Densho Digital Archive - Fumi Hayashi Interview (denshovh-hfumi-01-0020)

<Begin Segment 20>

RP: There was one other job that you mentioned you worked at in Manzanar, and you, that was the electrician shop?

FH: Oh, yeah, I worked in the electrician shop. I came back from the cannery, working the tomato cannery, and I worked at the electrician's shop. That was the end of '45. That was, I wasn't working... no, '44, so I didn't work there very long because I left in '45, early part of '45, so I must've worked there at least six months, five months, something like that.

RP: That was down in the warehouse area.

FH: Uh-huh.

RP: What did you do there?

FH: Just issued out light bulbs, I guess. You had to return the light bulb to get a new light bulb. Good... that was the way it was. You had to have a... we had no telephone in the office, so I wasn't answering telephones. And if anybody came in and asked to send a, a... the refrigeration crew was in with us, so there was a, somebody'd come by in a car or truck or whatever and say the refrigeration's out, can we send a crew, you know. But other than that, kept the books, whatever had to be done, and passed out light bulbs. Good job. [Laughs] Sixteen dollar a month, you can't go wrong.

RP: Never quite made that nineteen dollar a month.

FH: No, I wasn't a professional. I wasn't... I hadn't gone to college yet.

KP: Did your father work in camp?

FH: Beg your pardon?

KP: Did your father work in camp?

FH: Yeah, he worked in the tofu factory. There's a picture of him holding a tofu paddle in one of those pictures that was up in that museum in Independence. There was a picture, there's a little picture. He, in the back, he's got this tofu paddle.

RP: So that was a new undertaking for him, learn how to make tofu.

FH: Yeah, I don't know if he ever learned how to make actual tofu, but he would make it at, as a, the group down there. We had a tofu factory. Did you know that there was a tofu factory?

RP: Did you go down and watch them make it?

FH: No, we had other better things to do. [Laughs]

RP: How about your mom, did she work at all?

FH: Yeah, she worked in the mess hall.

RP: As a...

FH: As a dishwasher. I guess that's what you... there was no electrical dishwasher, so they had to do it by manual, and he, she worked in there. I think she worked in Block 16. I think she worked in Block 16. She worked with a lot of Terminal Island women, because I think Block 9 was directly across the firebreak there and a lot of them came over and worked with her, so she met a lot of Terminal Island people. And incidentally, we were told when we, when we first went into camp they told my parents, "Don't let your daughter outta sight in, in... Terminal Island guy, they're tough guys." When their daughter married a Terminal Island guy. [Laughs] That was the first thing they said was, "Don't let your daughter out of sight. Those Terminal Island guys will come and get 'em." I don't know how tough they were, but they were alright. I, there were, they were a great bunch of guys; they were just rough. You know how it is, that's how they were. They're, they weren't that bad. Believe me.

RP: Right. In an era of labels and things they were also labeled, too.

FH: Yeah, I guess because they were a little rougher than... and, you know, being a fisherman I guess you have to be a little rough, if you're a seagoing man.

RP: You were saying earlier when you, when you live with people and you begin to understand them a little and get to know 'em, you realize why that's, why they are that way. That was interesting.