Densho Digital Archive - Jim Tsugawa Interview (denshovh-tjim

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AC: Let's back up a little bit. Do you remember having to pack to leave?

JT: No. I don't remember anything. That was the time when you could only pack what you could carry.

AC: Do you remember if there was anything specific that you had to have with you?

JT: I don't know. There wasn't much of anything.

AC: So tell me about, you talked a little bit about the camp, maybe the livestock building in Portland. Where were you living?

JT: What do you mean?

AC: In the pavilion, you said it was around, around the arena.

JT: I don't know if you know what stenchions are for cows, they put their head in the thing and then they (were ready for milking). Those areas were all removed, and the floor was plywood floors. And those areas were walled off like little apartments, I'll call them little apartments. There was no ceiling. I can't remember the dimensions of the area, but let's call it an apartment. There was a canvas door, and if somebody burped here, you could hear it down four places down. Feeding, I could kind of remember, I do remember flypaper, you know what flypaper is? It would be black, just black with flies, because in an area that they'd display, show their animals. We ate in shifts probably about so many thousand. Well, there were 3,500 to 4,000 people in this relocation center. And as I look back on the relocation centers were in California, and mostly everybody was in one of these livestock areas. But this was a time when we were detained here for them to build, like, Minidoka and Topaz and Rohwer, Arkansas, all these concentration camps. And I think there were about nine that they built. So this gave them time to slap up these buildings, which were made of plywood, tarpaper and slats.

AC: So you had plywood walls in these cow sheds, essentially, these horse stalls.

JT: Yes.

AC: And how high were the partitions?

JT: Oh, they were just like plywood, eight feet.

AC: Eight feet. And what was the floor like?

JT: That I don't remember, but I think it was kind of like plank floors.

AC: And you had, you were sleeping on cots?

JT: There were, if you had four in the family, you had four cots, and if you were one of the first few you had a mattress. And I'm sure they furnished blankets. And I know the last few that came in had straw mattresses.

AC: What did you have?

JT: Good mattress.

AC: Made of?

JT: Just, I don't know what it was made of, but it wasn't straw.

AC: But you were one of the first ones into the...

JT: That I don't know. But that was, you know, and you had a community type wash area, community type toilet area.

AC: Tell me about, describe what those looked like.

JT: Well, not very good. I don't remember, but I always, reflecting back on it, how embarrassing it must have been for the young ladies, you know, reaching puberty. There was no privacy, no stalls.

AC: No stalls.

JT: Yes. You sat down and you could have a conversation, you know. But that I always felt sorry for the girls, I mean, not at the time, but reflecting back.

AC: You said that the flypaper was covered with flies. What did it smell like?

JT: I don't remember the odor that much, but there was, you know, the odor of animals. And I had a good friend that I played tennis with right now, and his dad was in charge of a gang of Japanese nationals, and a place where they made lumber. And so, of course, when the war broke out, these people were put into that relocation center, assembly center, and Sam said he would accompany Dad, because Dad would take him some food and give it to him. And Sam said he can remember just distinctly the smell. But I don't remember because probably being in it so long, you just kind of get used to it.

AC: And what time of year did you go into the...

JT: May.

AC: May.

JT: 1942.