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Interview
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Interview

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An interview with Jimi Yamayachi
This is an interview in which I sent Jimi Yamayachi questions and he answered them on tape. There are 13 questions that I asked him and they are as follows.

  1. (What were the conditions like?) a The conditions of the camp were tolerable no problems there the government gave us a roof over head. They fed us three meals a day and bathroom and shower facilities. The conditions were the same at all 10 different camps.
(What were the conditions of your family?) Their financial background? It was the most, I guess the hardest part because some people naturally were more financially well suited some people weren't some people were almost destitute. So being destitute without work, so it was almost impossible to survive. But many survived, because the working conditions we were paid ,, a month. Finally they eliminated the dollars a month. There was , and dollars. for an average worker, for a professional, supervision people and such.

2. (What jobs did you have in camp?) I am a construction worker just graduated in from a trade school in 1941 I went into the camp in 1942, I applied my skills in the construction field. Different types of construction, maintenance, basically more heavy maintenance, but the new construction was I first went from San Jose to Pomona Semi Center, Heart Mountain Wyoming, I stayed there for a year. I stayed in the construction field making canals, building garages, and different things like root cellars. Then I went on to Tule Lake. I spent the next three years in Tule Lake. I had a very neat job, I was in charge of total evacuee or internee construction division. I had approximately 250 men working doing general maintenance, construction, road work, tending the sewer farm, the water supply and such, I had a very important job. So the area of the camp I knew very well, what transpired and what was going on because I was able to travel in and out of camp very freely even though we needed escort to travel outside the camp on numerous occasion.

3. (Were you on any sport teams there?) I myself no, I never did I was out of highs school, most of the high school kids played sports amongst themselves when it comes to sports the government did not supply any play ground equipment such as basketballs, baseballs, or footballs. That is about the extent of what sport there was, because it was all sandy soil couldn't play tennis or anything like that. Some people, the majority of them didn't bring any equipment in with them so who had money ordered through mail order and bought baseball, football, and basketball equipment through the mail order and they shared, most of them shared all their play ground equipment with other internees.

4. (Did you have friends or relatives in camp?) Yes, all our relatives were basically, depends where you were, which part of California you lived, you went to the respective camp. People in the San Jose area, most of them went to Pomona or Semi Center later on to Heart Mountain Wyoming. I myself was sent to Pomona Semi Center. Then I got sent to Heart mountain Wyoming. The majority of the San Jose people went to Heart Mountain Wyoming. After the segregation issue I went onto Tule Lake.

5. (What was the food like there?) Well, it was tolerable. The army made up the menu, it was all army menu it was made for mass feeding the army. Typically, like for breakfast, it was pancakes and molasses and coffee. That was standard. Some milk was provided to the youngsters, but most of them if you were a baby you had milk but other than that you didn't get milk Lunches you got rice and what ever they would concoct for diner to, nothing really fancy but it was enough to survive. It was all right.

. 6. (How old were you when interned?) I was nineteen and a half when I first went into camp. So, I was a young adult seeing a lot of problems that different families had going into camp, so it was about an eye opener for me as a young man.

7. (What did you do during your free time?) There was not much free time. We worked 44 hours a week and usually Saturday all day. And then Sunday off, then Sunday we just kind of set around the mess hall and talked about this and that, and passed the time away. There was not really much for a young adult to do. Youngsters in high school yes they had basketball teams and baseball teams and they would play amongst themselves, but that was it. So free time not much excitement as far as I was concerned.

8. (What do you think was the worst thing) about the camp? Well, it is hard to say what the worst. There was a lot of things, it was bad enough going into camp. It could not be much worse than to be deprived of our liberty and freedom and to be encarsarated without any hearing or any ruling what so ever, because the very people we belong to are of color or heritage was the defining factor that we be interned. I think that would be the worst thing because we are not free to move around, we are not free to leave camp. We are confined, even though Wyoming was not as strict as Tule Lake but Tule Lake was very strict as far as leaving camp, as we went from the camp to the farm with army escort as such. Yet there was German POW camp about four or five miles away from Tule Lake internment camp, and they were free to roam around the town of Merrill and do shopping. They helped the local farmers harvest their crops and so forth. So they had more freedom as a prisoner of war, than us people citizens of U.S. being housed in or incarcerated in an enclosed area, because of our looks we will say or our background, our heritage background.

9. (Do you think the redress is enough?) Well, be enough to some people, yet not enough for all people. But the whole thing the majority of us feel that our parents who suffered the most here to struggle for thirty or forty years to get themselves established into the American ways of live. All of a sudden all blown away over night and they lost everything. All they had was what they could carry. They said what you can carry you can take to camp if you can't carry it you can't take it to camp. So, you know when all of your personal belongings is what you can carry is very disheartening so for them it was hard. The redress should be for them more so for us. We can survive, but they had a hard time.

10. (Do you think it will happen again?) Possibly yes. This is happening right now, I mean the Muslim people are being interned there is 200 or 300 of them held in confinement without any hearing and no charges against them, but they're being interned, or incarcerated someplace somewhere, and nobody knew where they are so, it is happening again, this kind of situation that people get very carried away and do things that, it will always, this always happens, Americans are always noted for being very prejudicial about such things.

11. (Were you separated from family & friends?) If you were, what did it feel like? The family was never separated, they always kept the family together, that was one thing, if you volunteered to go onto be separate families, yes you could be separated. But if you wished the family to stick together, then the family was always kept together irregardless, they tried their best to keep it together. So, like our family, we're altogether I had one brother in the Army, before the war, in the summer of 1941 he was drafted into the Army, and he served, he went onto serve in the 442nd Battalion fought in Italy in Europe. So, there was 10 of us all together 1 brother in the Army so there was 9 sisters and Father and Mother. So there was 11 of us all together. So we moved from one camp to another, 11 of us all together. So that part there wasn't really that critical. So, a lot of people say it was.

12. (Did they hurt your friends or family?) No, they didn't really hurt us I mean, I think, there was physically they didn't touch us for whatsoever. There was no problems there. But, basically the mental anguish was more than anything else. It's when your incarcerated that has you worried that you are incarcerated one day when you have to leave this camp then what the situation will be on the outside because we left such a hostile situation when we did leave our home from So that was more concern of the majority of people of what it's going to be like when we return to our home or wherever you want to return to There is kinda, hard to say cause each family, like I said before, each family the conditions were different according to their income and their status and so forth. Because the people who were wealthy had money in camp they survived all right. We had cantinas and stores and such were they could buy most anything they wish as long as you had the money. And people that didn't have the money well so a lot of people with youngsters thetas seven or eight years old watched the other kids have ice cream or whatever they had that they were wanting ice cream themselves but then again the parents were very limited financial, say, backing or financial ability they couldn't afford to buy them just a 5 cent ice cream, so there was maybe a hardship for a lot of families because of they tend to struggle with situations like that.

13. (What did it feel like to leave your home?) There was a mix feeling where I grew up spent all my years on the farm near San Jose, so we farmed there and thats all we knew and to struggle to buy this piece of land and then to leave it. Which you know, it was hard for me so it was very very hard for my parents to see and to leave behind what they struggled for 30-40 years as I said before, so it's a mixed emotion feeling. But I'll recap the whole thing, as a whole we came out alright, I mean the majority of us but still many many of them have bitter bitter feelings about the camp internment because the hardship that they went through, like the young family, that was just starting out in their lives and they were just barely getting on their feet and they had to leave, they had to leave behind everything they started and they almost went into the camp with just the shirt on their back, type of deal, so it was kinda hard for them. For me, I was still a single man, but the young married couples with youngsters they had a hard time because many of them, many of the camps did not supply the main baby foods so the parents had to take the baby from the bottle to the table it was quite a chore for them and an adjustment to grind before dinner and make dinner out of rice, grind the rice down, grind the vegetables down, whatever they could get to grind down and not with a grinder but the hands, because nothing was available, no machine, no quasanart as such and then for the youngsters there was no radio, the only thing they had was a record player and as I said before had money they could send money mail order to order a record player that would play records, while many times there were other kids that their parents couldn't afford to buy record players and records to play. So it was irritating that part made it very hard for the parent themselves with kids they struggles a bit. It was hardship all around because eventually you not to sure about yourself or about your life some days you got to leave your home and you can take what you can carry and thats it. Where your going you don't we don't know. No luxury items like radios or anything like that. It's just a tough way to leave any place, regardless I think you had to feel like, you put yourself in the same position how would you feel if your family had to leave everything they had built up over the years, then overnight it's all gone.

  Annotated Bibliography

Primary Source:

Yamamaichi, Jimi. Personal Interview. 1-20-03.
Jimi was our primary source, he helped us understand the internment, understand the conditions at the camp, what happened there, how it happened, and why it was important.

Secondary Sources:

Fukei, Budd. The Japanese American Story. Minneapolis. Dillon Press, 1976. This book gave a governmental view of Japanese internment.

Gallery. HTTP://www.oz.net/cyu/internment/gallery.html. 2-23-03. We used two pictures from here on our website.

History of Tule Lake Internment Camp and the Pilgrimages. www.geocities.com/tulelakecommittee/. 2-22-03
We used a picture from here on our website.

Leathers, Noel. The Japanese In America. Minneapolis. Lerner Publications, 1967. This book describes certain individual’s lives during internment.

Tule Lake Internment Camp, Cal.
www.scu.edu/SCU/programs/diversity/tule.html. 2-21-03. We used a picture from here on our website.

Tule Lake Segregation Center. www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/haiku/tulelake.htm 2-22-03. We used a picture from here on our website.
Yancey, Diane. Life in a Japanese American Internment Camp. San Diego. Lucent Books, 1998. This book tells about what Japanese do in America, despite internment.

  Process Paper The introductory information on Tule Lake Internment Camp was collected from the Siskiyou County Library, the Internet, encyclopedias, and our primary source Jeri Yamaychi who provided an interview. Guidance and supervision were provided by Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Justice.

We learned about the conditions of the camp, about the 442 regimental combat team comprised completely of Japanese Americans, and about the prejudice toward the Japanese Americans during World War 2.

We but this website together by using a site called www.freeservers.com . It had a walkthrough on how to get it on the internet. Before we made the site we got our information and made a rough draft on paper. Then we started the website it took a while but it was really fun.



During the 1940’s the rights of over 120,000 Japanese Americans were ignored. This happened because the government was not responsible in protecting the rights of the American people.