I was always miserable, every where I looked there were strangers but no family to turn to. The camps were surrounded with barbed-wire and 8 guard towers with armed guards. The climate was often hot with no shade to rest in and sometimes the climate was severely cold. Several Japanese were killed by guards due to their disobeying of orders. In each camp there was an administration building, schools, hospitals, a camp store, a post office, religious services, and a library in which the people of the camp used on a daily basis as if they lived in a normal community. Every camp consisted of block arrangements with 14 barracks, a mess hall, and a recreational hall per block. Barracks were constructed with tarpaper and didn't contain any furniture, cupboards, closets, plumbing, or cooking facilities. There was no privacy so people often used sheets as doors. Toilet facilities were located in different buildings without any stalls for privacy. In the camps there were bad sewage systems so their often was a bad stench lingering. About 300 other people gathered in the mess hall where food was rationed out to each internee for 48 cents which they paid for with their monthly allowance of 12-19 dollars according to the tasks they performed while in the camps. Many worked as physicians, barbers, dentists, and carpenters for 48 hours per week with the highest pay of 19 dollars though unskilled workers were paid 8 dollars. The Japanese Americans had a diet of rice, macaroni, potatoes, tongue, beef brains, and kidney. The fruits and vegetables as well as livestock bred in the camps were prepared as meals for the internees.
Children helped carry buckets of water to help tend family gardens. Several made art work and furniture using homemade or borrowed tools. Clubs and baseball teams were formed to keep everyone busy. Many children joined Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in hopes of forgetting that they were trapped in hell. Although children needed to be educated, the government didn't supply any teachers in the camps. Though, the government allowed for the people of the camps to teach the students even if they had an 8th grade education. The people who taught started schools in empty buildings yet they were paid very low wages. Each camp served as its own school district with 1-12 grades. When the schools were first started, there weren't any chairs or boards and students had to share books. Why were they all acting as if everything was okay? There was no bright side to imprisonment. Many people attempted to build gardens and create school yearbooks to remember the good times in order to bring beauty and life to the camps but they still felt like prison.