<Begin Segment 20>

RP: Have you been involved with pilgrimages or reunions relating to Tule Lake, Fusa?

FY: Unions?

RP: Reunions or pilgrimages.

FY: Reunions, oh, yes. They were very good. Yes, I went to several of those reunions.

RP: Did you meet friends or people that you remember from camp?

FY: Yes, that's right. It was just wonderful to see some of those people that I became friends with in the camps.

RP: And how about your... did you have kids?

FY: Yes, I have two boys and two girls.

RP: Do you speak about your camp experience with them?

FY: Sometimes I do.

RP: Are they curious about it?

FY: Not, not too curious. So I decided that maybe I should write all this down and give it to them.

RP: Well, we might be able to help you with that.

FY: That's true.

RP: We can, we'll be sharing a copy of the interview with you.

FY: Oh, I see, okay, thank you.

RP: So they can just put it on a DVD player and watch it.

FY: That would be lovely.

RP: That would be a good way of sharing it with them. Have you been involved at all in sharing your story with school groups?

FY: Yes, uh-huh.

RP: Tell us about that.

FY: That's... the archives, the Sacramento Archives, State University of Sacramento Archives, they began to collect the Japanese history. And so, and also, they also had fifth grade history students come and listen to what we had to say. And I always participated in that.

RP: You still do?

FY: Not anymore, but I did for many years. Time of Remembrance, it was called.

RP: Time of Remembrance?

FY: Uh-huh.

RP: And what did you share with the students? What was the most important things that you wanted to get across to them?

FY: Well, each one of us were assigned to say certain things, and I was assigned to talk about our barracks. And they did have a model barracks, and so I used to tell them how we lived, how our family lived in the barrack.

RP: Well, just another couple of questions about camp. You mentioned the barracks, and you, when you got there, you had the cots and you had a few other, lightbulb, and that's about it.

FY: Yes, uh-huh.

RP: What changed inside your barrack over time?

FY: Oh, let me see now. It was just a bare room with just cots. And some of our, some of the young men, when they wanted to date us and all that, would say, "You know, I could make a closet for you." So I said, "Oh, great." Or, "I could make," let's see, "I could make some chairs for you." "Oh, wonderful." Then we could have a party at our barrack. And so we did have parties in the barrack.

RP: That's how you got furniture?

FY: Yes, uh-huh. But some of the women were very clever, they made some furniture, too. So when I returned to Sacramento, I enrolled in a woodwork class that they had.

RP: What did you make?

FY: What did I make? Oh, I made... our front of the house, we had to have a light, I made that light cover, I made a lazy susan, and let me see, what else did I make? Oh, some of those things like that. I learned how to do carpentry for the first time in my life.

RP: What do you recall about the changes that took place outside the barrack in terms of the landscape? When you first got there, you mentioned very poignantly that there's not a tree around.

FY: Yeah, that's right. Very bare.

RP: What did it look like before you left camp?

FY: There was some artistic people who decided to make a rock garden right in front of their barracks, and things like that.

RP: Did you have plants and flowers around your barrack?

FY: No, we did not. But what we did, young women did was to collect all those shells that's around, and made some corsages and whatnot.

KP: Art of Gaman had some great pictures.

FY: Yeah, that's right.

RP: You said that your father carved birds.

FY: Yes, uh-huh, we still have those. I gave it to my daughter, and she wears it every once in a while.

RP: Do you remember watching him make the birds?

FY: Yes. They used to whittle around making those birds.

RP: And then he'd paint them, too?

FY: Pardon me?

RP: Would he paint them?

FY: Yes, uh-huh. I'm sure you've seen some, haven't you? Aren't they lovely?

RP: Beautiful. Beautiful birds.

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