Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: George Morihiro Interview
Narrator: George Morihiro
Interviewer: Megan Asaka
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: December 15 & 16, 2005
Densho ID: denshovh-mgeorge_2-01-0016

<Begin Segment 16>

MA: So they had this special graduation ceremony for the, for the Nisei students that were leaving?

GM: They had another --

MA: And then the next day, what happened?

GM: Well, oh, the, that's right. The next day, we were in camp. That was another thing, you know. We graduated that day, the next day we were behind barbed wire fence, and all the students knew that, too. And then we were in camp, of course, I was in Area B, which you could see through because there was nothing but barbed wires and barracks. We waved to our friends passing by to see us. They'd come by and wave at us, and we'd wave at them. So they still came to see us. In fact, at one point during our stay in Puyallup, two of the girls came and saw Bill Mizukami in Area C, and came over to see me in Area B, and they let them into the camp, in a special room to talk to us, and it was a little different from what we were accustomed to, you know, guns pointing at you and stuff like that. But they did let 'em come into the camp.

MA: So your friends made an effort to stay in touch with you a little bit?

GM: Uh-huh. Well, up to that point. After that, I never heard from them again. But they did come to see us after we went into Puyallup.

MA: How far away was the Puyallup Assembly Center from your home?

GM: Well, it's about, about six miles away from my home and the school. So that was pretty close, so you didn't feel really lost.

MA: What was your reaction when you kind of got to Puyallup and saw the barbed wire, and yet you were still in your own hometown? What was that like?

GM: That's hard to say because we forget a lot of things, but I guess the Japanese have a word for it: gaman, "take it as it comes." But the... but there are some things in your heart that you can't forget, and that is the day you walked through that gate, you know you lost something. Up to that point, it was news or something like that. But when you walk through that gate, you know you lost something. 'Cause, you know, the gate's got guards and barbed-wire fence and everything, and you're walking from a free life into a confined life. And I know one thing, it was hard to explain to somebody what was it like in camp, because we never tell them the truth, what it was like in camp. It was horrible. The idea was horrible. But being Japanese and how we react to those kind of things, because we're trained from our younger childhood days, we took it. It's gaman, we took it as it came, and we didn't fight it. But from there on, you're confined in this little boxy area, you could only walk a hundred yards or so, going the longest distance from one end to the other, and you got, soldiers were on you and guns pointed at you, machine guns above you. And you're not even thinking about escaping or anything, that was out of the question. But you're trying to figure out how to make the best of it.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.