Densho Digital Archive - Susumu Iwasaki Interview (denshovh-isusumu

<Begin Segment 16>

RP: How about... there were charges that some of the mess hall cooks were brewing up sake and other things?

SI: Oh, yeah. [Laughs] They were --

RP: Did you, did you see that?

SI: No, I didn't see it but most of the stuff was underground. I mean, like they, they used to build, dug a hole under the barrack. And they used to make it into kind of like a clubhouse. And I heard, from what I heard on it that that's where they used to make their rice wine. So anyway, I never, I never saw one, but...

RP: Did you hear about the, the charges about sugar disappearing in the camp? Did you ever hear about that?

SI: No. No. Even when we were passing off food stuff, nothing like that ever happened. I mean, like sugars or stuff like that was never, you know. And, that, that's the first time I heard about...

RP: There was one gentleman who was, his name was Harry Ueno and he was in Block, I think he lived in Block 22 but he was the head of the mess hall workers union and he accused two Caucasian staffpeople of taking sugar and meat away.

SI: Oh, is that right? That I don't know.

RP: But then we've talked to other people who, who believe it was the Terminal Island guys who might have been taking sugar home with them or something else.

SI: What are they gonna do at home?

RP: I don't know.

SI: Hey. Nobody drinks, I mean, there's no coffee. You can only drink so much. But I never heard of that one.

RP: There were many people, I don't want to say many -- but there were people in the camp who looked at the Terminal Island group, kind of kept their distance because they always said they were very "Japanesey," or too "Japanesey."

SI: Well, not really, because we all... the Terminal Island people seemed to be more cliquish. And they don't associate with the other, what, what we call yosou no hito, which is outside people. And so whenever there was any... well, and they, the other people always thought that Terminal Island people was tougher than the others, and they were more or less sort of afraid of us. And because I, one incidence I had was I was coming, sit... we walked some friends up to Block 36, coming back and we got corralled by some L.A. people. And one of this guy here was from, I think it was a Shonean boy. But anyway, I had an argument with him when we were playing baseball and he came up to me, he slapped me. And then at that time they found out that we were from Terminal Island. These guys all backed out. And of course they were afraid. We had sort of like a bad reputation. [Laughs]

RP: Well they, they had a special name for you. The Yogores.

SI: Well, Yogore is just a name of a group of guys, they were like basketball team and baseball team, and they were probably the second oldest group. The oldest was the Skippers. They still had the name "Skipper" in camp. And the Yogores came and there was another group, almost the same age, and then there was our group. And so there was at least about five different group of, you know, in our in camp. The Skipper Juniors was the youngest and we were the next.

RP: So five groups of Terminal Island boys...

SI: Yeah, uh-huh.

RP: Uh-huh.