<Begin Segment 44>

AI: Excuse me, before we get into college, I wanted to back up, because I remember you telling me in an earlier conversation, that when you first left Tule Lake, and before you went to Des Plaines, you actually had another, another conference that you attended.

EH: (Yes).

AI: And so, and tell me, actually, about getting ready to leave camp, and how and where you went first, before you went to Des Plaines.

EH: (Yes). That was at a student YM/YW conference in Estes Park.

AI: And when was it that you actually left Tule Lake?

EH: Something like June 9th, or June 10th, I think. And that's when the four of us, Reverend Dai and May Oiye, May Oiye, who was Willamette, Oregon, person, Bill Osuga was a Sacramentan, two years older than I was, was an outstanding violinist. And, and the fourth person I have, all my life I've been trying to find out what that guy's name was. I think he was a fisheries major at UW, probably a freshman, and lived, I think, around Auburn. Or, you know, he came from rural King County. And the four of us traveled to this student YM/YW conference. And, you know, that was, again, a big eye-opener. I had --

AI: Were you driving or taking the bus?

EH: I think we must have taken the bus. We must have gone into Denver, and from there taken a bus. And oddly enough, on all these travels, I never remember thinking, gee, we must have had to sleep somewhere, and I don't remember anything about hotels or -- at Estes Park we were in dormitories. Like cabins.

AI: And this, this -- excuse me -- this was the same trip that you had mentioned earlier, where you went with Reverend Kitagawa and you, you were turned away from at least one restaurant.

EH: (Yes), uh-huh, uh-huh. And we were, we -- I suppose we were a little edgy. I had had that Pocatello, Idaho, experience, so I wasn't as tense and worried. But we didn't really have any problems. It's also where I was sharing the dorm room with a bunch of black high school graduates out of Chicago. And one of the girls, who was a minister's daughter, said, "God, we're so glad you did that to them." And I said, "Wait a minute. What are you talking about?" And, and she said, "Oh, when, when you guys got 'em with Pearl Harbor." And I said, "Not me. I mean, I wasn't in that country. I was in America." And she says, "But you proved that whites aren't the only ones that, that could operate machines and, and fly, and be competent." And I was very impressed, because here was a high school kid saying that to me. And that was one of the first awareness that, how much blacks had been living with this problem. And they had, in many ways... 'course, I think I have to admit that blacks do talk about race, and I mean, that becomes their focal point, no matter where they gather. And so they start early, and parents like ministers would be able to objectively instill ideas in their kids. Give them some ammunition, some ability to cope with the world.

AI: You must have been surprised at that comment from...

EH: (Yes), I was very surprised. I was very impressed that... and then, it wasn't 'til a little later that I realized coming from the world that they were in, totally black, that it's no wonder this kind of feeling, uprising, is constant. Because every place you go, every, every time you have to get out in the public, you're going to, you're going to have to be confronted. You, you know, I think a black person never knows what somebody who's not black, what their response or their reaction or relationship, how that's going to come out. They can't be confident that they would get what we might call a normal reaction or handling of any situation. So for this kid, it was probably embedded in her. And I think maybe that's the only, that's the only way blacks can survive sometimes. Particularly in those days, when it was segregated army and you really were restricted about where you could go. And Chicago always, has always had, I think, a poor education system. And too politically involved, everything.

The other thing that I, I have to tell you about in camp, was that Madame Chiang Kai-shek's maiden name is Soong. S, double-O-N-G. Her brothers came through Tule Lake, and I feel that they must have been on the way. Chiang Kai-shek's offices, or army were constantly having to solicit money, particularly from, from this government. Chinese communities were always rounding up donations. But I think these young men that, they were.. I don't know. They, probably (were) just out of college, maybe that age, but I think they had to see what American camps were (going to) be like, and how we were being treated and all. So we, we were having kind of a -- and I think this was maybe a college-age bunch that I was with, or maybe it was a church, young people's group, but an older, college-age group. And they were telling us what their experience has been. It's the first time I picked up on the phrase of "missionaries, merchants, and the military." I mean, that's the way the "white man's invasion comes on," is what they were saying. So you have to expect that. But their essential message was: "Keep, keep going, keep working, get in school, don't let anything stop you. It's (going to) be tough, but keep going." I, we were very impressed to hear that from them, 'cause, you know, after all, what Japan had been doing to China was probably at the height at that time.

AI: So that's very interesting, because although Japan was, the Japanese military was doing terrible things to Chinese people in China and Manchuria, these Chinese fellows were, really saw you as Americans, and talked, spoke to you, telling you about your possible future as Americans.

EH: Uh-huh. "Don't let anything stop you," they said. The other -- I guess we did have visitors, and, and the Protestant churches always probably have Sunday evening sessions of some kind. And that's what we were doing, there was a young college-age crowd. Not a big crowd, probably a dozen of us. And I remember once that Mary Farquharson, who was a Washington state senator, came into camp. Because as a state senator, she was -- and Mary Farquharson was a pacifist. She was also the wife of the guy that built the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, that sank. Her husband was an engineer (and a) professor at, at the U. And, but she's the kind of person -- I don't think she was a Quaker, because I later met her when we joined, we became part of a Church of the People, a small congregation on the Avenue. She was a member of that church. And, but, she drove down from Seattle to, to see for herself. And I think there was a lot of that kind of thing going on. But the students that came from Chico State also, wanted to see the inside of a camp. They weren't satisfied to be greeted at the front gates, and they wanted to come into the camp. And...

AI: Well, you know, you mentioned Mary Farquharson, and as I recall, she was also a leader on the committee that was providing some assistance and support to Gordon Hirabayashi, and that, and his parents were in Tule Lake, also.

EH: (Yes), that's right. My mother met Mrs. Hirabayashi, and she, she wrote to me eventually about -- though I, I thought the Hirabayashis left fairly early, if I remember. I think, I don't know that Gordon ever got into the camp. It was shortly after I left camp that she wrote about Mrs. Hirabayashi. And Gordy, about two or three years ago, did a -- when he was being honored by UW as the professor in some department, he talked about the fact that when his mother went into camp, he was, one of the things that he shouldered was, was his worry about what was happening, how, how his parents, how the public was approaching his, his mother, and what kind of scrutiny was she enduring. And he said that when she got into camp, women from the other side of the camp would come in and commend her. So that was.. that was great, but I, and I don't remember meeting any of the other Hirabayashis. I didn't know them until I got here in Seattle. But that was the, that was very impressive. And she's, she's a remarkable strong person. Gordy always said, "It was my mother that ran the farm and the co-op." She became the vice-chairman of the co-op group that, that established themselves initially up towards Sand Point. But it's good that -- you know, and I think for people like her, for people like my mother, the fujinkai groups in camp must have been a good fellowship.

<End Segment 44> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.