<Begin Segment 10>

JA: Among the teaching staff, or the staff in general, the Caucasians who were there, some of them had children of their own.

MS: Yes.

JA: Tell me about how they were schooled.

MS: Well, most of the, the Caucasians that had children enrolled them in the classrooms along with the Japanese youngsters, so they had the same teaching situation that the Japanese had. And the housing, of course, was different. We lived in one section of the camp, and it was separated from the Japanese, well, by the headquarters as it were. So we were on the other side next to the MP camp. And we were separated from that with a fence. And you were asking, somebody asked about Ralph P. Merritt. He lived in the barrack, well, in the building across from where I was living, in Dorm H, it was called Dorm H at the time, or "Heaven," as it were. And he and his wife were there, and occasionally their children would come to visit. And they have nice things in their home, it was quite nice, and ours was, too. Our situation improved considerably.

[Interruption]

JA: Was there much social interaction -- you mentioned going into town for social activities -- did the administrative staff have interactions with people at the camp in terms of their social events and so forth?

MS: Well, not so, no, not particularly, we didn't. Occasionally we would go, there would be a dance in one of the mess halls where they had their own band -- like I say, when I, the first night I got there, I went to a dance in one of the mess halls there where they had the group of kids from UCLA that played in the band, and the group from USC. And they had theirs, and we had, we went to a dance there my first night at the camp. And occasionally, they had that type of interaction with them socially. And we would go to meetings with them, and occasionally we would be invited to eat in their mess halls, but you just couldn't go to a different mess hall without an invitation. And the food was quite different.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.