SE: And some of the people in the Manzanar Free Press went out, the young men that were working there, so someone said, "Gee, you know, there's a couple of openings for reporters on the Free Press." (...) They said, "You know how you like to write, so why don't you go apply for a job?" And I did, and I got a job as a reporter. And so I enjoyed that, 'cause I got to walk around the camp, find out what things were going on. You know, one block, I think, Block 6, people had finished building a fish pond and a rock garden, so I reported on that. And I reported on things that were happening elsewhere. And we had a sports editor who wrote about all the sports activities.

So by the time, I guess June, July, things were beginning to settle down. People figured, "Well, we have to be here, so might as well go on with life." Then we had, they had set up a co-operative and the government asked these co-operative enterprises groups across the country to come in and set up co-ops, so the co-ops (were) like a beauty shop, shoe repair shop, a barber shop, and what we called the canteens, it was like a little grocery store. And it was kind of self-operating. People buy stuff, and then the money is kept within the business. The Manzanar Free Press was one that was also part of the co-op, and we got funding from them and also from advertising. Sears Roebuck and some of the big companies advertised so that they could send things back and forth by mail. So that was set up and people were able to get some services. So that was an interesting time for me in terms of being able to write and do a lot of reporting, and ended up as people went on out of camp, all of us young people, the youngest of the group, got (promoted) and became the editorial staff and I became the editor for a while.

MA: In general, what, who were the other internees there? Where were they from? Were they from all over?

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