My Interview with a Japanese-American Internee
The woman I interviewed at a retirement home in Fresno, CA asked not to be audibly or visually recorded for confidential reasons. She also requested that her name not be included in the text.
Q: Can you tell me what you remember about being in the internment camps and which internment camp were you in?
A: "I was in the Gila River internment camp in Arizona, and I was twenty years old when I was relocated. My mother, father, three brothers, and sister were relocated with me. The camp was in the desert, so it was very hot, dry, and dusty. We had to use one bathroom for six to twelve barracks, and the toilets and showers had no partitions. One barrack was divided into four rooms and one family got one room, regardless of its size. The barracks were cheap with no foundations and only cots to sleep on. Fresh wood was used for the floor and, as it dried, it opened up. Dust from the dessert came into the rooms and many people got valley fever, a lung condition."
Q: What were your feelings when you were relocated?
A: "I was very sad that I was leaving my home and friends. Everything and everyone that was familiar to me was being taken away. I didn't really think of the severity of what was happening because I was too young. It effected my parents more than it effected me, because they had to leave their jobs and everything that they had worked for in their lives. They had lost their trust in the government."
Q: How was your and your family's life after the camps?
A: "I was married in the camp, so I lived with my husband and his family after we were released. We were discriminated against and my parents were almost attacked in their own home. My brother-in-law arrived in his military uniform and the attackers fled. Jobs were also very hard to find because nobody wanted to give a job to a Japanese-American anymore. For almost a year after the camp, the only work we could find was farm labor."
Q: Can you tell me what you remember about being in the internment camps and which internment camp were you in?
A: "I was in the Gila River internment camp in Arizona, and I was twenty years old when I was relocated. My mother, father, three brothers, and sister were relocated with me. The camp was in the desert, so it was very hot, dry, and dusty. We had to use one bathroom for six to twelve barracks, and the toilets and showers had no partitions. One barrack was divided into four rooms and one family got one room, regardless of its size. The barracks were cheap with no foundations and only cots to sleep on. Fresh wood was used for the floor and, as it dried, it opened up. Dust from the dessert came into the rooms and many people got valley fever, a lung condition."
Q: What were your feelings when you were relocated?
A: "I was very sad that I was leaving my home and friends. Everything and everyone that was familiar to me was being taken away. I didn't really think of the severity of what was happening because I was too young. It effected my parents more than it effected me, because they had to leave their jobs and everything that they had worked for in their lives. They had lost their trust in the government."
Q: How was your and your family's life after the camps?
A: "I was married in the camp, so I lived with my husband and his family after we were released. We were discriminated against and my parents were almost attacked in their own home. My brother-in-law arrived in his military uniform and the attackers fled. Jobs were also very hard to find because nobody wanted to give a job to a Japanese-American anymore. For almost a year after the camp, the only work we could find was farm labor."
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