Densho Digital Archive - John Young Interview (denshovh-yjohn-01-0015)

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KL: I wondered if you remembered an event that happened in December of 1942 over a man who was arrested and jailed and people wanted him, some people wanted him to come back to Manzanar. And there were big crowds, it gets called the Manzanar Riot sometimes. Do you remember any uprising?

JY: No, that might have been after I left.

KL: It was in December of 1942, actually, December 7th.

JY: Well, I was still there, yeah. No, I don't remember anything.

RM: Do you remember tensions in the camp between different groups?

JY: No, the only thing I remember is a friend of mine that graduated from high school got shot, that's the only thing, event I remember. Otherwise we just kept to ourselves.

RM: Can you tell me about that?

JY: Takeuchi, I still have his picture in the annual and all that. Well, he just went across the fence to pick up a ball that they hit over there, then some guard shot him with a shotgun. Didn't kill him, but just injured him. In fact, I think his picture is in one of the things that you gave me. But he was okay, though.

RM: Can you tell us what he was like?

JY: He was a nice guy. In fact, he visited us after we got out, after he was released from camp. I gave him some money, because I was fairly well-established by then, I owned a house by then. Beverly was big, and I had a son by then. In fact, when I had my son in '48, I gave the Japanese Hospital two dollars, he stayed in there for ten days, and we got money back. [Laughs] Now it costs you a fortune to have a child.

RM: Did you say that you knew Hikoji Takeuchi before the war?

JY: Oh, yeah.

RM: Tell us about that, how did you know him?

JY: Well, because he used to hang around with the Chinese. There was two Japanese boys that hung around with us, the Chinese group. So we just became friends, that's all, just casual friends. Associated in high school with them.

RM: Our boss, Alisa Lynch, she did an interview like this with Hikoji.

JY: He still alive?

RM: He just passed away, I believe, last year or the year before, very recently. He was in his late '90s. And if you would like, we can share that interview with you. He might even mention you. [Laughs]

JY: Yeah, we were pretty good friends, but just school friends, more or less.

KL: Who was the other Japanese kid who used to hang around with you and the Chinese group?

JY: The father used to come down and buy produce. I've forgotten his name. He was very shy, he'd stutter a lot.

KL: Did Hikoji change after the shooting, his personality at all? Did you notice a difference?

JY: No, not really. He was still a friendly guy and all that. And he didn't hold any animosity toward the guy that shot him. Because I guess he figured they were doing their job. But I don't know where the hell you would escape to, Mt. Whitney, that's about the only place.

KL: What can you tell us about that landscape, the mountains? What do you remember about that?

JY: Well, they didn't do much when I was there, the first year. In fact, I landscaped the whole building, I put the lawn in and designed the walkway and all that. Then when I started doing it, somebody else came out to help me and all that. Yeah, I thought that was pretty good, because I'm not much of an artist or anything like that, but had a walkway from each barracks going across to... we grew some grass there and all that, planted some trees.