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LH: Now, you'd mentioned that the Triple A had actually gotten you started in thinking about your own experiences in the camps, and things of that nature. So how did you take action? When you started thinking about that, what did that make you pursue?

AH: Oh, yes, because when we started to talk about the camps and the connection of why the government -- we didn't have the facts, of course, at the time -- but we started talking about why was it that the government did this to the ethnic Japanese. And, oh, had I known then what I know now, after having gone to the archives I would have felt like a queen. But since we didn't know, we discussed that a lot and we... I think that it was "never again." That those two words stick in my mind. That was on a big poster: "never again." That, had to do with the camps. I'm trying to think of the origin of why we had a protest, and I think it had to with the camps. The Holocaust movement, the anti-Holocaust movement among the Jews, I think they used "never again" as one of its rallying cries. And I guess we picked that up, Triple A, and we had a "never again" short movement to make people aware of what happened to the Japanese Americans. And because I remember seeing posters and I may even still have one, as a matter of fact. I would have to check with Kazu Iijima or Mary Kochiyama to recall exactly what that particular subject was, but we started talking about the camps.

And then in 1976, Michi Weglyn's book came out, and we as a group went to listen her at the church. And I was very impressed with her work. I was impressed with... her work was just so meticulous, and she was not about to put anything in that book that she couldn't say, "I got this information from the government." No one could refute it and I could tell that that was her, her objective, to get the truth out. So we met Michi Weglyn, so I've known her now for twenty years. At that time, 1976 is when her book came out. And she impressed me so much, I read her book and I was astounded. We learned so much about our own history, about the camps, through her book. I consider her book the classic. Roger Daniels wrote a great book, too. A couple of them, but particularly Concentration Camps U.S.A earlier. Somehow -- and his book was great, it was good, but it was not as broad, and it focused on a certain part of our, the camp experience. It was not quite as illuminating to me as Michi Weglyn's.

So with that feeling of starting to understand what happened to us, through the war, because of this camp experience, when I moved down here to Washington, D.C., I left my position, of course, my job in New York City and thought, "Good. Now I'm going to rest and be a homemaker, retired, now my children were grown up, and I can now can enjoy my sunset years." Well, after a while, I did get bored, I had been leading such an active life and I started talking to myself at home, because there was nobody else. Jack was working all day and I was by myself and I knew nobody in Virginia, absolutely nobody. I lived in, way out in the suburbs of Virginia at the time, much further than where I live now. So I decided, well this is a good time and I have some free time. I think I'll go to the archives and start looking to see what kind of information the government has on me, about the camps and my family.

So I went to the National Archives, and I was quite surprised at the amount of information that they had about me. But then when I think back, yes, when we went into camp, we filled out all kinds of forms. And so why shouldn't they have this, but I was surprised they kept it. Little old inconsequential me? But they kept everybody's papers: school records, dental records, medical records, letters that went in and out of camp. They kept everything and they ended up putting them in individual folders for each person. If you were a child, your papers may have ended up in your mother or father's folder. But, and sometimes there were individual folders I know for children, too. I remember seeing some drawings, report cards, things like that. However, as I started to do this work for myself, my family, looking up records, the archivists there said, "Do you know there is some wonderful records about this camp experience in the archives, and there's not enough people looking at it, it's so interesting. Would you like some help to find it?" Well, sure why not, I have the time.

And so I started to examine those records, and they grabbed me, absolutely grabbed me. So one, of course, I started with the War Relocation Authority records, 'cause that's where our records were kept. Then all these records referred to other records like military records, or State Department records, which means you have to go to different branches in the archives -- the same building, but different branches. And so, the search spread, and spread, and spread. And I would call Michi Weglyn, and said, "Look, your book said this particular document was, is in this particular branch." And we would discuss my being able to find it, or not to find it, or the consequences so we carried on a lot, long distance conversations for years and years while I went through this. She was so encouraging, so generous with her time. I just love that lady. Anyway, that's how my search started, that's how it evolved.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.