea that that really was.

LP: What about other kinds of artwork? People used to gather wood and polish it and do sculptural things. Did anyone in your family ever build anything?

MW: No, they never did. I've seen them, but I've never seen my family do much of that type of thing. And then the thing that is now, my brother was gone.

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