"Zeal for Cleanliness"

"Zeal for Cleanliness". Manzanar. , One of the adjustments Japanese Americans had to make while incarcerated was doing laundry in a communal building. Each block had a laundry room with washboards and concrete tubs. , , "There were no dryers and soon wash lines blossomed everywhere," George Matsumoto said. , , There were exceptions. An "obviously wealthy" family in Block 12 brought a washing machine and "put it into the laundry area where it was their private washing machine... Others were too polite to even suggest that they be able to share it," Shigeru Ochi recalled. , , Laundry rooms had other uses. High school students used the one in Block 7 as a chemistry lab (left). Block 24 made mochi in its laundry room for Boys' Day, with "everybody, young and old, lending a helping hand." , , Japanese baths? , When their men's latrine ran out of hot water, Mas Okui and other Nisei boys bathed in the laundry tubs. On April 15, 1942, the Manzanar Free Press exclaimed, "The traditional Japanese zeal for cleanliness is reaching a feverish pitch as many Isseis, unaccustomed to the spraying showers, are reportedly using the laundry tubs for bathing purposes. This. should be stopped immediately." , , In late May, Paul Ohtaki reported to his hometown newspaper, the Bainbridge Island Review, that one islander "now faithfully observes the anti-washtub ban. So, daily, he trudges to the shower room, carrying his washtub, and scrubs furiously in the tub under the shower sprinkler." People soon built concrete baths in many of the latrine shower rooms.