<Begin Segment 19>

RP: You said that your dad made furniture for you in the barrack.

TH: Yes, my father made chest of drawers, he made chairs, he made an Adirondack chair, he made me a, he made my mother a little sewing box, and I have it here now. But he was quite clever and he was an industrious man, so he did that.

RP: Did he help other families as well? I mean, what else did he do with his carpentry skills in camp? Did he actually help build other structures?

TH: No. As a matter of fact, that carpentry group was formed. When we first went to Topaz, we did not have the inner wall, we just had it tarpapered, framework on the outside, and it was getting very, very cold. And so they got the sheet rock, and they installed the sheet rock in all the barracks before they froze to death. But that was his carpenter job.

RP: Do you also recall linoleum on the floor?

TH: Yes, we had to lay it. They laid masonite on the floors.

RP: You remember what color the flooring was?

TH: Brown, ugly brown.

RP: Do you recall any other improvements that you saw in your barrack, your room?

TH: Aside from the furniture that my father made, there was nothing else. Of course, my mother was, by then, was into making crafts out of old shells, seashells that were found on the desert floor there, 'cause it was once a sea. And so she got into that, of course, she was knitting, of course. They kept busy.

RP: Did you take up any hobbies or arts and crafts?

TH: I did. I took up knitting also.

RP: Did you try your hand at the shell jewelry?

TH: No, I did not make the shell jewelry. My mother also took ikebana, which was, I don't know where they got the flowers, but they could make beauty and arrangement out of anything, any desert twig, whole rock or anything.

RP: Do you recall efforts to beautify the camp? Gardens or planting trees?

TH: My family didn't have the, shall we say, the talent for that, but there were a lot of landscape artists in the camps. And they made beautiful gardens using what they found locally, and carrying buckets of water out of the laundry rooms to water the plants, and some people tried to grow vegetables, but actually, the alkaline soil there was just not conducive to growing vegetables, nice fresh stuff.

RP: Your grandmother, you'd mentioned she was able to learn to read and write in Japanese, and that happened at Topaz?

TH: That happened in Topaz, 'cause she had plenty of time then.

RP: Now, did she take classes at all?

TH: No, my grandmother did not take up any crafts, but she went to church regularly.

RP: And what did you have at Topaz? Did you see a Buddhist church?

TH: Yes, there were Buddhist church, and of course, Christian churches. They were quite active.

RP: Did the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" have an impact on your family?

TH: You know, that wasn't a big problem in our family because we knew in our hearts how we felt about it. And we pretty much agreed to be "yes-yes."

RP: Your family never, your parents had, never any plans to, for your father to go back to Japan?

TH: No, no plan at all.

RP: Topaz was characterized as a pretty tame camp, but there were some incidents, one of which was the shooting of a elderly Issei man.

TH: Yes, that was unfortunate. From what I understand, it's the Issei man had a dog that he loved dearly, and he would walk the dog. And this man was hard of hearing, and the dog was getting too close to the guard towers, and he called the dog. But anyway, the sentry shot the man, killed him. And that was the biggest incident in Topaz as I recall.

RP: Were there any demonstrations or outward signs of disgust with that, other than people who were grumbling about it?

TH: Oh, there was a lot of grumbling. I don't think it came to a riot, but there was a lot of complaints and grumbling.

RP: How about rumors in camp?

TH: There were rumors everywhere. You just have to sort it out, take it for what it's worth. But what else could they do in camp but think of these things? It would go like wildfire at times.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.