Learn how incarcerees created and ran their own stores, services, and economy behind barbed wire.
Stop 3 Audio
Transcript
One of the ways we were able to get goods and products from outside into camp was through mail order catalogs like Sears and Roebuck, Montgomery Ward’s, or Spiegel’s. We ordered everything from dress patterns, toys to plant seeds and hair tonic. Another way we were able to purchase goods was through the canteen operated by the Issei and Nisei Organized Amache Cooperative Enterprise.
In early 1943, the Co-op had several retail and service stores. One of these was the Co-op Canteen that opened in 1943 in the Recreation Hall of Block 6F. We could get newspapers, soda pop, toiletries, and other goods. at the canteen. Co-op was the most successful business at camp, run and organized by us, for us.
Within the first few months of business, the stores were taking in over forty thousand dollars a month. The canteen kept growing and the co-ops started adding services in other shops. Pretty soon, the canteen got too big for the rec hall, and it moved to a new building in Block 9F at the beginning of 1944.
The new building not only had a canteen, but there was also a dry goods store, variety store, sign shop, barber shop, Beauty Shop, Optical Shop, Shoe Repair Shop, Laundry, Photoshop, Tailor, Watch Repair Shop, Radio Shop, Newspaper Stand, and Check Cashing Service. The goods and services of the Co-op let us feel connected to the outside world and the things we bought help make life in camp feel a little less restricted.
DRIVING DIRECTIONS: To continue to Stop #4, keep driving south on this road. A wayside panel associated with Stop #4 is approximately one tenth of a mile ahead on the east (left) side of the street.