Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/347/

Move from Tule Lake to Minidoka

We had the same type of building, and it was just by coincidence that my mother and dad were sharing the apartment with the Uyeji family that we shared with in Pinedale. And I, my son and I were sharing the apartment with a family that we knew from Auburn, and this girl and her husband, and we had a blanket stretched across the middle of the room, separated their section from our section. And then next door, this girl's parents lived next door, on one side, and on the other side was a family that I didn't know, but we got acquainted. But it was the same way; there was about four or five families separated, and we had the potbellied stove and bed, and that was about all the furniture we had.

I had a table that this man, Mr. Tade, had built for me from scrap lumber in Tule Lake. So I disassembled it and brought it to Idaho, and planning to put it together, but then happened to burn up one of the -- [laughs] -- couple of the legs of the table during the time that we had a coal strike.


California concentration camps Idaho imprisonment incarceration Minidoka concentration camp Pinedale temporary detention center temporary detention centers Tule Lake concentration camp United States 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)

 

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Memories of dusty conditions at Minidoka incarceration camp

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Reaction to a 1942 speech by Mike Masaoka, Japanese American Citizen League's National Secretary

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Death of sister in October 1942

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Nakamura,Eric

Father in camp but learning from history books

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Insights from family on Japanese American internment

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Fun at concentration camp

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Initial impact on life at camp

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Embarrassed to talk about camp

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