Densho Digital Archive - Susumu Iwasaki Interview (denshovh-isusumu

<Begin Segment 14>

RP: This is tape two of a continuing interview with Cabbie Iwasaki. And Cabbie, we were just kind of following your journey up to Manzanar. And you were telling us where you were originally put in the, in the camp. Where was that?

SI: It was Block 6. I don't know which block it was, but anyway, they throw us, two family in one room. And then we found out next day that most of the Terminal Island people was in Block 9 and 10. So we just took our stuff and then we went down. And the family that was staying with us they, they went Block 10. And then we found a room in Block 9, which was the furthest one which is Block 9-13-4. That was our address on the... so that's where we settled for the remainder of the time we spent over there.

RP: Uh-huh. What were your first impressions of the camp when you arrived in the days after?

SI: Well, not very much. I says, like I'm pretty frank about my language myself. But it was... it was pretty bad. I mean, you know, it was, what? There was seven of us in one little room, no partition, nothing. There was no tarpaper or nothing. It was just, just a room. And the floor was bare, there was nothing on the floor. And when the wind blows we used put stuff in all these cracks so that wind doesn't blow in. We were actually right next to the break, firebreak, which was the worst place to be at. But, because we couldn't be choosy because it was the only room that was there. And anyway, that was... my first impression was, "What a shitty place." [Laughs] Anyway, what can you do? We're like, hey. It was afterward that I thought about, oh yeah... I was in the service. I say, well, wait 'til we get overseas. I'm gonna show these whiteys. [Laughs] 'Cause without us they were, they were, they can't do the work. But it was okay. These officers was pretty nice guys. They're young officers. And we got, got along pretty well. I'm kinda like a rebel like. Like we do interrogation work over there, right, with the returning prisoner of war from the China and Russia. That's the kind of work I was doing.

RP: Uh-huh. The camp was still being constructed when you arrived?

SI: Oh, very much so. Yeah. They even... remember went to help some of these people on the other side of the firebreak and in fact, that was the day when I saw this guy came on a pickup was shot. And I, from what I heard, that he was too close to the fence and the guard shot him. And that was the only thing I remember the early part of the camp life, huh.

RP: When you moved into your barrack in block nine, were all the windows in and the roof was all installed and there were other people who said that they moved in early and their...

SI: There was nothing there. The window was there, yeah. But, but there was no side tarpaper, no roofing, no floors. It was just bare. We did all that. I mean, my brothers, they did the flooring after, after everything got settled down. I did the roofing with the roof crew. And, and we're making a whole eight dollars a month. [Laughs]

RP: Right. And then a crew, another Terminal Island crew also put the plasterboard in the, in the rooms?

SI: Yeah, yeah.

RP: Did you do any of that, too?

SI: That I didn't do. The only thing I can remember doing was the roof. I was in the roofing crew.

RP: On just your block or, or...

SI: Oh no, all of it.

RP: You, you went through the whole camp?

SI: All the camp, right.

RP: Oh. And you did that in the summertime when you were out of school?

SI: No. Yeah, yeah, in fact, I can't remember when I did it. But I'm sure we were still going to school. And to carry that thing up the ladder, I tell you, that's a one hell of a trek. I don't know how many, how many pounds that thing was. But, you know, those rolls, you carry on your shoulder, you gotta get up on the ladder, I tell you. There's no such thing as fork lift or anything like that, right? Yeah.

RP: You put, you just put down the roofing paper?

SI: Yeah, right, tarpaper. Yeah.

RP: Tarpaper. And then you nailed it in place?

SI: Oh yeah. That I can remember, yeah.

KP: Did you use tar to seal the seams or...

SI: What?

KP: Tar to seal the seams?

SI: Gee, I don't know whether we did that or not. All we can do is carry that step and that thing up there and you know...

RP: How many, how many members of the roofing crew did you have?

SI: There must be at least ten, twelve people in our group. And we, we used to do about, oh, three buildings a day. It was pretty interesting then.

KP: Can we get you up there to work? We might be building some more barracks.

SI: What?

KP: We might be building some more barracks. Can we get you up there to roof it for us?

SI: I can't understand what.

RP: Can you roof? If we put up some new barracks at Manzanar will you roof 'em for us?

SI: [Laughs] You gotta pay me a lotta money, more than eight dollars a month.

RP: How about sixteen dollars a month?

SI: That was, that's how much the, the professional was getting over there, sixteen dollars a month.

RP: No, the professionals got nineteen.

SI: Oh, it was nineteen? Well... somebody was, I know, was getting sixteen dollars.

RP: Sixteen, right.

SI: I was getting, I know I was getting eight dollars a month.

RP: Just eight?

SI: Yeah.

RP: There was another, a twelve dollar a month level, too.

SI: Was it? Maybe I was getting twelve. Anyway, as... in fact, I think my first job was a, I was a messenger boy.

RP: Really?

SI: Yeah.

RP: What did you deliver?

SI: You know, that I don't know. All I did was the lady tell me, okay you take this to so and so block. And I remember going all the way to Block 36 which was the end of the, the camp. And I used to remember delivering stuff over there. Why, I don't know. I mean, I didn't care who I delivered to, but...

RP: That was your first job?

SI: Yeah.

RP: And then you got the roofing job?

SI: Yeah.

RP: Huh.