Visit a restored recreation hall that once served as a preschool and learn about the importance of rec halls as community hubs.
Stop 5 Audio
Transcript
Recreation halls, like this one, were important community spaces. Each block had a recreation hall which was used for various activities, for organization headquarters such as block leaders, for churches, for offices or for schools. This block, Block 11F, was the site of an especially important school for me; this rec hall was where I attended preschool!
My name is Carlene Tanigoshi Tinker, I’m a Sansei, the only child of Bill and Billie Tanigoshi, both Niseis. My parents and I lived in Block 11G, apartment 4C. Block 11G is the block just east of this rec hall, across one dirt road, so it was an easy walk for me to attend preschool in Block 11F. And, even though I was just four years old, while attending preschool here, I do have many vivid memories of what took place. Apart from learning to read, to socialize, and to follow the teachers’ directions and instructions, the most vivid memory was of nap time. I can recall the wood box, divided into two sections, a box usually used to pack fruit, that was turned on its end to become my bookcase. In that bookcase was my “blankie”— that was “my” word for a blanket— my cup to drink my milk and some books. I can still see the door that led into the room, as I lie down on my “blankie,” after my snack of graham crackers and a cup of milk. Just this memory is as comforting now to me as I look at Block 11F rec hall as it must have been for me when I was taking a nap!
Memories of being in camp, like the ones I have of preschool, have been deep-seated and really hadn’t surfaced until I became a volunteer with the Amache Community Archaeology Project in 2010. I was 70 years old, then, and my knowledge of what Amache meant to me was nonexistent; like so many survivors, because our parents didn’t talk about being incarcerated, I was really ignorant of what “camp” was, why we were placed here. The Amache Community Archaeology Project returns, every two years, with university students and researchers to try to understand what life was like for the incarcerees during 1942-1945. Since 2010, I have participated in 8 of these projects and will continue as long as I’m physically fit to do so. You might ask why? The answer is simply that I am on a personal journey to understand my past! Each year, the artifacts, the knowledge that has been updated, are often personal findings about where I had been and what happened to my parents and myself.
In the 2018 Field School, the plan was to excavate around Block 11F barrack which had just been relocated to its original footprint. It had been used as a storage unit for the nearby town of Granada and shortened to fit that location. As you can see, the barrack now fits its original footprint. Each morning, around 9:30 a.m., if you are in the field excavating, everyone stops shoveling or sifting dirt, finding a shady spot under one of the Siberian elm trees that still grow at the site. This is “cookie break” time… and, yes, we devour lots of cookies as well as consume liters of water laced with Gatorade. At one of these “cookie breaks,” I was looking at the photos on my phone, and, by an amazing coincidence, I came across a photo of my report card from preschool! I had taken that photo of my preschool report card when I was doing research of my “relocation” papers, which are stored in the National Archives in Washington D.C. At this moment, when I saw on my report card, “Block 11F,” I realized the connection! I/we were excavating the barrack where “I” had gone to preschool. As I continued to look at more of the photos taken at that time, I found copies of my health card — my mom took me often to the clinic for “sniffles” and other minor illnesses — as well as copies of the anecdotal comments about me and my behavior by my preschool teacher, Ms. Chiyoko Sugawara, on March 17, 1944. I chuckled, as I read her comments, some of which included the following: “Carlene, she’s very social, she gets along well with her classmates;” “Carlene, she’s follows directions well; she draws within the lines;” “Carlene, however, needs to improve her grammar, she uses ‘double negatives’”. If I were able to respond to this last one, I would’ve said: “Give me a break, Ms. Sugawara, I’m only 4 years old, I can barely form a complete sentence, let alone use ‘double negatives!’” “There’s nothing not silly about that comment!” Can you imagine that! That’s the kind of discovery that keeps me interested and wanting to come back as a volunteer.
DRIVING DIRECTIONS: To continue to Stop #6, continue south on this road until it curves to the left. On the left side of the road, you will see a wayside panel called “On Guard.”