<Begin Segment 10>

SK: Although when my father was taken off, two of her friends, Mrs. Shimizu and Mrs... and my mom, created this kamaboko industry. [Laughs]

KL: What is that?

SK: You know the mounded fish cakes that you see? You haven't seen those?

KL: I don't think so.

SK: You should ask Alisa about it.

KL: Would you spell it?

SK: Ka-ma-bo-ko. And right now they're white and red, but during the season they get really colorful. And so don't ask me how or where, but we had a refrigerator, which is unusual. And so that was in one corner of the room, my father partitioned it off, and then he's handy, as I said, so he built these steamers. And so the three ladies would make this kamaboko and use the cold stove, and they used to sell this. And so Mom saved that, and that's what we lived on after we came out of camp. Because we didn't have money. And then another thing she did was she made sake and sold it to, by the cupful, and that's how she, again, she saved that money for camp. She did what she had to do.

KL: Do you know how she got the ingredients?

SK: I remember having to go after the fish. I went blocks and blocks and blocks to this central location and bought the fish, and I somehow had a red wagon, I remember, and pulling it and pulling it home. And yeah, I remember making kamaboko.

KL: Did she make sake in your apartment, too?

SK: Uh-huh.

KL: And did people come to your barrack to buy both things?

SK: Uh-huh, by the cupful. We didn't have bottles.

KL: How did she respond when your father was taken out of Tule Lake? Did she stay calm, or do you remember?

SK: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, what could she do? Again, this whole business of shikata ga nai, there was nothing she could do.

KL: Yeah. And you kids were a pretty wide age range, I mean, she had a baby and then she had an almost adult.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.