For Many Life Behind Barbwire had Daily Hardships


Camp life was harsh for parents with no money.
Jimi Yamaichi remembers breakfast in camp. Pancakes with molasses were served most mornings. Those who could afford syrup would purchase it in the store and bring it to the mess hall. Some families, with revenue coming in, never ate in the mess halls. They would buy food at the store and cook in their barracks. Their bacon and eggs cooking in the fry pan could be smelled throughout the adjoining barracks. Kids would ask their parents why they couldn’t have pancakes with syrup or bacon and eggs like some of the other kids. It was a harsh fact of camp life for parents with little or no money.


Economic hardships to endure.
Tule Lake Internment – Segregation Center was one of the camps that did not offer baby food. Jimi Yamaichi recounts the economic hardships poorer internee families’ endured.


Toilet paper might cost nearly an hour’s pay
Living in Tule Lake Internment – Segregation Center meant you had a roof over your head and three meals a day in the mess halls. Everything else, all personal needs, one had to bought including toilet paper. Jimi Yamaichi shares the fact that Tule Lake had the lowest employment rate of all the camps at 37%. Some of the other camps had employment rates as high as 55%. If one was being paid 16 dollars a month it meant they were being paid 7 cents an hour. Toilet paper might cost nearly an hour’s pay. 25 cents was worth something for many internees at the Tule Lake Internment – Segregation Center.

Other Segments
FarmingBarracksJail-StockadeCamp LifeFood in Camp
Sake-Coal-CrossAfter SegregationRemnantsTowers and Fences
Parks & MonumentsLatrine LifePilgrimage

©2013 Anders Tomlinson and Jimi Yamaichi, all rights reserved.