Densho Digital Archive - Sachi Kaneshiro Interview (denshovh-ksachi-01-0014)

<Begin Segment 14>

RP: So can you take us back to that moment when you were back with your family and your...

SK: Oh, yes, it was, it was a wonderful feeling, yeah. Because then I knew I was really with them. And just to see the changes in seven months. My brothers had grown so tall. And to see Dorothy with the family. But my father had changed the most. He had aged so much. Although he was twenty years older than my mother, when he went to camp he must have been about sixty, but... from working as a farmer he was really strong and his hair was still black at the time. And he was in really good shape. But in camp, after seven months of doing nothing, he was all gray and fleshly, I guess that's the word. He wasn't firm. His body wasn't firm at all. And something had happened to his mind. I don't know whether it was senility setting in (...). But when we would sit and talk, he would be off someplace else. And so the greatest change I'm sure was in our father and probably most fathers because they (had) lost their pride, (...) their status in the family, (...) their dignity, everything. So, yeah, I often think about that.

RP: Was you father able to recover that after camp?

SK: Never, never. At our family gatherings he was just like a shadow in the back of the room. Do you remember any differently Dorothy?

RP: So, you, you attribute the camp experience for him losing his vitality.

SK: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure, uh-huh.

RP: Nothing to motivate him.

SK: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 'Cause we were all afraid of him because he had pretty bad temper when he got riled up and we were afraid (of him). He kept us on our toes just by being there. But once he went to camp, he was just a completely different person.

RP: How about your mom? Did you see any changes in your mom?

SK: Oh, yes. The opposite thing happened with her. Because she was always very submissive as a Japanese wife should be. But when she no longer depended on him she became a different person herself. She began to take classes, they had classes in English, and in needlework and so she went to those classes and yeah, learned a lot, began to socialize with other ladies. And it was like she was emancipated. She was free to do whatever she wanted. The first vacation she'd had in her life. (...) She was just a different person. And she would reveal, like to Dorothy, things that she never told us. She was much bolder about discussing her feelings or telling us about what had happened to her. And, so she, she was a very different person. (...) To the end she was the matriarch. (...) She was in charge.

RP: Heroic change.

SK: Yeah. Uh-huh. See, she was in charge. Yeah, uh-huh.

RP: How did you take to Dorothy, when you, when you got to Heart Mountain, in the time that you...

SK: Oh, it was great to, first of all, know somebody there. And to, like she said, be able to converse with her and talk about all kinds of things. She told me all about her school and her friends. It was really nice. We spent a lot of time together. Well, there was nothing else to do. [Laughs] And most of the time the weather was so bad you had to stay in anyway.

RP: What changes are, I should say, what differences did you see between the Poston camp and the Heart Mountain camp, even in the short three months you, you were there, other than the weather.

SK: Yeah, I was gonna say --

RP: You mentioned you went from one extreme to the other.

SK: -- snow instead of sand.

RP: Right. Was it kind of the same situation?

SK: Same, yeah.

RP: With maybe a few variations?

SK: Yeah, yeah. I was disappointed because I thought in my mind Heart Mountain should be a beautiful place, right? (...) But to me, it looked forbidding. 'Cause it had the very sharp craggy sides and just kind of sitting there like it's kind of spying on all of us like a silent sentinel. They called the Heart Mountain paper the Sentinel. That's the feeling I got. I don't know, I didn't see it as, as beautiful in the same way.