Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Fred Y. Hoshiyama Interview
Narrator: Fred Y. Hoshiyama
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Culver City, California
Date: February 25, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-hfred_2-01-0023

FH: Then also, I was at Berkeley, had just finished Berkeley. There was a Dr. Thomas. Dr. Thomas, I think Dorothy Thomas. She wrote The Spoilage or something? Well, she wrote from the stuff that several of us, she got three camps, I think. And she got what I call observers, and we would, like a diary, write everything that happened in camp and give it to her.

TI: And so you were one of those diary writers?

FH: So I was a very bad one. I was so busy with something else that I didn't do a good job.

[Interruption]

TI: And then when you finished writing a diary, then you would just turn it in?

FH: Every week she'd come and pick it up, and talk. And we'd sit down and talk and said what was unusual this week and what did you see, what's happening. So some of those people were very, very attentive and concentrated, but I was a very loose cannon. And I didn't think much about the value of doing this, so I didn't do a good job.

TI: And how did other people react to you and the others taking notes and sharing this with...

FH: They don't know. So I was almost going to say we're kind of spies. Well, we were. It was open book, but people didn't know that we were doing this. I mean, it wasn't a daily news, it was just... some people knew, it was not a secret, but it was a small group that did this in several camps.

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