<Begin Segment 14>

TI: Now, when you were at Minidoka, did your mother ever receive any letters or correspondence from your father?

SI: She received many, many letters from my dad.

TI: And did the kids, did you receive letters also from your dad?

SI: Yes, we also received letters from my dad, because he could write in English directly to the children.

TI: So what were some of the things that you could remember from those letters? What did he write?

SI: I think the main thing is activities that we were doing during the day, like, going to school, studying, what kind of sports we were engaged in.

TI: Okay, so these were letters that you wrote to your father?

SI: Yes.

TI: Okay, but when he wrote to you, do you recall what he had in his letters?

SI: I think mainly he just wanted us to be sure to mind my mother, you know, and try to be good children so that we don't create a lot of problems for her. There are some letters where he did definitely write excerpts from the Buddhist sutras. Those are some of the things I can remember.

TI: And how frequently did these letters come?

SI: Very frequently. To me, it seems like he was a very good correspondent as far as writing letters, and I think he wrote as many letters as could be sent out, whatever allotment they had for writing letters. So as far as number of letters, I've got a whole collection of letters that he wrote.

TI: So you kept all these letters that he wrote to you?

SI: I have three, four volumes of letters.

TI: And did someone keep the letters he wrote to your mother also?

SI: I have the whole shebang. [Laughs]

TI: And the letters he wrote to your mother, were those in Japanese?

SI: Yes, they were all in Japanese.

TI: Did you ever get those translated, by any chance?

SI: I've been trying to translate a number of them. I have translated a number of the letters, but general conversational type letters are fairly easy to translate. But when it becomes a little bit more difficult, like when he starts to recite poetry, that becomes very difficult for me to be able to translate.

TI: And when you got these letters, where was your father when he wrote these letters?

SI: He was in several different camps. Number one, the first camp that he went to was in Missoula, Montana, and I think he was there for about three months. And then he was moved to Camp Livingston, Louisiana, and I don't know how long he was there. At least a good year, little over a year. Then he was moved over to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and finally from there, we joined him at Crystal City.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.