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LP: Was your mom's condition the same as when you were in Washington, or did it change at all with this pretty epic thing happening to her?

EY: Let's see. In Washington she was okay because during the summer, every summer we worked out in the ranch. We went to Kent -- Kent is a city in Washington -- and there were quite a few Japanese farmers. And in order to make money to buy school clothes, we had to go pick strawberries or any crop that needed help. So I remember picking strawberries, blackberries, loganberries. And at that time, they didn't have pants. So I just had a dress on, and my knees would just get so scarred up because to pick berries you had to get on your knees to pick the berries. And by the time school started, I had black knees, and the skin was so thick there it was hard to keep it clean. But my mom somehow had pants, I can still visualize her wearing her pants. She had a towel on her neck, and she had a straw hat. Me, I just had a dress on, and my mom had one of those arm protectors, and there I was just with a dress, and then my knees, oh, my gosh. So anyway, we did that almost every year, four years, every summer. And I don't remember if I ever got to wear pants or not, picking berries. But anyway, I managed. [Laughs] So she was okay then. So when we got to camp then, I don't think that she took any hobbies or went to class or anything like that. Because when Jimi showed me what his mom did and all that, I was really surprised, because my mom never showed any interest. As far as I was concerned, she was always in bed. I don't know a person could be in bed like that, but anyway, she did. But somehow she survived that. But that was one thing, I was never going to be like my mother, never.

LP: I was wondering if camp made her feel more, like, kind of depressed or helpless or anything like that, or if she just sort of stayed that same...

EY: I think status quo, I think. Because the people in the whole block, you know, people talk about the block, you know what the block was, and they would see me carrying the plate home to the barrack, to our room. And they'd always say, "Well, there goes the Japanese person." My maiden name was Tanaka, so they would say, they don't verbally come out and say so, but I know from the way they expressed their face that they were saying, "There she goes again, I guess Mom's in bed," kind of a thing. And then once a week I would do the laundry and the sheets. So in Tule Lake, in our particular area, we had the laundry sinks all along the wall. Some camps had it in the center, but ours was all along the walls. So I would take up three units early morning when people were still sleeping, so I wouldn't bother the others. So I would have cold water and hot water, soap, rinse, rinse, rinse, and that was it. Then I'd start out with my white one and the colored ones and dark colors, like everyone else does. Then I'd hang it out there and on cold winter days, the sheets used to get stiff like this. The summer, it's like of like this. But anyway, we survived. [Laughs]

LP: Was your dad's attitude and demeanor the same, or did you notice any change in his...

EY: Seemed like he was okay either way. I guess he made up his mind while he brought her over here, so he had to make the best of the situation, I think so. He didn't have enough money to tell her to home if that's what you want to do, but I don't think... I've never heard him talk to me about that. In fact, she still was in bed even after we got married. My husband finally said -- because at first, after we got married, my father-in-law says, "I think you should go home once." So Jim and I went down there, she was in bed, she wouldn't get up. So finally Jimi went to the bedroom and he finally told her, "If you don't come out and say hi to us even though we come all the way down here, I'm never going to bring your daughter home again." So after that, when she found out that I was coming down, she made sure she was up when we came over. [Laughs] But that was her. It was all about her, so I accepted it, but I think it was hard for Jimi. She didn't have respect for him by not showing up, and I felt the same way, too. He finally woke up, and I'm glad he did, but it was her loss, unfortunately.

LP: Was there anything else about Pinedale that you wanted us to make sure to capture on film? I was going to transition into Tule Lake unless there was anything else.

EY: I don't think so. Because it was so (temporary), and of course, at the time, we were not sure whether we were going to be relocated. We thought it might be it, that this is the way we're going to live. We didn't know how long, and so when they told us that we were going to be moved to Tule Lake, we wondered what's going to happen now? We didn't know what to expect over there. I didn't have much more to say on that.

LP: Did Tule Lake, did that phrase mean anything? One lady I interviewed thought, because it had "lake" in it, they were going to go to a lake, and she actually had brought, like, a bathing suit and different swimming things with her. Did Tule Lake...

EY: It was really different because it was so large. And we did have a firebreak in between our boards. And the fact that... good thing is that they established, the fact that all of us needed to continue our education. And I think if it weren't for the college students who were there and those who were about to get their degree, but because it happened, they couldn't get it. I think because they got together and decided all these kids were just doing nothing, floating around, spending their day doing nothing. And I think they all felt the need to do something, and the fact that they established a school, and then the administration got on the wagon and said, "Hey, yeah, they're right, they need to have something." So to this day, I still wonder how they got accredited, that those of us who graduated from high school in camp were able to get accreditation to be accepted to the outside college which has happened. And like I graduated here in Tri-State High, you know why it was named Tri-State? Washington, Oregon, California, so we all voted on that. There were other names given out, and then we said, "No, I think Tri-State explains all of us," because we were all from three different regions, so that's how it got. And how Aquarius got their name... I don't know how that came about, but I kind of figure aquamarine's the water, so the Tule Lake Basin maybe, and I don't know what the, how that came about. I never did question it. But anyway, we were the first graduating class.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.