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PW: Did you ever go back to Topaz with your parents?

KY: Uh-huh, yeah.

PW: What was that like?

KY: That was intense, it was really intense. It was 1993. I had already, I had been doing the Tule Lake pilgrimages as the doctor. I went starting in 1991, I went on four of them. And so somehow... and I'd been going to the Topaz reunions with my parents. I have to look back when I started going, but I kind of invited myself to these reunions, they were usually down on the peninsula, and I liked meeting the people my mother know. So that pilgrimage was a big one, I think there was probably four hundred people. And I got my parents to go, we flew to Salt Lake City, stayed overnight in a hotel, and of course, being the Sansei Project, we organized small group breakout sessions. We didn't call them breakout sessions, but we had small groups. And my parents weren't interested in it, so they went off and they went walking around the city. But the Sansei Project had organized that part along with the Topaz reunion committee. Yeah, there was no museum. We went out to the site. I was friends with Toru, in fact, I may have even been going out with him at some time previous. Sorry. [Laughs] But my mother remembered Toru from camp, because he was on the same block. And she remembered him, so she was thrilled to get to meet him, and also because he had these music singing parties at his house, my mother loved those things.

PW: This is Toru Saito, correct?

KY: Yeah. So at Topaz, he'd been there a number of times, so he was able to take my parents to where exactly their barracks were. So my mother really did... they even got on the TV news or something, someone came up to them when they were walking around. So that was good. I remember, I was on the bus going there. I don't know where my parents were, but I was sitting in the back, and I was close to where Michael Yoshii was. And I just remember the anticipation of getting there, because I'd heard about it all my life, and I just was so, I really felt hyper, I was just hyper-aware, I just was wanting to take everything in. And I remember kind of moving around. We got my mother under, there was some kind of canopy, they had a tent or something. I remember getting her there with her friends and making sure she had enough water. And then my father and I stood in the back, and I just remember feeling really emotional, and wanting to be right next to my father who I knew wasn't going to say a word. I kind of remember one speaker after another, but I don't remember what they said. But it was just like taking in the sun, the weather, the air, all that dry dirt. I mean, yeah, that was really something for me. And my father even wrote about it; he wrote a letter to my brother and sister-in-law about how he was really glad he went. He didn't really want to go, but because I wanted to go, they went, and how he really was glad he went. And it's interesting that he talked about the people who spoke in Delta when we had dinner. And he also spoke about how nice the people were, of Delta. He talked about the kids who were the volunteers, who were pointing out where these old, what barrack was being used for what. It was really interesting, the whole last part of his three-page letter to my brother is about the people of Delta. So I was going to show that -- I'm sure Jane has seen it because they published all these things into one of the Topaz pilgrimage books, they might have edited it. So I don't know, I have to go back and look at what was in it. But when I saw that, it really made me happy that he was acknowledging. And he remembered people, he said that there were two sons there, and they looked just like the old man, the older guy, who was a real tall person who worked at the camp, and he worked under him. So that was good.

So that was '93, and the Nobu things were much, are later, they're after that. So what happened for me in the Nobu sessions was that... I think there were many sessions. We talked about different things, just regular stuff. And my mother talks about being lonely, and I'm saying, "What? Lonely?" Samishii? And I'm saying, what? I mean, I'm here all the time. That was hard, because somehow, even though I felt like I was there all the time, somehow she didn't feel connected. And I don't think I ever worked out what that was. I mean, I don't know, that never got resolved. So yeah, that was hard. But then somehow we got around to what my father felt about camp. And Nobu's talking about any pain of camp, and my father says, "No, I'm okay." And he kept saying that. And then I had this freak-out moment because, for a moment I thought maybe I was crazy, because if he denied any pain, why was I so messed up? Why did I have all this emotion inside me, that I would cry in public at the Oakland museum? Why? And Nobu... see, I don't know how much I can put into my father finally giving into Nobu and finally agreeing that yes, there could have been pain even though he couldn't feel it. And I was preparing for one of the talks at Salt Lake, either the grand opening or something, and I found this thing, and I'm going to read this. "Carrier of pain. Although the Nisei may have consciously avoided transmission of indebtedness to the camp, it is suggested here that to some extent it has, nonetheless, been passed down subtly or subconsciously to their children. Family therapists have learned the many ways parents are sustained and even consciously relieved of pain because their children are covertly 'asked' to bear it. Such children, as children in general, want to be responsive to their parents' needs, partly out of fulfilling their own identity needs to do what is significant and expected." Anyway, "I suggested that the pain suffered by the Issei and Nisei has been passed down to the succeeding generation and through modes that were culturally influenced, that is, through non-verbal cues. The Nisei may not be acutely aware of their own pain as much as the Sansei who are bearing it for them."

PW: That leads me to my final question for the day, though, it's a perfect segue. How do you think that that the Sansei generation will be remembered?

KY: Oh. I think that we'll be remembered for doing what our parents wanted us to do, and have entered into successful careers and being relatively accepted. I would like to think that I would also like to think of the Sanseis being remembered for things like redress and standing up for other people's rights. Just like I always felt like the fact that I had so many Jewish friends, I felt like they had some understanding of what it was like to be a persecuted minority. All my early friends were Jewish, and they were the ones who, to me, were leaders in a lot of the political stuff that I was on the outskirts of. I mean, I didn't do the main thing, I didn't get married and have a family. That would have pleased my mother.

PW: Is there anything else you wanted to share in talking about...

KY: No. Just thinking about this has made me want to look over, has made me, looking at my life, and being, actually, quite relieved and grateful that you change during life and you don't stay in the same rut. That actually, with age, despite all the physical bad things about aging, the other part of aging is better. It's an improvement over being forty or fifty, even.

PW: Thank you so much. This has been an incredible discussion and oral history interview.

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