<Begin Segment 16>

RP: And you said that your father initially began working as a carpenter.

YW: Yes, what he was -- this is kind of ironic -- he was helping build facilities for the administration personnel. So their barracks weren't completely made yet, so some of 'em were, but they needed more help, so he was good with a hammer and stuff, so he went over there and helped 'em out. And after a few months that was over. They had to make facilities for people who were gonna live on campus there, so I imagine the administrators and, I don't know if the teachers lived on campus or not. We had a lot of Caucasian teachers among the staff there, and I don't know whether they lived there or -- must've, because if they lived off campus they'd have to go twenty miles, thirty miles away. Nearest, nearest town was McGehee and that was like, I don't know, I'm guessing fifteen, twenty miles away. I don't know.

RP: Did your father also help improve your barrack room by making furniture or any other...

YW: He didn't make much in the way of furniture. If he did I don't remember.

RP: Do you remember improvements to your barrack room?

YW: Not much. We didn't have much. Maybe just a bench or something, that's about it, and a table. But what are you gonna do with it? It's, you don't need it.

RP: Anything else about your block that you remember? Any recreational equipment or...

YW: Let's see now, every block assigned one barrack for recreational purposes, so they had ping pong tables. They also had, but they did, I don't know that they provided any balls, like basketballs or footballs. A lot, I know a lot of kids had their own, so we'd play games on our own. The recreation hall, I think, in hindsight looks like a waste because it wasn't used that much. There wasn't much there. But it was there, they could say they had provided it, but what are you gonna do with it? The kids kind of made up their own games. Kick the can, stuff like that.

RP: Capture the flag.

YW: Capture the flag, we played that. Played marbles. Made these little toys I showed you.

RP: Yeah, maybe we can get that on camera there.

YW: We made these toys --

RP: Can you tell us, you, you actually that made that in Rohwer?

YW: I made this in camp, yeah. Well, I made this the other night. I said, I got to show 'em a demonstration model, but my mother used to work in the area where they had sewing machines, to repair things, your clothes and stuff, and they had a lot of these available, so she just brought some home and then the kids played with this. [Shows toy made from empty thread spool] Shall I roll this on the floor?

KP: Sure.

YW: Can you get it down on the floor there?

KP: I can.

YW: Okay, see here. [Rolls toy on the floor, all laugh] Part of our toy making was one of those. We also made stilts. Do you know what stilts look like? We used to walk on those things. We'd go down to the lumber pile and get scrap lumber, make stilts. In fact, I made one, I have one at home. I didn't know if I could bring it, so I didn't.

RP: Oh, one that you made in camp you still have?

YW: No, no, no. I made it later. I told my kids I could ride stilts. They says, "Do what?" I said, "I can do something you guys can't do." I said, "I had to make this myself in camp." I said, "We just scrapped together wood, nails, somebody had a saw, we'd cut the thing to the shape."

RP: So how tall would these stilts be?

YW: Oh, I'd make 'em his high off the ground and walk like this and then we'd have combat. The kids would try to knock each other off these things, so that was one way we kept ourselves busy. And then we played our sports with the balls. Primarily it was football 'cause there was not much in the way of basketball facility. It was dirt.

RP: You didn't have a basketball court in your block?

YW: No. We had a basketball net, a hoop up, put up, but you couldn't use it much 'cause the ground was not exactly flat. But we played football. We made up our own games and played.

RP: Right. And you mentioned that your block actually had, was a training field for a football team?

YW: Yeah, the high school level kids formed teams and the one, Block 1 was the one next door to us and we were Block 16, so when it goes, the camp was labeled One through Eight, Nine through Sixteen, so Block 1 and 16 were next to each other, okay? So Block 1, there was a young man there that used to play football at UCLA before he got incarcerated, and so he, he took it upon himself to put a team together. They asked him to coach the team. Turns out he was a very good coach and he formed a team and they used our, our open space in the block as training facilities for that team. And the teams that were formed, there was, there was a bunch of people that came in from Stockton, California, that were on the other side of the camp. They, they had a similar kind of arrangement. They had somebody who could put a team together, so they did, and I think they were called the Blue Devils or something. I don't know. I think that's what it was. Blue Devils from Stockton, California. So we were the Joker Ys from L.A. area, and they, we played these guys, and I don't know if there was a third team or not, but these were the high school level kids that played the game. And I think we might've had exchanges with the Jerome people. If they have a team we'd make arrangements to go to each other's facilities and play, but...

RP: You get tired of playing your own people.

YW: Yeah, that's right. So we had, there was one kid on our team, he was a really nifty ball hawk. He was, they made him the wide receiver or the end on this team and he could really snag that ball. And so he was the, the long term ball catcher. They sent him down and he made the papers. They'd write about him. "Hey, they got a great guy who can catch the ball." Well, somebody had to deliver it to him, right, but we had a guy that could throw the ball pretty well. So that was an interesting thing and this team hardly lost. They were very good. And, well, that was good, these guys had something to do for the older kids. That was good. And I think later on when they built that, you know that museum facility you have? We had, we had a facility like that in camp, but they used, used for indoor basketball, stuff like that. And they also used that for group gatherings and things.

RP: Activities.

YW: Yeah. But I don't ever remember seeing basketball being played, 'cause that building was on the other side of the camp for us, so we didn't normally go there.

RP: Can you give us the name of the coach who established this team?

YW: Matsui.

RP: Victor?

YW: Victor. Victor Matsui. Do you know him? Victor Matsui, yes. He was the coach.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.