<Begin Segment 21>

RP: This is tape three of a continuing interview with Tosh Izumi. And Tosh, we were discussing some of your experiences at the Gila River camp. First of all there were actually two camps at Gila River.

TI: Camps, yes.

RP: Butte and Canal. Which one were you in?

TI: I was I think in Canal. I think that's the larger of the two, if I'm not mistaken. And that's where the main offices were too for the, not for the workers, but the government workers.

RP: You talked about some of the conditions that you had to deal with there, the hot days --

TI: Yeah.

RP: -- the wind. And how did that experience affect the rest of your family, your mother and the rest of your siblings?

TI: You know, condition like that, you get used to it in a very short time. And I don't know. I didn't think too much about the wind, you know, after a short time. We'd have movies out in the open, and sometime we had wind but we sat through it.

RP: And so besides yourself and your mother, you had your older sister and her husband?

TI: Yes.

RP: And did they have any kids that they also...

TI: God, I don't know if they had one at that time or if this happened after, after we were released. But I had three sisters there and a brother, and myself and my mother.

RP: And your father, who had been picked up, did you ever find out where he ended up?

TI: No, I heard that he was in the, the camp... what's that one? Montana or out that way someplace? I'm not sure.

RP: One of the internment camps?

TI: Uh-huh.

RP: Maybe Fort Lincoln or...

TI: Yeah, I really don't know.

RP: Did you receive any letters from him during the time you were in Gila?

TI: I don't know if we did. And I left camp before he was released to the family so I hadn't seen him in about three or four years. I was in Detroit I guess when he was released.

RP: So did that necessitate you kind of stepping up and filling that role as kind of the head of the household?

TI: No, no. I just thought it was necessitated for, to go to work and you know...

RP: So what did you do at Gila for work?

TI: Gila, I worked in this store that we had in camp. I was kind of a assistant manager in this one store.

RP: That was perfect 'cause you had already had experience in running a store.

TI: Yeah, uh-huh, I guess that's the only reason they hired me.

RP: And so you were assistant manager and what were some of your duties at the store?

TI: Well, most of the duties was sales anyway. And there wasn't too much special duties.

RP: What did you sell in the store?

TI: Well we had foodstuff and we had some clothing and, oh, one of our important connection was Sears Roebuck and Company. Yeah, we had two, I think two girls sitting at the table taking orders for Sears.

RP: They were probably pretty busy weren't they?

TI: Yeah.

RP: Did you order anything from Sears?

TI: I don't think I did.

RP: So it was very much like a general store?

TI: Yes, general store. Yeah, I think they took one barrack and converted that into a store, so it was quite a large, large store.

RP: Yeah, how was your ice cream and soda supply?

TI: [Laughs] I don't know if we had any ice cream in that store. I can't remember. We might have had soda but...

RP: Did you also work at the camouflage net factory in Gila for a short time?

TI: Just a short time, yes. All they did was bring a net, fishing net and they gave a strip of material and we just put the material according to the one that they gave us, you know, we'd have to copy it I guess.

RP: Did you weave the nets... were they suspended up off the ground?

TI: No, it was on the ground and, yeah, and we'd weave, we'd tie one in and we'd weave it, tie the other end. Yeah, but I was there just for a short time though.

RP: And then you graduated to the store?

TI: Yeah.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.