Densho Digital Archive - Takeshi Minato Interview (denshovh-mtakeshi-01-0024)

<Begin Segment 24>

TM: Well, I had a actually a distant relative, he lived in Block 3. He dug a basement and he, where he got the grape, the grapes and things like that... but he was making wine and whiskey or whatever. [Laughs]

KP: Do you remember the building he was in?

TM: Block 3 anyway.

RP: Block 3.

KP: We'll, we'll look for that.

RP: Yeah. Probably a collapsed basement. Look for the, look for the still. Interesting. So you know of people who were doing that.

TM: Yeah, things like that, yeah. He was on the food truck, I know.

RP: Oh, he was.

TM: Oh, yes. [Laughs]

RP: Well, some of the other, other things, activities that Terminal Island guys were involved in, they were involved in putting in the, the plasterboard in the rooms. You know, putting in the insulation.

TM: Oh, I thought they were linoleum mostly.

RP: They also did the linoleum, too.

TM: Oh, oh.

RP: Did you get in on any of that work?

TM: No, no. That's work.

RP: That was hard work, yeah. [Laughs] Just, just checking. But they, you know, they were very, they had a little bit of power, you know in those situations where, you know...

TM: Oh, yeah because see they had a big group. I mean...

RP: You wanted to make sure you treated them right or else they might not want to do your job very quick. So they kinda played a little favoritism.

TM: Yeah, and then later on these, well, the Yogores were the younger kids. Everybody was afraid of them because it was a group, like a gang. So, even the Manzanars, guys, were afraid of them. You've heard of that huh?

RP: Oh, yeah. Yeah. The Yogores.

TM: Yeah. You know what yogore means? Huh?

RP: Dirty one.

TM: Yeah. [Laughs]

RP: But you didn't feel like one.

TM: No, I wasn't in that. I wasn't... I had nothing to do with the Terminal Island group, actually. Yeah, because I didn't go to school with them.

RP: Uh-huh. There were, there were stories that the, that these kids would get in fights or provoke fights. After a baseball game there'd be fights and break up dances, crash parties, all kinds of good stuff.