<Begin Segment 14>

RP: What other responsibilities did you have similar to that, chores or things that you had to do?

TH: Not too much. When the dinner or the mess hall bell rang you just go on your own. It sort of split. There was no discipline anymore, if my dad wanted to tell me something, I'd tell him, "Ah, go on, forget it." There was no family discipline unless that father or that family was regimented real good, there were some families that came and sat together and ate together and they watched out for each other, where we were just running around all over.

RP: You were independent and kind of wild?

TH: Uh-huh.

RP: Out of control?

TH: Yeah, that was one of the bad things about being living in the camp, where you're a teenager and you tend to smoke cigarettes and anything. There was not too much liquor but the bachelors were brewing it in their own barracks. There were always room for sake, you could go buy sake in camp and they would know where the best sake was. That was the older people.

RP: Did you drink sake on occasion there?

TH: Not me. I smoked a little bit in camp and I became a smoker after I got out of camp.

RP: That was the first time you smoked was in camp?

TH: Uh-huh. When you draw on your cigarette you get sort of light headed, little tipsy.

RP: A buzz, huh?

TH: Yeah, then you get accustomed to it and your lungs get full of nicotine and stuff. It's not as effective anymore.

RP: How about, did you play sports in camp? Were you inclined for sports?

TH: I love football but I was too small. I think I was, as a senior in high school, weighed 110 pounds. I just couldn't gain weight as much as I ate but I could probably refer back to when you have too much nervous energy, you eat but you can't put on any weight. Then I became friends with a person that had some weights and they came from Tule Lake, in the exchange group, they came into our block. We didn't go to his house to lift weights, but we got a room in the local rec hall and we sort of stored the weights over there, nobody took them or anything. I started working out, and in three months' time, I gained twenty pounds. From 110 I went to 130 and I kept working out more and I gained to about 135 and it was all muscle. I was eighteen years old, you're lifting weights, then you're not scared of anybody. [Laughs] Anybody wants to pick on you or something, you remember the old Charles Atlas ad behind the magazines? I felt like that. I played sports, I caught softball and some of the people that I played with, they remember me from being a pretty good catcher and it's all because you have more confidence in you're bulked out, so somebody wants to fight you, you want to fight them, that's okay.

RP: Were there bullies in camp like that?

TH: Huh?

RP: Did you have bullies or groups that some people might refer to as gangs that --

TH: Yeah, there were gangs. But when you're raised in the country, you don't believe in gangs. West Covina used to be a rural area. They had to band together and they came from Los Angeles or some city where they lived in close quarters. If you picked on one guy, look out, you have to fight ten more times because you might have won on the first fight but you lose all the other times. [Laughs]

[Interruption]

RP: This is tape three of a continuing interview with Ted Hamachi. And Ted, we were just talking about the relationships that you had in camp and there were some of these guys from the city, sometimes would band together in gangs. You had a special term for those guys.

TH: Yeah. I meet the same people today but they don't admit that they were yogores, they were classified as yogores in camp. Individually they were good people, but when they banded together they became more like animals. That gave them a lot of security I believe.

RP: Was there a strong division that existed between the farming group, or the rural people, versus the city dwellers? Or did you tend to stick with your own kind in camp?

TH: It could be. They had different sports team. The ones that were from the country, even San Jose or out in the country rural, their style of life was a little bit different. The ones that lived in cities, they're more like "zoot suiters," long peg pants. Where the country people took kendo or judo and they were sort of self-confident themselves, I thought they could stand up -- I might get in trouble by saying what I'm saying -- but still that's the truth. I'm telling how it was, I think. I think martial arts gives a lot of people, today even, other nationalities, ethnic people, gain a lot of confidence in martial arts, like karate and judo.

RP: You had taken some kendo growing up, hadn't you?

TH: Yes. I just started having eye problems, but I know other friends that have taken kendo, even today their eyes are sharp, they're older than I am, they drive around without glasses. They only use glasses just to read.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.