Densho Digital Archive - Jim Tsujimura Interview (denshovh-tjim

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MR: So going back to camp then. After you got to camp, what was the procedure for settling you in?

JT: After we got there on train, they had trucks that drove us to our camp site, and I recall it was so dusty that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. They assigned us our rooms or barracks, and ours happened to be Block 32, Apartment 7, Barrack 7, Apartment E. And it turned out that half of our block was a school, a grade school. So at least I didn't have very far to go, to go to school. The condition was severe, out in nowhere, desert country. Public facilities, it was nothing to speak of. They had outhouses. Later on, they put in running water, but it was just plain desert, South Central Idaho.

MR: And who all in your family did go to camp?

JT: As I recall, four of my sisters, my parents, and I. The one in Japan, of course, was still there.

MR: What's foremost in your memory about being in camp?

JT: That I, when I first saw where we were and the room that were assigned to us had cracks between the boards, dust was blowing in, and it was a single room with nothing in it but one potbelly stove in the corner. And I was thinking to myself, "Gee, is this where we're going to live for the next so many years? What are they doing to us?" But I was still very young at that point, so it didn't, well, I didn't think of other things like the older people, but it was a terrible place.

MR: One of the problems that we hear about in camp was that children tended to go with their friends and, for example, at mealtime, they didn't eat with their parents, and the family had problems because of that. How did your parents deal with that issue?

JT: Well, where we lived was just half a block, it wasn't really an issue in our block, and it really wasn't an issue initially. It was later on, a few years after, that we began to eat with friends, so we didn't have any problems that way. My mother worked as a waitress at sixteen dollars a month. The top pay was nineteen dollars a month. My father became a fire chief, and he was paid that. As a child when I worked on the farm during the summer, full time, I was paid eight dollars a month compared to the prisoner of war. They were paid five dollars a day plus cigarette money. So you can see how little we were paid.

MR: How did you spend your money?

JT: Well, there wasn't much to spend. And initially, there were no stores. Later on, they had little canteens where you can buy some goodies, but no department stores and things like that. So whatever I made, I just gave to my parents.

MR: How did your family turn the barracks into a home?

JT: Well, we slowly patched up the cracks, then we put up ropes or strings across the room so we could hang blankets to partition the rooms or bedrooms. So we had a little bit of privacy, but initially, nothing. And at least we had a roof over our head; whereas, when we were in the assembly center, there was no roof. It was all open ceiling. There was just canvas at the door, one plain room, and you can hear everyone. In Idaho, we at least had a room that we can call our own.