<Begin Segment 15>

RP: So you went to... you were off to Tule Lake and tell us a little bit about your experiences there?

OM: Tule Lake, well, we were in Block 27 and I guess most of the people from there were from Sacramento area or that ward, nine blocks. Most of them were from the Delta, Sacramento area and there were a few that came from Jerome that were in our block. You know, they were from the L.A. area, where we were from but I thought, you know, we got there in I think it was during the -- excuse me -- the wintertime and it was pretty cold. And I thought, boy, it's kind of a desolate, you know, it's high desert, and it can get cold, it gets snow but it's gone right away. But it stays cold, you know, I mean it must warm up to 32 or 33 or whatever, snow melts but it's pretty cold. But the barracks looked... typical barracks but it was low to the ground. See, in Arkansas it was pretty high off the ground, here it was low to the ground. I remember the steps in Arkansas there was probably, you had to take three and a half steps or four steps to get up to your apartment, here you took one step up and it was very low and it was kind of old looking, I don't know, maybe it was weatherbeaten or whatever. But the barracks looked dingy, it was almost kind of, from a living, lodging purposes it was a downgrade.

There they burned coal too and it was... every place you looked, like in the firebreaks, they'd pour, you know, the used coal, what you get what's left, I don't know what they call it, they spread it out in the firebreaks. And naturally when the wind comes up, dust comes up, but they had within each block, behind the boiler room, they had a big pit, that's where the coal from the boilers, that's where they dumped it. And then I guess every so often when that gets too high, they come with the dump truck and then they pick that up and spread it out on the fire breaks. But that's where we used to play football, on that burnt coal, you know, when we were kids, with no shoulder pads, nothing, just sweatshirt whatever, another stupid thing, see? Overall, a little downgrade, dingy, you know, I wasn't too impressed with it. They had a nice gym, nice school facilities but half of the kids didn't... I wouldn't say half, a lot of the kids didn't go to public school. They went to... the reason they were there were for because they were going to go back to Japan. So they went to Japanese school, see, and then even Japanese school they had two levels. They had so called public school, Japanese school, which was, you know, not too much pressure but then there's another higher level one here. If you wanted to really learn, that's where you went, you know, but we didn't go there. We went to public school and we went... American school, public school and Japanese school. I took up judo in camp.

RP: Did they also have kendo in camp, too?

OM: Huh?

RP: Did they have kendo as well?

OM: I don't recall kendo. It might have been but I don't think so, I think that was kind of pooh-poohed, banned. Judo was permitted and so I took it up there the first time.

RP: Where was the judo dojo in Tule Lake, where was it located?

OM: Well, each ward had their own, you know, each ward, at least in our ward, we had one. We had a teacher who was, he was really from Gardena or Torrance area, Kimura, but he was a fourth dan, fourth degree black belt, you know. I broke my knee there, you know, as a result of somebody being thrown and fell on my knee, and broke my knee. The ironic part is the doctor who fixed it, he wasn't a doctor but he was a bone, what do they call it, martial arts doctor, he put the knee back together externally, by feel you put the bones back together and then patch it up, you know, and he was able to, it occasionally it gets bad but it was okay, you know. And the guy that did it was the father of the son that fell on it, his son is the one that fell on me and broke my leg. But it was worthwhile, judo was worthwhile. I didn't go very far but in the short time that I took it, I took it under a teacher that was very strict and very highly disciplined. If you didn't like... if you smiled while you were practicing, he took that smile off your face by throwing you around like a rag doll. We used to have people come in and jokingly talk... and when you stepped inside that door, you better wipe it off because he'll take if off of you, you know, he was tough. And he was... if a young kid these days thought he could take him on, big mistake because he was probably around 225 himself, big guy, you know, and fourth degree. So if you so much as smiled, he took it off your face, yeah, he was tough. Even after I broke my knee, you would think he would tell you to go see a doctor but he didn't, he expected me to... you have to do meditation five minutes on your knee, sitting on your knee and leg, you know, the way you do meditation for five minutes. And he expected you to do that even after you break your leg and then go the doctor. [Laughs] That's how tough he was. That's why when I come out here and we took our kids to judo here, all they were concerned about was keeping the students happy and making sure that they get a yellow belt or a green belt or whatever to keep them interested, you know. And I thought that's... so we dropped out in about a year. So you could tell I'm from the old school.

RP: That's good.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.