<Begin Segment 20>

AL: You know, just, I forgot to ask you one question. Did you... this might be too personal, but did you date in Minidoka or Tule Lake? Did you go on any dates?

EO: Yeah. Tule Lake I went to a... I had a crush on a young lady who came to Amache when they, we were separated in Tule Lake, Tule Lake became a "no-no" camp. So I kinda liked her and I took her to one of the dances in Tule Lake before we were sent to different, different camp. In (Minidoka), I started weightlifting club. Had a funny thing happen then. There was one gal, she was a good girl, but I think she kind of had a liking to me. And, 'cause she would hang around quite a bit. But she was going around with a Kibei kid, boy from Japan. He was about my size but he had two or three other buddies he would hang around with. I never paid attention to him. But, like I say, we talked and we were friendly. And one day the three Kibei boys, three or four of them, came to this little rec. center, one of the barracks, that's where we had our weightlifting club. And I had about a 170 pounds on the bar, which then was pretty light then. And I had been lifting, the cleaning, jerking, just kinda playing around with it. And we left the bar on the floor and we went to the other, little ways away from it to just kinda shoot the breeze, get some stuff ready. And one of the, the one fellow went over, looked at weight, and tried to pick it up. He went in to pick it up. For a lotta fellows, 170 pounds on the bar is a little heavy. You know, I never saw them anymore. [Laughs]

AL: What did you think about the "no-nos" at Tule Lake?

EO: Well, I didn't give them too much thought. The thing is, why did they want to say "no-no" for? I kinda figured, well, that's their business. I'm here, I'm a "yes-yes," I'm going in the army.

AL: Did you have... were you were when the Hoshidan was active? The pro-Japan movement in Tule Lake?

EO: No. They separated us before that, I believe.

AL: Before that.

EO: I think it was mostly all "no-nos" or a good majority of them when that Hoshidan, was it, group was there or was made there.

AL: Yeah, they had a, they had the Hoshidan and they also had a woman's movement. I can't remember what it was, maybe Seikokudan or something like that. And they had a youth movement. It was very active.

EO: Oh, was it?

AL: So you were probably in Minidoka by that time.

EO: By that time.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.