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MA: And you were also active in, was it an Issei memorial project?

BK: Yeah, uh-huh.

MA: Can you talk a little about that?

BK: Yeah, at the college there's really a neat area that was made into a memorial garden for Japanese. And this one, one man started it when his mother and father passed away. He wanted to do some kind of a tribute for all of the Japanese, not just his mother and father. And so there's a Japanese garden and it had some water running there. It's really a nice area there. And so, it was dedicated and we had taiko drummers from Denver come down for that, and the reverend from the tri-state Buddhist church came down. And then last year, on 9-11, we had a special peace memorial day right there. And it was really neat. I went to all the schools and taught the teachers how to fold origami cranes and then the kids learned. College kids would stop by in the student center, would sit there and make origami crane. People in town made them, and we had a thousand cranes hanging there that day. It was so neat. And then I asked them to light candles in memory of someone. And so they would light candles and they came floating down the little waterway. That was a neat night. And then we bundled all the thousand cranes, and we sent them to the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. And we got a picture and we recognized some of the way the birds were hung, and so they actually did make it there, we got a thank-you note. So when I take my grandkids to Japan in July, I'm gonna make a point of trying to find that lady and tell her we're from Alamosa. That was really neat.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright ©2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.