<Begin Segment 13>

RP: Kats, we were talking a little bit about your experiences outside of camp. Let's go back into camp. You palled around with some really, you had a tight, kind of cohesive group of friends in camp.

KO: Yeah, there were about seven of us that hung around. We weren't a big gang, some of the guys were big, but...

RP: Were there any kind of rivalries between groups of kids in camp?

KO: We never were. We did what we wanted to. There was not really, 'cause Northwest people, Seattle area people, were very mild people. Minidoka, I think, was known as one of the, say, the moderate...

RP: Moderate.

KO: They didn't have the problems there at all. There was a few incidents during that time between the ones that volunteered, and some comments I think were made by the ones that were objecting to being imprisoned and so, but Minidoka as a whole was considered a very, well, moderate atmosphere camp. There was no great protests.

RP: Like at Manzanar or Tule Lake.

KO: Or Tule Lake, yes. In fact, they took the few problem area people from Minidoka and transferred them down to Tule Lake, and brought up the Northwest people that were imprisoned down there back to Minidoka. And my wife was one of those that I think, yeah, was down in Tule Lake and was brought back up.

RP: She originally was in Seattle?

KO: No, Independence, Oregon.

RP: Oh, and they sent her to Tule Lake.

KO: Tule, and then they brought her back up to rejoin the family and things.

RP: Did you, did you meet her in Minidoka?

KO: No, I never knew her in camp.

RP: You never did?

KO: She was four years younger. We were kind of stratified, once you're in a confined area, you got these levels of people and we hung around more with our age group.

RP: Right, it seems like the groups were very stratified according to ages.

KO: Yes, I've always been told by the older ones, they didn't know me because I was one of the younger ones.

RP: Did you guys get into any mischief in camp? Did you begin smoking in camp or drinking?

KO: Two of my friends smoked. But they did not, we were rather moderate, our group, and we did things together. In fact, like I remember we sponsored dances which means getting a hold of the facility mess hall, and we'd do all the preparation work, we moved all the furniture. I remember one Christmas, we got hold of white sheets, moved everything out to the outside, I mean, toward the walls, decorated the whole, just surrounded the whole area with white sheets. And then if I recall, my friend that became an architect, a very famous architect in Detroit, we set up a little lighting fixture. Then we played the music and let everybody enjoy dancing. So we did about two or three of those dances, plus I felt somebody had to do it to make the best of things. I heard some Caucasians, we were talking one day, they said, I said we did that. "Oh, you enjoyed yourself?" I says, "No." I says, "What we did was try to make do with what you, we had, and for you to say we were enjoying ourselves," I says, "that's wrong." I says, "You were home in your own home and having Christmas, and we're trying to make it nice with what we have." I guess I'm different, maybe some people would say, "Well, we had fun." What do you call fun? You make the best of situations.

RP: Not where you wanted to be or what you wanted to do.

KO: That's right.

RP: But this is what you had.

KO: That's right. And it's a wonder, like the school system itself, I wasn't a super brain, but I guess I was okay, but we had people that really did excellent, well, friends of mine. One of my best friends is number one man in the, what would you say, in the financial side for the government. He travels all over for the World Bank, he's a lawyer, things, very outstanding. You don't hear about him but he is one of those prime movers. We've had some very outstanding people. Like Jim Akagi, you met him. He was a, told you he was a professor at Iowa State University in Ames. Microbiology.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2007 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.