<Begin Segment 14>

RP: This is tape two of a continuing interview with Kiyo, Nancy and Aya. And we were talking about your early, early impressions and memories of Manzanar. You lived in Block 14, and interestingly enough, that's the block that the Park Service has designated as a demonstration block, which means that when we reconstruct buildings, they'll be in Block 14. And so we've already started working on a mess hall building. Not an original building, but one that we brought in.

AF: Oh, how interesting.

RP: So I want to kind of get a really good picture of Block 14, so we can perhaps use some of your stories and information to work out panels, exhibit panels about life in camp. So let's start talking about your barrack, your room. Things were pretty sparse when you first got there? And how did your room change over time in terms of curtains or... I know a lot of people ordered furniture and other items from the Sears & Roebuck catalog. Can you talk a little bit about that one room where your family lived, and what do you remember about it?

AF: It was very sparse, I remember, at the beginning. But my mother had brought in our furnitures that we had stored in L.A. somewhere, and she brought in, like, our beds, I remember. And I can't remember what else.

KT: It was very difficult for her at first.

AF: Yeah, because she was by herself. My father was... and there was four young girls.

RP: Young girls, and nobody to build any furniture.

AF: No.

KT: Right.

AF: No boys in the family either.

RP: Did you, did you have to share your barrack room initially with another family?

AF: Yes, initially.

RP: And was that a family that you knew?

KT: No, not the room itself, because the rooms were, the barrack was partitioned, right?

AF: No, no, at the beginning there was a young couple, young couple.

NN: That's what I thought.

RP: That you didn't know?

AF: No, we didn't know at all.

RP: And so, did you put up a...

AF: Yeah.

NN: Curtain.

RP: Curtain or a blanket or something. And over time, did you see any changes in that room?

AF: Oh, yes. Over time, I think they left, and my mother... and my father returned, so we got a little bigger room, I think, slightly bigger.

KT: And I remember him putting a curtain between the, the bedroom was one side of the curtain, and the other side...

AF: There was a potbelly stove.

KP: What was the curtain made out of, do you remember?

AF: Oh, bedspread or something, huh? It's probably got through Sears Roebuck somewhere. [Laughs] I think it was an old bedspread or something.

RP: Do you remember sleeping on those straw mattresses for a while?

AF: Oh, yes.

RP: How was that?

KT: Well, I guess it was uncomfortable, but we were so young...

AF: Yeah, we were so little.

KT: We just took it for granted, I guess.

RP: I'm sure it was uncomfortable for the older people. So you eventually go your own beds shipped in?

AF: Oh, yes.

RP: That was nice.

NN: Did we get beds shipped in?

AF: Yes.

RP: I saw a few photographs in your book that showed some nice landscaping around your barrack. Is that something your dad did? You did some landscaping around the barrack?

KT: Well, the built a Japanese garden.

AF: Are you talking about in camp?

KT: In front of our barracks.

RP: In front of your --

AF: Oh, I don't think my father did it, did he?

NN: I think he did. There were some flowers, and I think there was, like a lawn. I don't know if that lasted very long, though.

AF: Probably not, in the desert.

NN: But there is that picture of it. It's a picture, you know, of Kiyo and Miyo and Yuki.

KT: This is in Manzanar?

NN: Yuki and... right in front of our...

KT: Was it a garden?

NN: There's a small picture of the four of us, too, in front with the same kind of...

AF: Oh, really?

KT: I don't remember.

NN: And in the background is the mountains. But it's slightly faded.

AF: Oh, really? I have to look at that.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.