<Begin Segment 20>

RP: I wanted to go back to camp for a second. When you were pregnant, you said that you went to take a shower, and tell us --

MS: [Laughs] Yeah, and it's just a big room, just like the all boys, remember when you were kids? Weren't they, they never, they didn't have any booths, so there were just heads sticking out and all the women and gals would look at me and I was so embarrassed, so I wouldn't go take a shower, so I'd go real late at night after everybody got through, about eleven or twelve o'clock. And my husband wouldn't let anybody in. He stood at the door. I remember that. I was so embarrassed, being my, I was still late twenties, embarrassed, my first child. I was so embarrassed with everybody looking at me, especially the kids. So I always tell everybody that, that I had, I had my husband guarding...

RP: Protection.

MS: Yeah. He wouldn't let anybody in. Well of course, most of 'em were through by that time anyway.

RP: I asked you earlier about this, this trouble that occurred at Poston. There was a strike and this person got beat up. Was your father ever, not your father, but your husband, was he ever referred to as an inu because he was a police chief and he had connections with camp administration? 'Cause, were there people who thought he might be a collaborator?

MS: No, I don't, he had a lot of friends and they always came to him all the time, like middle of the night, they'd wake him up and there'd be problems, he'd have to leave. He never talked too much about it, 'cause it's confrontation, more or less, I guess, but I know it's just like a big city, there was always same problem, robbery, anything you could think of, it happened there.

RP: How about gambling?

MS: Oh, they were gambling too. They did. Course, you couldn't do anything about that. Of course, there'd be fights.

RP: Did the policemen have uniforms?

MS: No, they didn't have uniforms. I don't think so.

RP: Did they wear a band or something that identified them as policemen?

MS: I don't remember that. I don't believe so. They knew him by face. They knew who were firemen, who were policemen. They knew, 'cause they had firemen also, for protection, just in case. They sat around, they had office, like an army barrack, like police station, all that, and they just, they were just in case. But they had every profession, doctors and dentists and nurses and, and in the end, like I said, it was our own people that took over, managed everything.

RP: Did you, did you keep in touch with your, your family who went to Manzanar?

MS: Uh-huh. We, uh-huh, yes, we did. And then finally my, my brother and sister were living with them. They went to Chicago after they, after they were able to get out for jobs, so they were alone, so we, about six months before camp closed, the army, we asked, inquired to have them moved to Poston, so they came to live with us. So we had my husband's parents and my parents living, that we had to take care of, look after them, because they felt, they didn't want to leave them alone in Manzanar, so they finally, they had escort and they moved, were brought to, we requested, they allowed us to do that.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.