Densho Digital Archive - Susumu Iwasaki Interview (denshovh-isusumu

<Begin Segment 21>

RP: So where did you go when you left camp?

SI: After we left camp? Oh, they sent us to, oh, I tell you, it's a dump. In Long Beach there was a trailer court. And half the, the resident over there was black. And most of them, I think they were from the South. And I tell you, it was like going, like a hell hole over there. And then I went to apply for navy housing. The guy told me, he says, they won't issue housing to anybody. I mean, you gotta be somebody that's in the service. So after I went in the army after basic training I got home and I applied for navy housing right away for the folks. So that's when they got to go into the naval housing.

RP: So, in, in this Long Beach trailer camp, the family had one trailer?

SI: Hey, that's it. One trailer for seven of us? Hey, you gotta be joking, you know. So anyway, good thing my, my grandparents, like Yoshida family was there. So two of 'em used to go there and two of 'em used to go to my mother's sister, which is Yoshida. They had a trailer and then one of them used to go over there. And two of us stayed in our assigned trailer, and mother and father, right?

RP: Did you have bathrooms in the trailers or did you have a...

SI: I can't remember, taking a bathroom. I think they did, yeah. But, I tell you, that was just one hell of a place, I mean, you know. But most of the time my second brother and myself were away anyway. We went to, like I said, Delano, went to Oregon. So luckily my older brother was home and when I wrote to him, just tell him to delay my physical.

RP: So housing was a real issue for a lot of people out of camp.

SI: Oh, yeah. Very much. There was two trailer court. One was on the west side and the other one was right almost downtown. And the other side was nicer. They had a community center and they got a clean place and all. And most, a lot of Japanese was over there but most of the Terminal Island people that was, was sent to that particular... some of 'em went to L.A. area. They live in the apartments and stuff like that.

RP: So, did the government send you down to the trailer park or they told you this is where you ought to get housing?

SI: Yep.

RP: So it sounded like it wasn't much of an upgrade from camp.

SI: Oh, it was worse.

RP: Worse.

SI: Yeah. So we had to go look for jobs. Jobs was hard to find. And Long Beach was the worst place in the world to go. Well, because it's a navy town, see. And of course most people are, they are so narrow minded that they think we were the one that caused this damn war. And, you know, I was, when I went in the army, came back, I went to one of the business place, they wouldn't even serve you. I was in the uniform. It didn't make any difference to them. That's how it was. But I didn't care because... so it is or always other place to go anyways. So, anyway, that was the one bad experience I had when I came to Long Beach.