Densho Digital Archive - Henry Nishi Interview I (denshovh-nhenry

<Begin Segment 27>

RP: How did you occupy your time on the first days and weeks of your new life at Manzanar?

HN: We got together, like for myself, we got together with friends that we knew. And I think on the next, the barrack across the street, across our barrack, was my friend Joe Kishi that... and I remember talking to him and then Sho Komai, which lived in another block, I think he lived in Block 17 or one of those blocks. It was close by. 'Cause we knew each other from, from home. We would get together. And I think it was because Joe was the kind of a guy that would, was very aggressive, he did... he said, "Well, we gotta do something. Let's start a nursery." And that's what, that's how that came about.

RP: So that idea started pretty early on?

HN: Yeah.

RP: Just a few weeks or so after you got there?

HN: Yeah, yeah. It took, took a while because we had to get the material. We had to requisition for the material and then you had to wait 'til it got there. But then we knew the project was... they said, yeah, you could go ahead and do it. And I'm sure it was because the, Ralph Merritt, which was the, what was he? The...

RP: The Project Director?

HN: Project Director.

RP: Uh-huh.

HN: He was pretty liberal about letting us do these things. He gave us the okay to do it.

RP: And so the money to, to build that nursery came from the government?

HN: Oh, yeah.

RP: All those supplies and construction.

HN: Oh, yeah. We had no money to buy, to buy things. Yeah. We had to requisition, first we had to requisition for the lumber to build a, you know, had to build x-amount of four-by-four posts. We had to get so many bundles of the lath. And it was a big lath house. Because we copied the same lath design as the guayule, 'cause they already had that lath house there.

RP: They already had the lath house?

HN: Yeah, yeah. So we, 'course, our lath house wasn't as big as the guayule project, but it was a fair size lath house that we built. And when you build the... the framework of our lath house was very simple but what takes time is the laths. You had to... putting the laths in is a time-consuming thing. But we had the time, sit there and...

KP: Where was this constructed? Where did you build this?

HN: Right at that south, southwest corner. Right next to... that space was open and right east of us was, going east, was the guayule, guayule lath house, and beyond that was the, was the camouflage.

RP: Yeah, to the east of you.

HN: To the east, yeah, was the camouflage.

RP: So you were right beyond Block 6, I think.

HN: Yeah.

RP: Right towards the...

HN: Right in the corner.

RP: You were around Bear's Creek and eventually where that golf course --

HN: Golf course, yeah.

RP: -- was put in.

HN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: Okay.

HN: But like, right that corner, isn't that Bear's Creek that comes through right at that corner?

RP: Sure is.

HN: 'Cause we were right next to that Bear's Creek.

RP: Did you build a greenhouse, too, as part of that?

HN: No, no.

RP: It was just a lath house?

HN: Yeah, lath house.

RP: Uh-huh. I think we'll...

HN: Primarily, I think asking for greenhouse was a little bit too much. [Laughs]

RP: Build the lath house first and.

HN: Yeah.

RP: Okay. Henry, I think we'll...

HN: Probably if we asked for it we probably might have gotten it too. Who knows?

RP: Aim big.

HN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: Okay. We'll finish there for this, for this part of the interview.

HN: Okay.