Densho Digital Archive
Oregon Nikkei Endowment Collection
Title: Yoneko Hara Interview
Narrator: Yoneko Hara
Interviewer: Margaret Barton Ross
Location: Portland, Oregon
Date: July 18, 2003
Densho ID: denshovh-hyoneko-01-0014

<Begin Segment 14>

MR: Did they serve any Japanese foods for you or was it all American?

YH: Mishmash. I mean, if it's Japanese, it's lighter, maybe rice and vegetables or something. They served hominy grits, which none of us knew what the heck that was. And it had sort of a lavender smell, sweet smell, and you see all this white stuff, you say, "What is that?" Says, "I don't know what it is." And you taste it and you go, "Yuck." And it's just so funny because, I don't know, maybe if they put shoyu on, it might have helped. [Laughs] Afterthought, but that was the one thing, that and there was something else. Was it liver? It was something that we weren't... heart, maybe it was heart, or beef tongue, that was it, they served. And that was another, "Oh, what is this?" But it passes, I guess.

MR: About the barracks, how many people were in your barrack?

YH: Let's see, at the corner ones, there's usually a parent, a family of three, a child, a mother and father, and then ours had seven. And then in the middle there was one that had just two, and then the other side was, he was alone, I think, maybe one. And then at the other end there was another family of seven, and then a three. So I think that's the way it was.

MR: So in your room, your whole family came except for your father.

YH: We're all in there, that's where we get together. That's our home base. We slept in there, and if you take a shower, they have shower rooms, so laundry room, shower room, toilet, it's all in another barrack, and so you have to go over there.

MR: What did you do, was boredom a problem? What did you do to take...

YH: No. They'd have classes and things, and they had an evening, people that liked classical music, they'd have a record player going and they have classical music. I stopped in there one time, and they all had their heads down listening to the music, and I thought, "I don't need that," and I just walked out. It was so somber. And then they had dances which I didn't go to, and then they had classes. I started a shorthand class, going with a couple of guys. They don't remember this, they're still around, and I asked them, "Do you remember when we went to shorthand classes?" and they looked real puzzled, like, "What?" And you walk, and if it's been rained, I mean, had rained, your shoe would get stuck in the mud and just suck it up. And all of a sudden you got your, you're hanging there wondering what to do with a foot that the shoe was still in there. It's like a suction thing. Probably because they dug it all up, and it's fine dirt, and then it rains, it's like mud. And that, to me, was bad. But other than that, they'd have... did they have games? I don't know what the heck I did, I can't recall.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.