<Begin Segment 31>

TI: So, Mae, we've gone over, well over two hours, and so I kind of want to bring the interview to an end. Is there anything else that you want to talk about before we end?

MY: No. I just think for myself, we were very lucky in that we lived among Caucasians as well as Japanese and treated quite well. Like even coming back to school, I think, let's see, Al was, I don't remember what grade he was in, but anyway, came back to the Thomas school, and the principal was the same principal that was there when we left, and she was very good to the Japanese. And so he came home one day and he said, "Mom," he says, "this one guy kept bugging me today," and I said, "What did you do?" And he said, "Well, they had the..." the Thomas school auditorium isn't very big. And so when they have their basketball games and stuff, they have to let the kids stand on the platform in order to watch. So we were up there on the stage and watching, and he said, "This kid kept nudging me and kept saying, 'What are you?'" And he says, "I just kind of had a feeling I knew what he was talking about, so I ignored him." And so he was, that bugged him, and he came home and he was telling me about it. And so I knew how much work Dad had done for PTA and how much the Japanese farmers contributed for hot lunches and everything. And so I went and I wrote her a note and told Al to give it to Mrs. Curry, and maybe she'll tell me to come and see her sometime. So I did that, and then sure enough, she called me and asked me if I could come in. So I went in first thing in the morning before school started, and she says, "I'll call Al, I want to talk to Al." So she called in, and she talked to him and she says, "You go find that guy." So he went out to the playground and found this kid and brought him in. And he says, "Do you know what you did?" And he said, "No." So she said, "Okay, I'll remind you what you did. You stand over there and you stand in front of Al and you apologize to him for what you did." And so she told, she said, "I want to, I want to hear you apologize to him, and I don't want to hear another word about 'Jap' or anything like that." Says, "Japanese are the ones that started the soup program and donated all the vegetables, and they hired a cook." They said, "Well, we can, for three cents a day for every student that wants it, they can have soup for lunch, and that'll pay for the cook's wages." Stuff like that. So we've been quite lucky with having the neighborhood with us, getting along with the people.

TI: Well, your appreciation really shows, because I know you do a lot for the community, you volunteer a lot, so I could tell that.

MY: Yeah, I figure, I don't know. Somebody told me, he says, "Well, you sure put in a lot of time going to schools and stuff. And I says, "Well," I says, "I don't know how many other people will do it," but I says, "if I get asked, I go." In fact, I said, I went to one Kent junior high school class, and they were big guys, you know. Of course, I'm not big, that tall or anything, so they could walk right over me. [Laughs] But there's this bunch of boys and they seemed like they were older and bigger than normal. And they kept talking and teasing each other and this and that, and I just got mad and finally I spoke up and I says, "You know what I'm here for?" I said, "I didn't ask to come here." I said, "Your teacher asked me to come and that's why I'm here." And I says, "I'll take questions from you and everything and tell you what I know," but says, "If this is all the attention I'm going to get, either you leave or I'm leaving." I said, "One of us is leaving." And so the teacher got up and apologized, and he told the boys, "You apologize to Mrs. Yamada for your manners." And I felt real good. I thought maybe I'd feel bad about it, but I didn't. Because I figured I was there to do what I was supposed to do, and then for kids like we were talking, they don't know. They don't know what happened, they just heard what they wanted to and they passed it on, just like they used to say, "Get rid of the Japs," and that was it. But I said, "There's a lot more to it than that." So I says, "Either you leave or I'm leaving right now," because I said, "I didn't ask to come here."

TI: That's a good story. And thank you for taking that time. I think it's so powerful when you as a person go to these places.

MY: Yeah. Well, there's probably people that have more physical abuse than that, but I just consider myself lucky. 'Cause I had, my dad, especially, had the chance to contribute to the community so that it reflected back for us to be able to say, "Well, what could 110,000 'Japs' do against the whole U.S. government?" and that's what it was. But I said, "It's thanks to people like our parents who worked hard to gaman and take what was handed to them and make the best of it, you know."

TI: Well, I think that's a great way to end the interview. So thank you, Mae, for doing that.

MY: [Laughs] I hope it made some sense and you could use some of it.

TI: No, this was good. You had some really, really powerful stories in there.

<End Segment 31> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.