<Begin Segment 9>

AL: When... you said you had a very close family, when you were in camp did that change at all? I mean, did you eat together? Did you... what was your daily life like?

SK: What happened was we used to go to eat together as a family and then my mother went to work in the kitchens. And then the kids from across the street, across from us, we'd say, oh gosh, we were having... well, it's time for lunch or time for dinner. So we'd all go together. And we never really sat with the family. And I think that's what kind of broke, you know, the manners and so forth. The family eating was different. I know my sister at first used to take me and she used to always say, "Now do this and do that." And I was, she was about five years older than me. And she'd always make sure that my manners were just so.

AL: What do you remember about the food in the mess hall?

SK: I thought it was fine. A lot of people didn't, but the only thing I can think about with the mess hall was that I had these heavy, heavy plates to carry, and these heavy mugs. And I found it very difficult to carry because I was only, I was just a little kid. And that was the only thing I... the food didn't bother me at all.

AL: What was your --

SK: I know my brother and my sisters it did. But for me, nothing new.

AL: What was your favorite meal in the mess hall?

SK: I don't know. I like my breakfast. We had pancakes and eggs and we had everything. And I remember they kept saying... well, there was a shortage on eggs and there was a shortage of this. But we had all the things that we wanted.

AL: How come?

SK: I don't know. I mean we just, I just know that we had it, and I remember hearing about all that.

AL: Right. Well, you know, you had a chicken ranch at Manzanar. They had 10,000 chickens there so that might have explained why they had eggs.

SK: Yeah, we had eggs and of course we had lots of fruits and vegetables because it was, it was a nice place to grow vegetables and fruits.

AL: One of the things we're working on this year is restoring a mess hall that we returned back from Bishop Airport. And it's actually placed on Block 14. But we're always... we have some photographs of the inside of the mess hall, but we're always curious about what people remember about the physical layout of the building, what you saw when you were in there, any clues that might help us in restoring our mess hall of what you remember from being inside of one.

SK: All I know is we were always in long lines. That's all I can remember other than... and then carrying those heavy, heavy plates and mugs and... the food never bothered me.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.