How WW2 Made Life A Living Hell For Japanese-Americans (PART 1) | Silent Sacrifice

foreign [Music] [Music] Japanese call it gaman during the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity [Music] for those who lived and suffered through a dark chapter in America's past that virtue was put to the test [Music] thank you on December 7 1941 Japan attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii foreign World War II okay let's go [Music] that one event changed the course of millions of lives and for Saburo Masada of Fresno California it has led him here to a Windswept field in Southern Arkansas to a place where he was imprisoned as a boy not for any crime he had committed but because he was born with Japanese blood in his veins [Music] nearly 120 000 people of Japanese ancestry most American citizens were imprisoned against their will by the United States Government after the attack on Pearl Harbor nearly all of them went peacefully and did not resist even though their constitutional rights were Stripped Away [Music] they were shamed and they suffered but they endured the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity now the time has come to speak out to re-walk the path to try and understand how this happened and to heal history isn't always a collection of events that we are proud of understanding our mistakes so that we don't repeat them is how we honor the journey we've all made together [Music] [Music] [Music] Saab and his wife Marion are far from home in their late 80s they've come from Fresno California to visit Southern Arkansas and reconnect with the painful past [Music] Lord at 12 years old Saab became a prisoner of the United States government it's bombed Pearl Harbor during World War II he wasn't an enemy soldier or spy he wasn't American a legal U. S citizen taken from his school his friends his home and everything he knew growing up in California's Central Valley to be brought 1400 miles across the country and put behind barbed wire [Music] [Music] Saab and Marion like so many affected by this dark chapter in our country's history have a story to tell a story that has taken a lifetime to write a lifetime to understand and one with the lesson that must be passed on to undo a mistake is always more difficult than to not create one originally [Music] our great nation made a mistake in a time of war that has affected generations of Japanese Americans Saab and Marion's Journey here is their way of helping us all understand what happened how it happened so that it doesn't happen ing [Music] [Music] California's San Joaquin Valley is a sprawling expanse of agricultural Fields where most of America's food is grown [Music] it's a cross stitching of crops large cities small towns and a diversity of people that have always made this place as rich as its soil but this sentiment didn't always exist the Japanese-American experience in World War II here was foreshadowed by a storm of anti-asian hate that grew in the west as Japanese immigrants sought to better life in the United States this discrimination began with Chinese immigrants after the California Gold Rush in 1849 as more white settled in the west competition for jobs with Chinese immigrants created economic grievances that led to an overall prejudice against Asians by 1905 widespread Japanese immigration brought with it widespread discrimination and here in the fertile fields of California's Central Valley where the success of Japanese Farmers grew rapidly resentment fueled the growing hate Japanese immigrants were called issei from the combination of Japanese words for one and generation their children the american-born second generation arnese and the third generation are called sansei foreign who settled in central California or mostly from the Japanese Countryside so working the land was second nature for them their lives and the lives of their children were forever changed as a result of World War II and their wrongful imprisonment generations of Silence about what happened is now beginning to break their time to speak out has come these are their stories [Music] my grandfather hisetara nakagawa came from Hiroshima Japan to the big island of Hawaii in a little village called Ola and his goal was to always come to the mainland and the land of opportunity here in this Valley to start a farm a grape Farm so when my grandfather came here in 1886 at this Valley he was one of the first wave of Hawaiians to or Japanese Americans to come from Japan or ISE to come from Japan to the mainland and he had an itch he knew the loopholes of the laws there were so many discriminatory laws for for Japanese coming over for the ISE in 1913 California passed the alien land law making the ownership of agricultural land impossible for ISE immigrants since they now would be considered aliens ineligible for legal citizenship in 1920 the even stronger alien Land Act prevented ese Farmers from leasing land or sharecropping so with the alien land law since he couldn't purchase it as an essay he knew the loophole he says okay well you won't let me buy the land then I'm going to put it under my kids names my father and my uncle Johnny who was actually born in Ola my dad was born in 1906 1905 here in Bulls or what we call today Carruthers so that's what these issei immigrants were facing discriminatory laws the xenophobia of being a foreign person coming from a foreign place but for him it was his thing was always a love America for its promise not for its practice while discrimination and racism against Japanese spread through the West prior to World War II its effects weren't always felt or seen many Japanese families worked small plots of land across the San Joaquin Valley and often Japanese parents shielded their nisei children from the truth just before the war we we bought our first farm and that address was Carruthers we didn't have any electricity or or running water we had a pump a hand pump that we pumped our water and Outhouse and no electricity but I grew up just a real happy childhood well the Japanese community in Livingston was actually fairly strong I mean the community was fairly clandestine they kept to themselves the Kaji family tended to be a little bit more social with the Caucasian Community primarily I think because my grandfather spoke fairly fluent in English and so he did a lot of business with the Caucasian Community a lot of the Japanese residents here they didn't speak much English it was more difficult for them to socialize and or do business with the outside world but in our family's case you know my grandfather who spoke English very well he did business he was very social he uh rub shoulders with a lot of the Caucasian people who were in business here the Japanese in in ways has to be seen against a mosaic of different ethnic groups in the valley there were the Chinese who in the past have been seen as an unwelcome presence as well Fresno has a large population of Armenians at this time many people actually saw the Armenians as being unwelcome this David had the somewhat derogatory term the Fresno Indians that were leveled at the Armenians and this was because many people in the valley were involved in agriculture and they were tied to the cooperatives the Armenians oftentimes were seen as being independent they didn't actually cooperate in getting the same price with a produce that they sold independently and so the Packers sometimes felt unhappy about this independent streak when a part of the Armenians they weren't seen as cooperative and the Japanese who were very sensitive to how they were perceived in the valley tended to see what other people were doing they joined the cooperatives they did the things of the cooperatives sort of wanted and as a result they were they've actually felt that they had knitted themselves into the fabric of the the valley if you went back in history of of the Japanese Americans who came here they uh they worked very hard a day and they were very successful they were very successful before World War II and they actually started owning a lot of the the their own farms in California and some of the other people did not like the fact that Japanese were so successful in the arms so when the war started it gave him a good excuse to get him out of here [Music] so now we're into the early 1930s Japan Town slash Chinatown here in Fresno was a vibrant part of Fresno it had bath houses hotels movie houses bookstores my grandmother had a restaurant called matsuno Zushi right on Kern and E and across the street my grandfather had a general store so it really was a a very vibrant time for our family to have a farm a 20 acre grape Farm on my father's side and then on my mother's side to have you know my batch on or my grandmother have this very vibrant restaurant and across the street my grandfather having the General Store my grandmother was a very Progressive woman she would greet her customers with sitting at the front counter with a long stem cigarette holder with a cigarette and I say progressive because not many women were smoking in the 30s I mean it was very taboo to for any woman to smoke but it was a great time in in the 30s in Fresno especially in the Japan Town in Chinatown foreign [Music] [Music] World War II began on September 1st 1939 while it was a complex battle globally there were two distinct sides the Axis powers of Germany Italy and Japan battled the Allied powers of the Soviet Union France the United Kingdom China and eventually the United States yeah the Empire of Japan was seen as an aggressive Force to leaders in America even before World War II began the Japanese victory over Russia and the russo-japanese war in 1904 was the first defeat of a western Nation by an Asian Nation when Japan invaded China in 1937 and then formed an alliance with Nazi Germany and Italy in World War II the United States was watching Empire of Japan was on a they were seen by most countries as a serious threat the alien registration Act of 1940 required all people the U. S government saw as aliens over the age of 14 to be registered and fingerprinted and shortly after the FBI began a list identifying German Italian and Japanese individuals they thought could be dangerous if America formally engaged in the war [Music] as tensions Rose and the threat of conflict with Japan escalated the Japanese nisei living on the west coast saw what might come if Japan attacked their country fears of Retribution imprisonment and even execution were real so the decision to show loyalty to America led to the formation of the Japanese American citizens League the jacl became a strong patriotic voice for those of Japanese ancestry in California's Central Valley the 1940s an interesting transition had taken place in the Japanese community in 1920 73 percent of the Japanese Community was foreign born by 1940 in the 1940s census 37 percent only was foreign born that meant that the essay were the foreign-born portion of the Japanese population the first generation had now been actually eclipsed by a growing and much larger second generation a generation one United States the Nissan [Music] in the late summer of 1941 life in Fresno California was good while eyes were on Hitler's advances in Europe and the expanding aggressions of Japan everyday life continued as usual in the city and agricultural Countryside in October of 41 the big Fresno fair Drw record crowds as it still does today parking lots filled families enjoying the long late summer days unaware that in less than two months their country would be at War [Music] on November 7th exactly one month before the Pearl Harbor attack Curtis B Munson's report on the west coast Japanese Americans landed on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's desk [Music] Munson was a successful businessman who was commissioned by the state department to investigate the reaction of people of Japanese ancestry legal citizens or not if Japan attacked the United States Munson's report concluded that most of the West Coast Japanese were loyal to America and a widespread Uprising or Revolt was highly unlikely U.

S Army intelligence wrote their assessment of the Munson report shortly after it was submitted to the president the Army agreed with Munson's findings and stated that identification of potentially dangerous Japanese on the west coast was complete and that sabotaged by the general Japanese American population on the west coast was not expected that Army intelligence report never made it to the president's desk [Music] the Japanese military had begun making plans to attack the United States in early 1941 even as the Japanese government was an active negotiations with America to prevent War [Music] Japanese war planners thought a preemptive strike on the U. S Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor would limit the ability of the United States to interfere with Japan's Ambitions to take over British colonies in Southeast Asia Singapore and the Philippines on November 26 1941 a Naval Strike Force of six aircraft carriers left Japan and headed towards the Hawaiian Islands diplomatic negotiations between Japan and the United States were deteriorating we now know those negotiations were never intended by the Japanese to succeed they were part of a distraction effort to move the carrier strike group into position tack with full surprise before any formal declaration of war was made [Music] early in the morning of December 7 1941 353 Japanese aircraft launched from the carriers in two ways headed for the island of Oahu their target the U. S naval base at Pearl Harbor for an hour and a half death rained down on American forces and civilians at Pearl Harbor the sounds of War shattering the quiet of a peaceful Sunday morning when the attack ended 2403 Americans were killed nearly 1200 were severely injured Pacific Fleet was left burning [Music] America declared war on Japan and officially entered World War II and for 120 000 Japanese immigrants and Americans living on the west coast of the United States life was about to change that was it was an early Sunday morning and you know I'm a I'm a tennis player from way back and I played on the High School tennis team and this is early Sunday mornings about seven o'clock 7 30 and Sunday morning and as we were playing tennis a car stopped by the side of the road in Livingston at the high school and there were about three men in the car and they got out and started to curse at us and called us all kinds of names and made it very uncomfortable so we left and uh when we got home listening to the radio we found out that Pearl Harbor had happened and that's how we first became acquainted with what was happening on a distinctly remember members saying what a stupid thing Japan is doing who do they think they are bombing our country and um about a couple weeks later I began to hear rumors that that we were responding partly responsible because we were accused of not being loyal to America and and the rumors were going around that that we should all be rounded up and put into a concentration camp we didn't have much of a TV then I guess but I remember reading it it just didn't seem possible if something like that happened but it did there was a lot of talk before Pearl Harbor there the media was playing up with all the anti-japanese sentiment there was a lot of propaganda people were starting to have some sentiment that was anti-japanese but it was until after the bombing that things got really ugly I didn't know about it until I went to school the next morning and then things were so weird my friends weren't talking to me my classmates weren't talking to me and they pretended that they didn't even see me walking down the hallway and I thought now what did I do that that that changed things so much [Music] the shock of a sneak attack on American soil caused widespread hysteria and paranoia across the country [Music] these fears were Amplified when Frank Knox the secretary of the Navy and Roosevelt's Administration blamed Pearl Harbor on a wildly successful Espionage effort by Japan instead of the more damaging truth that the local military in Hawaii was ill-prepared for exactly what happened this exaggeration helped the American people maintain confidence in the Navy but fueled Sensational news reports and stories of sabotage and imminent Invasion by Japan that were simply untrue military leaders here and in Japan had already crunched the numbers and had come to the conclusion that a full-scale Invasion by either country wasn't feasible findings that were never shared with the public [Music] War hysteria and anti-japanese sentiment was made worse by several events that happened directly after the Pearl Harbor attack [Music] foreign on December 7 1941 a single Japanese warplane damaged by U.

S ground fire in the Pearl Harbor attack crash landed in a field on the relatively unknown Hawaiian island of Niihau west of Kauai the pilot survived and was taken in by several Japanese people that lived on the remote island amongst the native Hawaiians a few days later when villagers learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor by radio it was decided to turn the pilot over to the military on nearby Kauai but by then the pilot had convinced his Japanese hosts to Aid him in getting his gun and papers back so he could escape to a submarine that would pick him up and return him to the fleet a fight broke out between the two parties a local Hawaiian named Ben kanahili and his wife Ella fought the Japanese pilot as he scrambled for a gun when it was over the pilot was dead but not before kanahili suffered three gunshot wounds that almost ended his life one of the Japanese residents that had come so quickly to the aid of the pilot committed suicide on the spot news of the Niihau incident reached Washington DC and fanned the Flames of hate that were growing against the Japanese-American population if one downed pilot could turn three Japanese Americans against the United States in a matter of hours how many more plots to strike America from within were out there [Music] one of the main figures in the confusion and fear that swept America after the Pearl Harbor attack was Lieutenant General John El DeWitt the commander of the western Defense command and U. S fourth Army DeWitt had a well-established reputation of prejudice against non-caucasian Americans and was easily influenced by any rumor of sabotage or imminent Japanese invasion he was a person who felt that something had to be done with the Japanese aliens he actually vacillated a number of times but in the end listening to subordinates like Alan Gullion the subordinate Carl bennetson who dealt with enemy aliens under Alan Gullion John L DeWitt came to the idea that it should be the case that the Japanese on the west coast should be removed and taken away from the West Coast initially DeWitt was against the idea of a broad scale removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast on December 19 1941 General DeWitt recommended that only people over the age of 14 from enemy Nations be removed and held by restraints in the interior of the country [Music] after the disaster in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941. heads would roll and angry Congress and our Republic demanded action Admiral husband e Kimmel was in charge of the naval forces and overall military situation in Hawaii was actually removed from command the second in command who is in charge of the army General Walter short he himself was also removed from command so the result was that he could see what would happen if he was actually less than vigilant in carrying out some sort of defensive policy for the West Coast [Music] on January 21st 1942 DeWitt recommended to Secretary of War Henry Stimson the creation of small prohibited zones around strategic areas in California from which so-called enemy aliens and their native-born children would be removed Stimson and attorney general Francis Biddle agreed with the plan as long as Japanese Americans constitutional rights were not violated however on February 9th DeWitt asked for much larger prohibited zones in Washington state and Oregon including the entire cities of Seattle Portland and Tacoma attorney general Biddle refused to okay the plan but President Roosevelt convinced of the military necessity of Dewitt's recommendation bypass the justice department and gave the Army carte blanche to do whatever they wanted two days later DeWitt submitted his final plan calling for the removal of all Japanese including native-born U.

S citizens and other subversive persons from the entire area lying west of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges DeWitt Justified this broad scale removal as military necessity stating that the Japanese race is an enemy race and the fact that no such sabotage had yet taken place was a disturbing indication that such action will be taken while the military debated the restrictions on Japanese Americans public opinion on the west coast was growing for confining all persons of Japanese ancestry the same time the Japanese American citizens League was active in demonstrating its loyalty to America by becoming air raid wardens and joining the Army nevertheless the anti-japanese American sentiment in the media was vicious the Los Angeles Times editorial in early 1942 echoed the feelings of many a Viper is nonetheless a Viper wherever the egg is hatched so a Japanese American Born of Japanese parents will grow up to be a Japanese not an American well you know there was tremendous propaganda that went on at this time all the newspapers the there were articles in the magazines and different city councils were anti-japanese and so there was a lot of anti-japanese feelings going on at the time the historians who have studied this process don't know exactly what were the immediate motivations of Franklin Roosevelt the there are no records oral records as to how Franklin Roosevelt dealt with this decision we just know that he decided in favor of the removal of the Japanese and on February 19th 1942 he signed executive order 9066. Executive Order 9066 gave full control of the fate of 120 000 people of Japanese ancestry living on the west coast to General John DeWitt the order allowed DeWitt to designate military zones in Washington Oregon California and Arizona the constitutional rights of these American citizens were suspended and control over their lives given to the military never before in our history as a nation had this happened confusion and misinformation spread after DeWitt created zones one and two on the west coast with different standards about who could stay in these areas and who had to leave original plans for Executive Order 9066 were intended to remove all so-called enemy aliens which meant the Japanese German and Italian populations since these were the Axis countries the world was at war with but public opinion was strongly against the removal of German and Italian aliens leaving the Japanese as the main focus of the effort by March of 1942 the decision was made to remove all people of Japanese ancestry including U. S born legal citizens out of the two prohibited zones set forth by General DeWitt the plan was to create two phases of the internment process first all Japanese were ordered to report to what the military called assembly centers detention centers typically in makeshift Barracks located at local Fairgrounds while the actual War relocation Centers located in the interior of the United States were being rapidly built eventually the posters came out on the wall on telephone poles and things saying that we had to be here in the Assembly Center at Merced by the 13th of May of 1942 and that was in April of 1942 that this notice came out so there were very little time in between the notice and the time we had to be in the camp for decades the stories of what happened to Japanese Americans and immigrants as a result of Executive Order 9066 have been kept inside by the people that lived through the nightmare for some the pain of sharing the truth with even their own children was too great time can be a great equalizer between pain and truth and when that balance is found lessons can be learned [Music] well it sort of came gradually you know all these things were happening first you're you're restricted to five miles of travel you can't go further than five miles and you had to get a special permit in order to go further we were gathering a Japanese Arctic magazines and pictures and anything Japanese phonograph records and we start to burn them or bury them which was telling me that it was dangerous to be identified as a Japanese there was actually shots fired at the house you know when bullets went through the house kind of you know my dad said he remembers everyone having to duck down on the floor and such because they didn't know if they were going to keep shooting there was just one random shot on March 29 1942 public Proclamation or made it Aly all Japanese to voluntarily leave the military zones the writing was now literally on the wall Japanese Americans learned of their fate by Public Notices posters articles and local newspapers like the Fresno Bee and newsreels when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor our West Coast became a potential combat zone living in that zone were more than a hundred thousand persons of Japanese ancestors two-thirds of them American citizens one-third aliens we knew that some among them were potentially Danger but no one knew what would happen among this concentrated population if Japanese forces should try to invade our Shores military authorities therefore determined that all of them citizens and Aliens alike would have to move they expected to North on the media plus that were uh placards announcements you know about the fact that you were supposed to be aware of Executive Order 9066 so there was this kind of let's say uh broad dissemination of information for the Japanese and in the Fresno area there would be two assembly centers that would be devised for the Japanese one was the Fresno Fairgrounds and the other place was Pinedale which at this time in the 1940s was somewhat distant from the Central City of Fresno [Music] two other assembly centers were created in California Central San Joaquin Valley one in Merced at the Merced County fairgrounds and another south of Fresno in the small farming town of Tulare [Music] Fairgrounds made the most sense to the military for temporarily housing the Japanese population while the more permanent War relocation centers were built in the interior of the country [Music] for Saburo only 12 years old in the spring of 1942 news of orders to imprison all people of Japanese ancestry meant the quiet small town life he knew and loved would be taken away what I remember was that we were all going to be leaving home and the the army or government was going to be requiring us to leave and so I remember walking a mile and a half to my elementary school before school started and asking the principal who was my teacher in my sixth grade class uh to give me my more stamps and more bonds that we were buying to support the war and she didn't say a word and I remember walking out looking through the the school and seeing some kids playing and never able to say goodbye to any of my classmates oh for many Japanese on the west coast the orders to report to assembly centers came with little warning once the decision to open assembly centers in Fresno and Pinedale was made families had just days to sell off their possessions since each person could only bring one bag or truck if they farmed they had little time to make arrangements or plan how to care for their land no one knew how long they would be gone or if they'd ever see their homes and belongings again Kyo Sato had just graduated high school near Sacramento California when the orders to report to assembly centers was given by the military many of the Japanese from this area were sent down to the Pinedale Assembly Center near Fresno [Music] she remembers the Stark shift in feelings towards the Japanese and how her family dealt with the pain and fear of leaving their lives behind I read this book by gradson's Americans betrayed and learned about all these all these organizations Farm Bureau native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West American Legion VFW they were all against us they were all pushing for concentration camps in those days you know that that was what they called a concentration camps not relocation centers you know yeah then this poster you know this big posters of how big are they they were all nailed onto fence posts and buildings and telephone poles and everywhere I tell you when I first saw that I I said that's me notice to all those of Japanese ancestry imagine you know I think back on it now and I think did my country do something like that [Music] I was the oldest of I had six brothers and two sisters and I was responsible for getting them ready to go but you know what was so interesting interesting is that my parents never want would talk about all this in their in the presence of my brothers and sisters my mother said children need to grow up snow meaning meaning happy and secure so we never talked about it until they were all bedded down and uh and then the three of us would make plans legally countrywise politically I didn't think things like that could happen for Ruth katsura and Midori Tani growing up not far from the Fresno Fairgrounds made the experience of being forced to move into animal stalls there a memory that will never fade about my age because I was in front of the state and right after we got the assemblies and I would turn 20.

so if you're still young too you know we could talk about the assembly center right you know we're there now that short period when we had the shock and thing we had to come back to reality we're really confined you know did you live in a Barracks when you were at the Assembly Center did you yeah that's where I learned all the terms latrine Barracks mess all so we we spoke the language [Music] foreign ERS the Fresno Fairgrounds have come to life each October attracting large crowds enjoying the sights and sounds of the big Fresno fair today most of the thousands that visit the fair have no idea that this was a concentration camp during World War II imprisoning over 5 000 Japanese Americans and immigrants after the Pearl Harbor by May of 1942 wooden Barracks guarded by gun Towers filled the interior racetrack parking lot the Stalls still used today for livestock held a population of mostly American citizens who couldn't believe this was happening it was quite sobering obviously to come into a County Fairground with your basically your most personal belongings that you could only carry and fit into your duffel bag my dad remembers taking in his mitt and Uncle Johnny his mid and his baseball equipment of football that was deflated even I remember when there was the Fresno Assembly Center dedication my dad was 88 at the time as we were walking by the animal stalls he pointed directly to an area and said that this is where we used to live when the truck came I don't remember any any details other than this family coming to say goodbye to to my sisters and we got in the truck and all I remember is that as a truck came into Fresno I could see all the banners stretch across the streets announcing the West Coast relays when it arrived at the Fresno Fairgrounds all I remember is that when we got off we were given a large bags to fill up fill with us with the straw or hay I don't know which it was which turned out to be our mattress for for that night from where my birthplace I could open the window and I could hear that thing I lived right there it's um I lived on Willow and Kings Canyon I could walk to the fairgrounds bewildered confused some angry people that for years had enjoyed the Fresno fair with their friends and family were now prisoners inside of it the Assembly Center in Fresno like the ones in nearby Pinedale Merced and Tulare was hastily constructed substandard housing families were kept together in one large room with cots meals were taken in a central mess hall for each block of barracks and makeshift classrooms were set up for the children of the nearly 120 000 Japanese Americans and immigrants forced into detention well over half were under the age of 14. [Music] I really think that when you look at the the camps in general it really disrupted the family life for all Japanese Americans they could never have a sit-down Meal which is very precious in our family and yet they had to wait in line go into a mess hall most of the parents would sit together the kids would sit together separately so it totally disrupted you know the whole dynamics of a family dinner together not to mention the inconveniences of having to take a shower in a public take a public shower and not have any privacy or imagine to have to do your business on toilets with no partitions I remember a close family friend Nori Masuda telling me that his sister Rosie was so ashamed and didn't want to have her privacy interrupted when she did her business that she would go into the women's bathroom at three in the morning and most of the other women finally caught on that's the only way that you could have any privacy so she would go in there and there would be still a lot of women and many develop problems digestive problems because they would hold it so long that it would really imbalance their digestive system but Rosie and one particular moment she went three in the morning to use the bathroom and there was a bunch of women there so the next time she went she took in a paper bag as she sat on the toilet she put the bag over her head and that way she felt that this would be the only way she would have any privacy [Music] the first night I remember the military police came and knocked on our our Barrick door and we all had to be in our beds because they would flash the flashlight or our faces to make sure all nine of us was in our Barrack and I remember people scurrying to their Barrack because of this bed check that was going on and I know that we were thinking about the people who had to go to a bathroom or couldn't go to the bathroom because they had to be in the bed and and and I remember those Searchlight from the bleachers that scanned our barracks to make sure that nobody was up up and around after the 10 o'clock 10 miles from the Fresno Fairgrounds Assembly Center the Pinedale Assembly Center was ready to receive its first detainees on May 7 1942.