Densho Digital Archive - Ayako Nishi Fujimoto - Kyoko Nishi Tanaka - Nancy Nishi Interview (denshovh-fayako

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RP: What else did you do around your block? You made friends with kids in your block, or did you go to other blocks?

AF: I remember one day, the YMCA had established a group of young women and probably men, too, but I remember the women because I was mainly in the group. And they established little groups of girls clubs. And so my sister and I were the same, almost a year apart, so we joined a group.

RP: Which group was that?

AF: Forget Me Nots.

RP: Forget Me Nots?

AF: Oh, you know them?

RP: I know a few of them, and now I know you. And that was you and...

AF: My sister Miyo.

RP: Miyo.

AF: Uh-huh, she's not here.

RP: Okay.

AF: And that was set up by the YMCA I remember. YMCA, we were going to have a group, and we're going to establish clubs. So my sister and I went there, I didn't know what was happening. But anyway, she says, "We're going to join this group," and so I says, "Okay." I didn't know what was going on at that time. So anyway, so she and I joined this group called Forget Me Nots, and to this day, we're a fairly close group.

RP: How many girls were in that club?

AF: Oh, about up to ten or something like that. It was a YMCA established group.

RP: And tell us some of the things that you did.

AF: Oh, we had dances, that's all I remember.

RP: Dances in the mess hall?

AF: Yes, uh-huh, in the recreation hall primarily.

NN: In sports, too.

KT: Oh, yes, we used to play the, blow the horn there.

AF: Oh, yeah. And my sister used to play the accordion piano, 'cause there weren't too many musicians in the group, in the camp. Because they were so young, I guess, when they first came.

RP: What do you remember about the dances?

AF: Oh, it was a lot of fun. [Laughs]

NN: Wasn't there a, it's like a USO for the young men that were coming back?

AF: Oh.

NN: And they used to, the clubs, I think, used to be involved with that. Because I remember --

AF: Oh, I think it must have been the older girls, because we were just young, preteen.

NN: Well, somebody, one of you was working there, and they used to make sandwiches. I would get small pieces of it. [Laughs]

AF: Oh, is that right?

NN: And then I believe it was in Block 20 they had this outdoor movie.

RP: Outdoor theater?

NN: Uh-huh. And so we'd dig a hole and put the blanket and lie down and watch it.

KT: In the firebreak.

RP: And there was another club that formed called the Funsters.

KT: Oh, I remember the Funsters. There was the Funsters and the Twixteeners, and... gosh.

NN: There's Modernaires and some others, but you were...

AF: They were a little bit older group, huh?

RP: When these clubs get together and put on dances, or was it just each club had its own kind of activities?

KT: They had their own activities, I would say.

RP: And did you have a sports team associated with the Funsters?

KT: I don't remember. Not associated with clubs, I don't think.

RP: Were you on a, were you on a team in camp? Baseball team or softball team?

AF: I think the younger girls my age, we had a team, baseball team.

RP: The Forget Me Nots?

AF: Yeah, uh-huh.

KT: I know they had baseball.

AF: Although I wasn't very athletic.

RP: So you keep in touch still with the girls in the...

AF: Oh, yes, we used to get together every once in a while. We haven't done it lately, however, but we did for a while.

NN: I have an interesting situation where in my third grade -- oh, this is after the war, I mean, after the war ended, it was in the seventies. One of my girlfriends had a friend who just got her counseling degree, so she wanted to have a class within, at her home, so that she could experience counseling. So it was on assertive training, so they had, there were about six of us that went. And I met this girl there, and she said, "Gee, you look so familiar." And I said, "Oh." She says, "Were you in Manzanar?" I said, "Yes." "Were you in the third grade?" "Yes." "Was it Mrs. Seiko Ishida's class?" I said, "Yes." Said, "Do you have a picture of the class at home?" I said, "Yes." She said, "Go home and take a look." And lo and behold -- she's so sharp -- and there she is and there I am on there. And so after that class, this was in the seventies, so we got reacquainted again after that, and we've been very close since.

AF: Who's that?

NN: Margie Motowaki was her maiden name, but she's Wong. And it was nice to be able to spark that relationship. And then right after the war, too, there people that were moved into the west Los Angeles as well as in our area. So there were four kids who had gone to Manzanar who I wasn't that familiar with as much before, and we went through elementary, junior high school and high school together. And we still have that relationship going, too.

RP: Yeah, that camp experience bonds so many friendships.

NN: It did, yes. So there's some positive from that.

AF: Yes, because I came from, we came from a neighborhood of all, hardly any Japanese in our community, so when we went there, it was really unusual.

KT: I still can't get over when I think about camp, all the Japanese faces.

AF: So see so many Japanese. 'Cause the only people that we knew that were Japanese community was in Japanese school, but that was only, although ours was every day after American school, but still, it was not enough to feel close bondship. So it was nice when we got into camp and we were able to build lot of close friendships and groups. And I remember the YMCA had got all these young, young women together and divided into, I guess, similar experience or age group. And then we, to this day, we get together, this YMCA group.

RP: Did some of the clubs also kind of support helping out the young kids in the camp? Like supporting activities or like...

AF: Well, I don't know, maybe your group did. Because we were too young, we were only twelve, eleven, twelve years old. So we didn't do that type of work.

NN: It's my understanding that the older Niseis, when we first got into camp, because there was no structure for the educational training for the young children, a lot of them, I think, volunteered their services to establish some kind of a service, and was able to get books from outside the camp to get that going. And it's my understanding that there were other areas of service that, like the engineers or the carpenters or the interpreters, they would volunteer the services. And I imagine a lot of them were eventually given some kind of compensation for other services afterwards.