<Begin Segment 14>

TI: But then you get to Manzanar or the Owens Valley, and you go there, and the landscape looks like an old Western, those rolling hills.

YS: Yeah, and I mean, just a flat desert. When we got there, that block was just made. That was Block 2, but there was all the bachelors and stuff there, they must have got there earlier than we did. Ditches, three or four feet deep ditches and everything.

TI: So it's kind of dangerous for people to walk around. You could just fall, or especially at night if you're walking around, because there were probably no lights.

YS: No lights or nothing. But then like I say, cracks in the floor, there was more sand on the floor than there was outside. [Laughs]

TI: And so I'm thinking that there must have still been a lot of workers there building the place.

YS: Oh, yeah, build the next block and so on.

TI: And who was building? I mean, were they... did you ever talk to the workers?

YS: No, I don't know who was working, who was making it. But it's all, I imagine it was just all Caucasians, I imagine.

TI: And so other than some bachelors there, you were the first group.

YS: Yeah, we were the first family group to evacuate.

TI: And so how many blocks did the Bainbridge group...

YS: We had one block.

TI: One block? And what block number was that?

YS: Three. Two were the bachelors, and three were the next block, that's where we were, Block 3.

TI: And so those first days of Manzanar, what was it like? I'm thinking that must be a little rough because they're still figuring things out.

YS: Because you make your own mattress out of straw and stuff. If you didn't, you'd have nothing to sleep on.

TI: And when you got there, did they have guards already?

YS: Oh, yeah, guards were there.

TI: So guard towers.

YS: And the fence, I forget if the fence was all up or not, but then it might not have been.

TI: But then you were told not to go beyond a certain place?

YS: Yeah, you're just supposed to just stay around the... I mean, these guys didn't know what to do.

TI: So you're like this fourteen, fifteen year old kid, what did you do those first few days?

YS: I don't know what we did. Just go visit, I guess.

TI: So just within the block you stayed with the...

YS: Yeah, within the block.

TI: Then how long was it before other people started coming?

YS: Oh, they started coming in pretty quick. I don't remember... I mean, as soon as the block, as soon as the thing got built, people would come in. They'd bring 'em in.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.