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Life at Santa Anita

Orange County Public Libraries
Permalink: https://californiarevealed.org/islandora/object/cavpp%3A12749
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  • Metadata
Title

Life at Santa Anita

Series Title

California of the Past

Date Created

2008-03

Description

Experiences at Santa Anita Japanese Internment Center durring World War II
Recorded in Laguna Woods, California, for California of the Past

Transcript

While at Santa Anita to keep us busy we were given work to do. There was a great number of people working on camouflage nets for the armed forces. These nets were huge nets that hung from the ceiling of the stadium down to the stadium floor and as colored burlap strips were woven into this netting, it was raised. I was working on a gardening crew and we were assigned to trim a huge hedge. It was an oleander hedge that lined the northern perimeter of the track and there was a chain link fence that was 8 or 10 feet tall with barb wire on top. We were given makeshift ladders that were made out of 2x4's and given lopping sheers and hedge sheers to trim the oleander. One day I was up on the ladder and I was clopping the Oleander and of course the oleander would grow outside the fence and I was leaning over the fence trying to top the oleander when I heard a voice say Get back inside that fence! And there I saw an armed guard, a military policeman. And I said all I'm trying to is trim the oleanders like we were told to do and the only way to trim is to reach over at which point he worked the bolt of his rifle chamber around and brought his rifle up to ready and said I told you to get back inside that fence. Well, naturally I climbed right down and I put down my lopping shears and I didn't work anymore that day. That was the first time ever I had a gun pointed at me. On another occasion, someone happened to look back towards the stadium and noticed that all the camouflage nets had all been lowered at the same time, which was quite unusual. We knew something was going on so we left our tools there and ran to the main part of the camp. And there we found turmoil. People milling about and the excitement was caused by word that had gotten out that the interior police force which was a private police force on the guys looking for contraband were going through the barracks and the stables where we were housed and they were stealing valuables from the evacuees.

Creator

OC Public Libraries

Interviewer

Macon, Chris

Interviewee

Tsutsui, James

Editor

Gilliom, Jon

Subject Topic

Japanese Americans--Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945
Internment

Subject Entity

TsuTsui, James

Location

Arcadia (Calif.)

Time Period

1940/1945?

Language

eng

Media Type

Moving Image

Format

mp4

Sound

Sound

Color

Color

Copyright Statement

Copyright status unknown. This work may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, its reproduction may be restricted by terms of gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. This work is accessible for purposes of education and research. Transmission or reproduction of works protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. [ Library/Archive ] attempted to find rights owners without success but is eager to hear from them so that we may obtain permission, if needed. Upon request to [ email address at Library/Archive ], digitized works can be removed from public view if there are rights issues that need to be resolved.

Country of Creation

US

Source Institution

Orange County Public Libraries

Source Institution Contact Information

1501 E. St. Andrew Place, Santa Ana, CA, 92705, US, Telephone: (714) 566-3055, email: Jon.Gilliom@occr.ocgov.com, http://ocpl.org/

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