Interviews

1. Learning American cooking

2. Getting citizenship back

3. Evacuation

4. Conditions at Pinedale Assembly Center

5. Making craft items from shells found at Tule Lake

6. Response to loyalty questionnaire

7. Move from Tule Lake to Minidoka

8. Apprehension about leaving camp

9. Difficulties finding apartment in Chicago after leaving Minidoka

Bain,Peggie Nishimura

(b.1909) Nisei from Washington. Incarcerated at Tule Lake and Minidoka during WWII. Resettled in Chicago after WWII

Conditions at Pinedale Assembly Center

Well, It was just rows and rows of long buildings, and there were about four families to a building, separated just by, just separated in four places. And the open, open all through the top, you could hear the whole length of anybody talking, you could hear them. No privacy whatever. We had cement floors in the building that we were in, and we had cots. But all we had was cots with a mattress, but we were fortunate because the people that came in later, they had to stuff the mattress with straw. And they also, the floor was tar, and it's so hot, the tar was soft, and the beds would sink into the tar. It must have been horrible, but we had cement floors, so it was cool.

And my daughter was sleeping under the bed one night, and it really frightened me because she wasn't in bed, and I thought, My goodness, where is she? But she had gotten down under the bed, because it was cooler.

California imprisonment incarceration Pinedale temporary detention center temporary detention centers United States World War II World War II camps

Date: September 15-17, 2004

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Alice Ito

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Peggie Nishimura Bain was born on March 31, 1909 in Vashon, Washington. Her family was originally from Kumamoto, Japan. She was the second of six children. Married at seventeen, she had two children - a son and a daughter.

At the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, she was helping her parents with the three farm properties they owned under her brother's name. She was sent to the Pinedale Assembly Center, before going to Tule Lake, and then eventually Minidoka.

After leaving Minidoka, she relocated with her daughter to Chicago, where she lived for many years working as a full-time colorist in a photography studio, a skill she learned while in camp. She eventually returned to Washington to be near her parents. (September 17, 2004)