Interviews
Getting measles at the camp
I don’t remember um, going to camp, I remember coming back from camp and that I remember vividly and I can remember the images of camp, you know the mess hall and then the barracks and stuff like this.
But he told me a story that I never knew. And that was that when I left, I got the measles with me kid sister and so we were left behind in a hospital—in a community hospital in San Bernardino and he said that he came to visit me and that was the worst moment in his whole life, was to see his son… and he said I was strapped down and I didn’t want to be left behind and I was screaming you know, so he said he had to leave me there.
So we – we have… I—I wrote to the archives and I got a lot of information back, and one is a letter from a nurse who wrote my folks in camp saying, Benji- is what they used to call me, I’m second son so they said ‘Benji’s doing fine. You know, he’s playing with his toys and all that.’
And then he said that they delivered us, uh my sister and I to camp with the WAC—an army nurse who delivered us there. So, it was a hard time for him, yeah.
Date: September 8, 2011
Location: California, US
Interviewer: John Esaki, Kris Kuramitsu
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
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