<Begin Segment 25>

KL: What else about Topaz stands out in your memory? Those are kind of my questions, but I'd love to hear specific memories of people you have or places that you spent time, or special events, holidays, school parties.

ST: I went topaz hunting up in the mountains.

KL: Was that a big thing to do?

ST: Well, got out of the camp. By then we can get out. So I went up to the mountains and looked for Topaz. Never found anything.

MS: You didn't find anything?

KL: Did you see anything else interesting?

MS: Well, I have a trilobite fossil that Dad found.

ST: Oh, yeah.

MS: And as usual, anything he finds, he has to embellish, so he's got this trilobite fossil and he carved around it and he put like a little floral design on the side of it. So he probably ruined it for... so I still have that at home. I didn't go out of camp other than, I went to Delta once. Other than that, I didn't go out of camp.

KL: What was the purpose of your visit to Delta?

MS: It was just a trip to go to the soda fountain and have a soda, I think, was about all that we did.

KL: How were you received in the soda shop?

MS: They were all very civil to us. There was never any problem that I recall. Of course, I only made the one trip, so I don't know of anybody else having problems. But I never heard of any problems.

KL: What did you guys do for fun?

ST: Ice skate.

MS: Yeah, that was something new for us.

ST: Yeah.

MS: Quite a few of the blocks, they made their own skating rink. In our block, we also did it on one end, then they all kind of dug a little trench and they filled it with water. So that was... I don't even know where the skates came from.

ST: Yeah, I had a pair of skates.

MS: Huh?

ST: I had a pair.

MS: How would you have a pair of skates?

ST: I don't know.

MS: I know I borrowed from a gal that lived in the next block.

KL: Did you go to dances?

ST: Oh, yeah.

KL: What were they like? What kind of music did you like?

ST: Well, in those days, what did we have? Boogie Woogie. I actually learned how to jitterbug.

MS: I can't imagine you jitterbugging. [Laughs] Tsuki, the sister above him, was the social butterfly, and she did all the dancing and all this, and she was the cheerleader. Voted the most popular girl.

KL: Who taught you to dance?

ST: My sister.

ST: I don't know where she learned all that.

KL: Did you have favorite partners?

ST: Yeah, sort of.

KL: Who was the DJ?

MS: Huh?

KL: Who was the DJ?

ST: Anna.

MS: I don't even remember. Who played the records?

ST: Oh, the DJ? Oh, anybody that had records. Yeah, one guy had a bunch of records. I forget his name.

KL: Where were the dances?

MS: Must have been at the high school, high school gym?

ST: Well, they converted some of the barracks to, like a rec. hall.

KL: One of the things that sometimes, not that often, but sometimes I hear from visitors at Manzanar, actually recently a lady said that her mother had always told her that the reason Japanese American people were put into the camps was for their own protection.

MS: That was what we were told.

KL: What's your response to that? If you were talking to her, what would you tell her?

ST: Our own protection? That's what they told us. They were afraid of, what, espionage? [Laughs]

MS: I know there were stories of Chinese people walking around with signs saying, "Me Chinese." They didn't want to get mistaken for... but then by the same token, then what about all the Germans and Italians?

KL: I know those people who came to visit you in the assembly center and were, you know, wished you goodbye, farewell, in your community. Yeah, as that person was leaving, she said that she realized that it was a much more complicated story than she had ever heard from her mother and that there was a lot more going on. But it is something that I hear occasionally and think it's important to have people's responses to that, sort of, recorded.

MS: Well, of course, in the cities, there was a lot of problems.

ST: Yeah?

MS: Yeah.

KL: It was different from place to place.

MS: Yeah. But I think in a place like Half Moon Bay, it was different.

KL: I asked you if you ever had any contact with Chiura Obata in Tanforan, and I wondered if you ever encountered Chiura Obata in Topaz?

[Interruption]

MS: Yeah, I think Mari also took an art class with him. My only run-in with him was with the youth group in San Mateo. He came to one of our conferences, and he did a little demonstration. It's quite amazing to watch him, because it's just a few strokes, you know, and you have a picture.

KL: That was after Topaz?

MS: Yeah. But I knew of him because of camp.

ST: Was he a teacher in Topaz?

KL: Yeah, he had an art school.

ST: Well, then, he was my teacher.

KL: Did those classes, you took them in school, like as part of your high school curriculum?

ST: Oh, yeah, yeah.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.