Densho Digital Archive - Mary Jean Spallino Interview (denshovh-smary

<Begin Segment 15>

RM: Were there any rules about how to talk to your classes?

MS: Not that I recall. They assumed we were trained, professional people, adults. So I don't remember any restrictions, I don't remember any restrictions about visiting people. We weren't invited very... I don't recall being invited to any of the residents' homes, because everything was so crowded and you had your meeting place anyway. But we were free to go where we wanted, and we got along, we intermingled with the Japanese residents.

RM: Did you become friends with any of them?

MS: Oh, yes, some of 'em. And I tried to learn some Japanese through... she was sort of a friend of Lucille Smith, and I decided I was gonna learn some Japanese, and I wanted to learn their writing, but I didn't get very far.

RM: That's really neat. I was going to ask you that because you had expressed such an interest in language.

MS: Yeah. Well, the spoken part, I could learn the expressions, I've forgotten them now, but the writing, it would be too tedious to learn, and then to try to remember it...

RM: Do you remember if there were classes, if people could go and take classes in Japanese?

MS: Oh, yeah, you were free to... yes, there were all kinds of classes and people helping one another out.

RM: What do you remember about, I know there was a big adult education section in Manzanar. Do you remember any of those classes that were going on?

MS: I don't.

RM: What about things like the hospital at Manzanar? Did you ever go to the hospital in the camp?

MS: I remember Dr. Goto, and his wife was the nurse there. And I liked him very much. I didn't know him, I say I liked him, I liked what I heard of him, you know, if you'd see him occasionally, I never had occasion to go to the hospital. And I think he was very highly thought of, but he was dismissed, and I understand it was because of narcotics.

RM: Oh, I'd never heard that.

MS: Well, I don't know that that... I forget that this is on tape, and maybe I shouldn't...

KL: I wondered, actually, because there were those allegations about the administrator there, whose name I'm blanking right now, at the hospital.

MS: That would be Dr. Goto.

KL: It was a Caucasian -- Morris Little. Did you know Morris Little? He was a Caucasian guy who came in late. There was a Caucasian administrator added to --

MS: Okay, I don't remember him, but...

RM: Yeah, there were some allegations against him.

MS: But I do know that both Dr. Goto and his wife... and you know, it's very possible with the awful stress and strain of everything that why wouldn't you take a little dope or something, and then all of a sudden you're taking more. But who knows.

RM: What do you remember about the kind of tensions in the camp?

MS: I never was aware of it. And even that riot that they had in December, I guess it was a big deal, but it didn't seem like a big deal. It just seemed as though it was built up, but in things I've read later, in some of the books, I have this little gal I mentioned who's married to a Japanese, she's very interested in the Japanese, in the camps. She has a couple of books, and they built that riot up a great deal. And at the time, I don't remember it as a big deal, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't.

RM: Sure. Do you remember it happening?

MS: Well, I remember hearing about it that night.

RM: What did you hear?

MS: Well, you know how rumors are, rumors go around. And I don't remember what the rumors were or anything like that, but then everything seemed to settle down. So I really wasn't... I knew that there was a riot, but I didn't know that it was a big deal.