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TI: So what were some of the feelings? Two days ago, I didn't know about this, so two days ago, you revisited McNeil Island, and is this the first time you've been back since you were incarcerated there?

GA: Yes.

TI: So it's been...

GA: Fifty, a good fifty years.

TI: Yeah, almost sixty years since you've been there, you were incarcerated for three years. And so two days ago you returned there for the first time. What kind of feelings were going through you when you did this?

GA: Well, before I approved to go, I didn't, I thought this lady was just a school, maybe a student trying to write a thesis for her graduation or something. And I took it very lightly and I said, "Oh, no, I don't think I'll go because it'll bring back memories and all that stuff." But my son, Jeff, had pulled up some story about her, what kind of a person she was, and she had gone, won all sorts of awards, she had been invited to the National Geographic, she had been photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and she also worked for the Seattle Times, so I thought, "This is not just a little student, she's somebody, so I better pay attention and go ahead and go." And so I swallowed my thoughts and said I will go. And we applied for an application to visit McNeil Island. And all we can do is to go to the dock and take pictures of the island, the administration area and things like that, but we couldn't get inside. You had to have a special permit to get in there. That's what I think would have really touched my heart, 'cause it would be really getting in to find out or show where we were for three years and what we did within the mainline, which she referred to as the main institution where they kept all the criminals, the real criminals. And we spent some two-and-a-half years there, amongst them.

TI: So you weren't able to go to those areas, but thinking back two days ago, just things like when you're taking the boat ride from Steilacoom to McNeil Island and on that dock, did that bring up any memories or feelings?

GA: Oh, yes. Yeah, as the boat was heading toward McNeil Island, I thought to myself of the time that we were sentenced to McNeil, and my thoughts were that here it is, I'm here at Steilacoom, which is some fifty miles away from Seattle. And a good three years ago, because we were Japanese, they interned us and took us to Puyallup, over to Hunt, and now where am I? I'm here going to a penitentiary that's only 50 miles away from where it originated, all this trouble. It was a real sad day in my mind, and it takes back memories. But then I swallowed any tears that would come to my eyes, 'cause I didn't want to cry in front of people. And yeah, I guess I kind of enjoyed going back there, too, although that's not a nice thing to be saying, to go back to the prison where you spent time. I talked to the guard that was on the Steilacoom side, to get a permit to go to the McNeil Island, and I told him, "I was one of the resisters that wound up going to, being an inmate at McNeil Island," and he was quite surprised. But he said he heard about what had happened to us, and well, we got to talk to each quite a bit, each other quite a bit. And I told him that, that was 1945 or so, we had come up with the baseball team and we took the championship, too. That was to show that we are, that we are humans, and we are not bad. And so that was the icebreaker for us to get to know the prisoners, and the prisoners, the actual convicts, they themselves were real people after all. They're not different.

TI: Wow, again, that must have been a very emotional sort of journey.

GA: Yeah. In fact, the guard shook my hand, he said, "Well, I'm glad to have met you," and we exchanged our comments, yeah.

TI: Did this photographer have any comments to you about what it meant for her to go with you to McNeil Island?

GA: Yeah. I talked to her and said that, "Gee, we wound up spending the whole day going over to get on the boat to take us to McNeil, and all we did was just get off the boat for a few seconds and get back on again. I know that you were taking a lot of pictures," but I said, "Do you feel that was worth it to you to go there and take pictures of me sitting in the boat or on the dock on the opposite side?" And she said, "Yeah." She said, "I took all these pictures, but there must be a good one out of there that I want to post in the book."

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.