<Begin Segment 29>

TI: So I'm glad we covered these things. We're actually winding down because of the amount of time we have for our interview. And so I wanted to just sort of end by touching upon some of your involvement and observations of camp preservation. 'Cause I know you were good friends with Sue Embrey, and were able to be involved with the efforts to help preserve Manzanar, as well as involved with the Heart Mountain. So I just wanted to touch upon those in terms of your involvement, maybe starting with either one.

MS: Heart Mountain.

TI: Okay, let's talk about Heart Mountain.

MS: Heart Mountain, we decided to have a group, and it was really fascinating because I felt that we did a lot of work. In fact, it was southern California people that really pushed buying that land to begin with. And when I look back to see the kind of people we had, like Diane Funada who did the website for them, then she died and then people like Frank Hirahara who laid out a complete, kind of, security concerns, Kay Inaba who felt that there were ways we could do an exhibit. He was an industrial psychologist. And David got, oh, I used to fight with David a lot.

TI: So you're talking about David Reetz, who's the executive director of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.

MS: Yeah, he called me one day and said if I didn't have a fax machine or e-mail, I said, "I'm not going to go out and buy one just for..." and so he told me that he felt that they needed to get somebody else, which was fine. I didn't care. And so we tried to meet, but nobody wanted to take over the leadership of that. But we worked about four or five years on that. And Bacon Sakatani was working a different way. He worked the Heart Mountain Reunion group, and he had lots to say from that. But I'm sort of back with them again because of the, Alan Kumamoto is determined, and so is Carolyn, that content of the exhibit goes into it. So I think that's okay.

And I was with the Manzanar Committee for a long while after Sue died... well, while Sue was... no, I wasn't participating when Sue was there, but after she died, I continued to work with it

[Interruption]

TI: We're talking about the Manzanar Committee?

MS: Manzanar Committee. And not only that, to get them to think in terms of more broader of where they're going, I said, "What are we going to do?" As far as Sue was concerned, what she sought to do is already finished, and to encourage how we could be able to interact with other groups, and I think we really need to reach out. [Interruption] Remember that group about, where I saw you, at the Michi Weglyn's group? And that lady came up to me afterwards and wanted to be in contact with me. And I said to the Manzanar people, "Why can't we meet with people like that to talk about what is going on now and how it has similarities?"

[Interruption]

TI: So what I'm hearing is maybe in the case of the Manzanar Committee, you'd like to see them broaden their reach, their efforts.

MS: Yes.

TI: And in terms of the Heart Mountain, it seems like connecting the southern California, sort of, especially the people who were at Heart Mountain during the war, getting them more connected would be good steps.

MS: Yes. I really think that it could be absolutely an amazing place if we had this history. I just think this whole area of the farming, for them to see this and to be able to look at it, and for them to finish the canal, I think we have got to do that. Because it's... for that community to see, because too often people forget that, forget what has been there before. And I think that they've worked, people have worked too hard, the legacy has to remain. And I'm proud of what the Asians and the Japanese have done. And when you think of, under the conditions, having come from a farm, I know the work that had gone into it. And just like Tom, he was in high school, and he was one of the few people that knew, from the camp, to run a tractor.

TI: Good, okay.

MS: So the worldview as far as I'm concerned is we've got to reach out. That's why I go to class on Mondays, current events. I've been going for about ten years. [Laughs]

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.