Densho Digital Archive - Mae Hada Interview (denshovh-hmae

<Begin Segment 11>

Masako H: Let's go back to Minidoka again. You said you worked, and you lived in block what, 43?

Mae H: Forty-three, I believe it was.

Masako H: Tell me what it was like, and what kind of a life did you have in Minidoka?

Mae H: Well, it was devastating for my mother. We came all through by train and then bus. And when we drove up, there was a total cloud of dust. You couldn't see five feet. After that, it was all dust because they built this huge area for us to come to, barbed wire and all, and these residence were barracks. But --

Masako H: What do you mean by barracks?

Mae H: It's the first time I saw her cry hard. "What did they bring us to?" she said in Japanese. Anyway, they, of course, slowly, we were able to be registered coming in, assigned places to come to, and it was just my mother, my sister and myself, I remember, and so we had an end apartment. I forgot how many units there were in each barrack. I would say maybe eight. It's just a guess. We had numbers on our place. And do you want a description of the room we were assigned? It was unfinished walls. So you see it was pretty, some dust would come in. And we had cots and one potbelly stove to burn coal for warmth and one recessed area for a closet. That was it. People wanted more had to build their own home up with shelves and so on. We weren't able to do that. We managed. And we were, of course, regimented according to time for breakfast, lunch, and supper. We were told where the main buildings were, where the lavatories were. I have to bring that up later. And what else do you want to know about the living situation? We had to dig up our own coal when the winter weather came. The first time I experienced such cold that when you breathed, we never had this in Oregon. You'd have icicles on your nostrils. It was scary. And we would have to dig up our own coals, so we can burn it in our, burn it in our stove in our cabin, if that's what you can call it. But pretty sure you adjust to all these things. The recreation department, I don't know where it was, but they had a building just for recreation where we, they had dances. They had music that was played by somebody in charge of that, maybe movies. I don't remember if we saw any movies. We must have had them. But the personal like hygiene and all, we didn't have sinks in our apartment, so we had to go to the large building. And the showers were all in one, and I, most of us like our privacy, but there was no privacy. And the toilets were all in rows, no privacy. So I don't know how my mother adjusted to there. I never asked her, but Japanese Isseis are used to baths. I don't think I saw one bathtub there. Again, the food was pretty poor, but the men did what they could. Now this time, they added Japanese foods. They were able to do some of that. So they would make their famous tsukemono which is pickled cabbage, and they had to make tons of that. So we didn't know how long we were going to be there until we found out that you could get out if you had a destination and a purpose. So John and I saw each other every day, and he was so good to my mom, and I could tell he had a pretty good upbringing. And typical Issei parents, they look up the people that are going to date their daughters; in other words, the family. And she found out they were pretty okay. They were Colorado people but, you know, nice people.

Masako H: Did you see any guards while you were there?

Mae H: Oh, yes. As I mention, there were barbed wires all around. We've gotten used to having them looking down at us, and they had a tower at each spot along the perimeter, and I understand they had weapons. At that time, I wasn't afraid of them, but they were there always looking.

Masako H: Did you ever talk to any of them?

Mae H: No.

Masako H: Do you remember the gardens at all?

Mae H: See the gardens?

Masako H: Uh-huh.

Mae H: No. I never seem to have seen them, but I know they made farm vegetables on the property. And way at the edge, there was a river, I hear, but I didn't go there or fish. I think they allowed fishing. I'm not sure.

Masako H: Do you remember the Honor Roll at all? It was on a big board. You may have left before that.

Mae H: Maybe. See I left, I believe, in September of '42. See, I wasn't there all that long, maybe six months, yes. They had an infirmary. They had doctors; they had dentists who did just rudimentary procedures, nothing fancy.

Masako H: So what did you do on a typical day? I mean you got up.

Mae H: I always skipped breakfast because I tried one breakfast. Did you ever tasted pancakes with grease on them? Well, that's the way it was, and I didn't like that at all. So I think a lot of people skipped breakfast. As at the assembly center, they had a store there you could buy candies or whatever you wanted extra. So with my little income, I did that.

Masako H: You said, you said your mother was in the infirmary or hospital?

Mae H: It's an infirmary. She was in bed, and I worried about her, but there wasn't much I could do for her. And she used to, oh, they had laundry facilities. She managed to do that all by hand, you know, tubs. That's all they had. They had ironing boards. I made a sketch of my sister at an ironing board, I remember. It's somewhere around. We weren't allowed cameras, you see. Some of the artists did paintings, I know.

Masako H: What was the infirmary like that your mother went to?

Mae H: Well, it was just another barracks, uh-huh. They had a bed. I think they had pretty nice linens on there, just ordinary linens but clean. I don't know how she was treated. I didn't ask questions.

Masako H: How did you get to work?

Mae H: Walk. There was no vehicle around. Most belonged to the army. Good question. We had snow there during the winter, I remember, so we must have had some kind of boots. You could order things through catalogs. Somehow, we were warm enough with coats. But nobody was outside during the winter, very severe winters.