Densho Digital Archive - Shig Kaseguma Interview (denshovh-kshig-01-0012)

<Begin Segment 12>

RP: So you went to "Camp Harmony," you evacuated to "Camp Harmony." And tell us a little bit about what that was like for you. "Camp Harmony"?

SK: Yeah.

RP: Tell us about how that was for you.

SK: Well, it wasn't a tragic thing for me, you know, but it was kind of tragic for my parents. Because you had six kids living in the little quarter. And the quarters were not elegant places, they were animal stalls really. And it was kind of a, it wasn't a painful experience, let's put it that way. It wasn't like the Third Reich where they were killing people, it didn't come to that. So it wasn't a tragic place where it was a matter of life and death. But when you think about it, it wasn't that enormous happening to us, because we didn't know anything anyway. There was no future in being a Nisei, second generation, graduating from college, you can't get a job. We knew that. But the parents want their son to go to college, no matter what. It's a matter of prestige, I guess, or should be doing it. My sister never got to go to college. Except for the youngest one, when they were way past that stage. But I think being in camp was, oh, it was just like bumming around. That what it really was. There was no future, we didn't know what was going to happen to us. So we made the best of it by being ourselves and just talking to each other and getting together and playing sports. 'Cause there wasn't a thought of being harmed. Although you saw guards hanging out there with guns and if you didn't make a break for it, you're safe. And the life went along. We were fed three times a day. It wasn't like you're going to be starved to death if you were in the camp in the German camps, they were starved to death almost. Either you were killed, or you starved to death. So we didn't feel that it was being severely attacked. And most of us, right after the big Depression in the United States, we didn't have anything. There were a few that had businesses. I'm sure there were quite a few that had businesses that they lost. But the majority didn't. They were trying to eke out a living, and during the Depression, I heard of people eating dandelions 'cause they couldn't get any kind of... or go fishing and eat fish every day. That was a big thing during Depression. Or eating mushrooms and eating plants. But my father was working, so there was not a big strain on us. But I'm sure a lot of families were, suffered greatly during the Depression. And being in camp was not a... well, as Victor probably told you, it was just, at our age, we didn't have a family, our own family. But I'm sure if you had a family, it was a tragic thing. I thought about it later that, gee, raising your own family, you wonder how in the hell they survive, you know, trying to keep the kid alive. 'Cause there's no doctors to think of. They had some doctors, but not in "Harmony."

RP: Oh, not in "Harmony."

SK: Flies all over. Fleas and flies. It wasn't a pleasant place to be, but we made the best of it, I guess. We survived.