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RP: This is a continuation of an oral history interview with Karlene Koketsu, this is tape two. And, Karlene, we were just talking about life in Manzanar various variations. You started the second grade in Manzanar?

KK: Well, actually what my mother did because I was... had started school in the winter, she put me ahead to the third grade. And so I don't remember being able to read, you know, I don't remember being able to read in the third grade. From that point, I remember I always felt like I was running to keep ahead, I was, you know, one of the youngest in the class. But, yes, I went to third grade and then fourth grade is where the picture, the Ansel Adams picture was taken, and fifth grade. And I told you that Miss Shoaf was our fourth grade teacher. I remember she seemed like a very tall kind of husky lady with curly red hair. I don't know, you know, I'm not exactly sure what she looks like now.

RP Do you remember where your classroom was?

KK: In the, I guess you called it a recreational building, so they were scattered all over, there were two classes in our barrack and they were both fourth grade classes.

RP: And could you kind of give us, if you can recall, maybe describe the room itself, did they have blackboards?

KK: It seemed bare. I don't remember if there were... there must have been a blackboard. I remember the chairs and tables but little else, I don't remember there being a whole lot more. There may have been a teacher's desk. I do remember music books and I think perhaps there was, there were math books. But we used to have to write everything down on our papers, we were given little sheets of newsprint to write on. And I think with Miss Shoaf, we learned a lot of music, I remember the songs, some of the songs.

RP: What songs?

KK: It was the words to... well, we learned "Bendemeer's Stream" and there was one with Robert Louis Stevenson words, "I hate to go to sleep... in summer I have to go to sleep at night," now I've totally forgotten it but... I can't instantly recall it but I'm sure after you leave I'll remember it. But it was something about, you know, having to go to sleep, during the different seasons when you go to bed, you have to... and summer he had to go to bed when it was still light. I remember that song and I don't believe there was any sort of accompaniment or anything but I do remember singing a lot in that classroom. (Narr. note: The lyrics were: "In winter I get up at night and dress by yellow candlelight. In summer quite the other way I have to go to bed by day.")

RP: How about arts and crafts?

KK: That I don't remember. I remember drawing in the fifth grade. She used to give us sheets of paper and we would draw, her name was Dixie Bailey, Dixie M. Bailey, I believe, she was a very tall woman from Kentucky and she came to school, she didn't wear socks and one day it was extremely cold and so she asked Sumiko and I to go to the dry goods store to buy her some socks. And she used to read to us which I loved. I also remember there was a librarian, I don't know where the library was, was it like a travelling library?

RP: I believe, no, I think Block 22 I believe. I think there was a main library and there were several branch libraries.

KK: We used to be able to check books out. I remember there was at one point they dumped a whole bunch of books and so I went with a number of my little friends and we were able to bring books home and my friend and I found Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and we brought those back with us. I don't remember what happened to that but I remember in the fourth grade, I remember reading Heidi so, you know, somewhere in that, in between third and fourth grade I think I eventually learned to read.

RP: Do you remember a specific building that was set aside as a toy loan library?

KK: Yes, I do. I do remember that. I'd never heard of a toy loan before but yeah, I do remember that. I don't remember checking anything out.

RP: Did you have any toys that you acquired later on in camp?

KK: I think I had games and that sort of thing, checkers and jacks and Chinese checkers, the one with the marbles. Other than that I don't remember a whole lot except perhaps a doll, oh, paper dolls, we used to have paper dolls that we used to get. And I think we got those at Christmas, you know, we were I guess given, was it the Quakers who collected gifts for children at Christmas? And they were gift wrapped.

RP: They were one of the groups.

KK: And then at Sunday school they gave us gifts with boxes of candy and peanuts at Christmas. But I also attended the Buddhist church because most of my girlfriends were Buddhist and so I used to walk across the camp somewhere to the Buddhist church. I remember one time my friend and I, because there were no... not much in the way of sweets, and so we had jello, a package of jello, and we each ate a whole package jello, just, you know, licked it and then we both got stomach aches and so I remember we walked to the canteen or dry goods store and bought Exlax. [Laughs] And I'm not exactly sure what happened after that but I do remember that very clearly. And I remember playing games at night, into the evening, playing Prisoner's Base and Tag and, what's the one, Mother May I and we also played Hide and Seek and we used to play throw the ball over the latrines. There used to be a slide and sandbox at one area in Block 31 and we used to play games walking along the edge of the sandbox and we used to do janken po, you know, the paper-scissor-rock game. And I do remember that we took some of the children, older children brought milk cartons and waxed the slide and my little sister went down the slide, and she went head first, and she went so fast that she got a bloody nose, I do remember that. But we used to play Hide and Seek so we had a lot of freedom as young --

RP: This was all without any adult supervision.

KK: Yes, right. And hopscotch and we used to play a game of kind of like hopscotch where we made this huge spiral and made boxes and you had to hop all the way through and back. And if you did that successfully then you were able to choose a box and you could write the initials of your favorite movie star in it and then as you were hopping through, on that box you could step with both feet. But the other children's boxes, you had to hop over. So we played that for, you know, hours and then we used to play the one with the nine squares where you hop in and you go back and forth, hop back, hop into the second one and do it twice. So there were a whole lot of games and I remember some children having some Japanese game with little disks or very colorful disks where you fling it and then do something. We used to be able to take our pocket knives and play Mumblety-peg, or something like that where you, I don't know, you flip the knife. I don't remember the game but we also used to play marbles a lot so my mother used to get very distressed because I'd come home with hem full of sand, you know, the hems of my dresses had sand in them.

RP: So when you played Hide and Seek, where did you like to hide?

KK: There weren't many places because you know, the barracks but I think as people planted things there were more shrubbery and that sort of thing.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.