Living conditions at Crystal City, Texas
We went to Japanese school after American school, and then we went to Japanese school all day Saturday and then we went to church on Sunday so there was school every day [Laughs] in one form or another. Lots of activities for kids that were programmed and it seemed like everybody was involved. My friend's father was what they call the police. He used to after sundown, I think nine o'clock, he used to make sure all the young people were in their homes, or something, keep the delinquency down. [Laughs] I don't know what the role of the police was. My father was a butcher.
Everybody kind of seemed to—just I don't know. From my perspective and from what I read and from my sisters and from the tone, it was just a healthier, much healthier place. We were incarcerated. There was no doubt about that and the bitterness of the incarceration was there, but they were able to circumvent it somehow and live a pretty decent, closest to a community family life that was impossible in Minidoka.
Date: May 27, 1998
Location: Washington, US
Interviewer: Lori Hoshino
Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.
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