Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Yutaka Inokuchi Interview
Narrator: Yutaka Inokuchi
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: March 3, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-iyutaka-01-0014

YI: What you call, I wonder if there was a security gate, I don't think there was a security gate into the camp, but the MP would come and meet us and then he would open the gate for us, you know, like entrance to the mess hall. But we were not allowed in the camp, the mess hall, as you go in the left side was the camp and there was big mess hall, I think, you know, that concrete area, I think that was part of the mess hall. He would watch us, he would sit down and watch us while we did our thing. But after a while, you know, we got to know him because I'd go there weekly, and talking, I'd say to him, my father's in there, you know. He said, "Well, why don't you go talk to him," you know, so he'd let me go and talk to my father over the fence and my father would give me... you know, there was a huge rationing during that time, where civilians didn't have butter, this kind of stuff. But he used to give me lots of butter to take home because, you know, what they going to use it for, you know, Japanese, they were giving them rationed butter and they didn't know what to do with it.

TI: So that's interesting, so the prisoner was giving you things to take home?

YI: Yeah, I used to take it, you know, if I knew I was going in then my mother would make extra musubi and I'd take it and give to him, yeah.

TI: And how was he when you saw him because you mentioned earlier he --

YI: He was well already and he was resigned to the fact that... I think he enjoyed it, I mean, you know, that... well, I think that's the kind of quiet my father liked, those who do a lot of reading and writing and stuff like that. And then I used to take in rags for him, they were making wooden geta, and I guess they needed they braided the rags to make the himo for the geta so I used to take in rags for him.

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