<Begin Segment 8>

JA: How much would you get paid for being on the survey crew?

HF: Sixteen dollars a month. Sixteen dollars a month and the leader got nineteen dollars. That's, so... in all the camps, if you were working in the hospital, the doctors, head nurses, they got nineteen dollars. But others, the orderlies and such, they got sixteen dollars a month. And the same thing with working in the kitchen; if you were the head cook, then you got nineteen dollars, but if you were a dishwasher you got sixteen dollars.

JA: And what did you do with the money?

HF: Spent it.

JA: On what?

HF: I don't remember. [Laughs]

JA: You didn't have to pay for your meals, did you?

HF: No, we didn't have to pay for meals.

JA: Well, suppose you wanted a new suit of clothes or something. You didn't have a department store there at camp?

HF: No, but you would have no use for a suit of clothes. [Laughs]

JA: Well, you ripped your pants, you want a new pair of pants. How would you buy that?

HF: Well, they would issue you clothes. They weren't, they weren't the most comfortable clothes, and a lot of the clothes that they issued were World I, World War I issues. They had World I -- I don't know where they came from, but they had World War I issues of clothing. And the utensils that you had to -- these were, these were, that, for you to use -- they didn't issue them each time you went to the kitchen. You had them to take with you to the kitchen. And remember those, that aluminum pan that you had with the handle on it? And there was an aluminum cup that had the handles on it for the, in the World War I? Well, that's what was issued for us and those are what we were to carry to have our meals served to us. Because there would be -- what is it, cafeteria style -- while you were in -- that's another thing is when you're, each time, mealtime, you had to wait in line outside and then go to the, walk up into the kitchen and stand in line and they would serve you your meals and you would, they would put them in these pans. And often these pans -- they were supposed to stay steady and the handle was to hold that pan rigid, but there were many times the pans, something would happen to the hinge there and then you would have your food on the floor. And that would happen often, not only to me but many other people.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.