Hanging My Hat in Manzanar

To define my home life in Manzanar, I would say that it has become a group of unique experiences in a rather livable enviornment which is constant only in its continued daily, dynamic changes.

These changes started from the moment I arrived. Visualize my approach apparelled in a big summer hat, open-toed French-heeled sandals, costume a-la L.A. and a gleam in my eye. The gleam meant anticipation of adventure. To be sure, adventure outside of a cozy little appartment set up with the useless lovely things (collection of tea cups) I had piled in the car. It would have hurt to know that my thoughts as well as my clothes were ridiculous. Each of us probably could write a book just on the mental gymnastics of the first day. Contemplate home in a corner of a plasterboard six-beam, one-room barrack, a beet picker's bed, a straw mattress, a good block's walk to a frightening public place called "latrine," and three other girls to share this life with you.

It was harder because of a sand tornado on the outside, which refused to stay outside, to listen to the following positive cheer points given by these similarly inducted roommates. I had a bed, an unusual item to most of the teachers who were then sleeping on the floor; we had a small patch of grass in front of our barrack; the dust wouldn't blow forever and "I simply must hear about so-and-so of 'Goon Gulch' aparment, etc., etc." From the first sense of humor of the inmates of Manzanar has been unconquerable.

We named our home "Chicken Pox" (an erstwhile chicken pox sign from an abandoned hospital ward) a symbol of our resourcefulness—one of our most used attributes, and not a "cackling" as sometimes the neighbors imply. We pushed and pulled, nailed and tacked. The results—my dressing table is constructed of apple boxes, the stool a nail keg; our tea table is a round piece of plasterboard pounded on a nail keg; bricks and boards construct a partition bookcase and milk cans, stones and plasterboard provide needed desks.

We dash for the shower in "getas," share one another's belongings, fight the wind, dust, cold and heat, and manage a host of unpredictable items daily, unwaveringly. We have teas, walks and gab-fests. We hitch-hike with a victory fervor, have a garden that only the elements will destroy. We work and play and enjoy. It is much different in its environmental factors than the average home but the human elements, emotions, and satisfactions are the same. To us it is even more—it is our struggle to prove that Democracy is practical, impossible and probable when your home is where you lay your heart as well as your hat.