<Begin Segment 7>

KL: Can you describe where you lived in Arboga, what the quarters were like?

SK: Barracks. I mean, I guess we moved so much I didn't, I wasn't too concerned as long as we had a roof over our head. And again, I was just confused, what's happening, why? I remember before we went to camp, I remember sitting on the floor between two beds, and Papa in the living room going on with what he was doing. And at that point, I was in the third grade, so we were just learning about the pilgrims. And for some reason, that really resonated with me. And I had made a pilgrim couple or something like that, and I was sitting between the beds looking at the pilgrim couple. And this is going on... again, why?

KL: Did anyone ever talk about with you about why?

SK: See, that's something that Sansei and those outside the community have a hard time understanding. You were raised to do... you did what you were told, you didn't question. So that was why it was easy to herd us all like that.

KL: Well, and, I mean, when you're faced with something that you don't understand, or that... I mean, I think sometimes it's hard to, it's hard to respond without some reflection, and maybe without years of refection, it's hard to make sense of a situation or to decide how to respond to it.

SK: Well, let me ask you a question.

KL: Okay.

SK: How do you think you would have responded?

KL: You know, when I started working at Manzanar, the thing that I thought I would never understand was how people could accept or volunteer for military service out of those conditions. My thinking has changed. I do think I understand why and how some people did that or could. But I remember when I started Manzanar, working there, thinking that I would never be able to make sense of that or understand that. So I think I probably would have been angry, I think I would have at least mentally thought that resisting it was the right course of action. Yeah, I don't know what I would have done on a day-to-day level, I mean, I think that depends on your age, too. My family was very tight when I was growing up, and so I think if we were still together, kind of as a kid, I would have just gone to school.

SK: Right, right. And then I think with your military background, too, that makes a difference, right?

KL: With my thinking about military service, or just kind of being flexible as far as moving and stuff? Yeah, I mean, we moved more than some people, but not as much as other military kids. So, yeah, I'm not sure how that would have taken. You know, when I was younger I was a lot more, sort of, I just followed things a lot more and was a lot more...

SK: You didn't question.

KL: Oh, no, I think I did, like in my twenties I think I was much more politically oriented.

SK: Oh, no, like when you were eight.

KL: When I was kid, no, I didn't.

SK: Yeah, exactly. See?

KL: I liked to read, I liked to play with my friends. But you do see things differently in different times of life. I mean, if it happened to me when I was twenty-five, I probably would have tried to recruit other people to raise a stink about it and been very vocal. But I think about that in terms of people who were in the camps teaching, and other things on the staff, too, you know, if you think that this is wrong, do you have nothing to do with it, or do you try to go and lend your skills? Or how do you respond to something you think is wrong? But yeah, I mean, it sounds like at home, too, Hisa was kind of a mentor and a tutor to you guys, too.

SK: Oh, yes, absolutely.

KL: And she was sixteen or so, seventeen...

SK: Right, she was eight years older than I was.

KL: ...when this happened? What was her response to Arboga and to Tule Lake?

SK: Again, it's the same thing.

KL: Same as you?

SK: Yeah, same as him. We did what we were told to you. The whole attitude was shikata ga nai, that's what we were taught.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.