<Begin Segment 25>

TI: While you were at Manzanar you had an acquaintance, a Mr. Muro. Can you tell me about that relationship, who he was?

HU: Yeah. Mr. Muro was very active in Seicho no Iye, which is Japanese philosophy like the Christian science, and he was sort of... well anyway, my mother and my sister got to know, got to know him somehow and he used to visit us. He used to talk to us. He was like a mentor; he was sort of like my, like my dad sort of, and he treated me like that. And he had an interesting life himself where before the war he used to sell vegetables. He used to sell, he used to have this truck, carry vegetable, and he used to go around to these Japanese homes to sell the vegetable, and there was a guy later I, that I don't think I remember his first name, but his last name was Doi. He was living in Seattle and he contacted me and says, "I also knew Mr. Muro." And his story was that before the war they were, they were sort of poverty stricken where they couldn't pay the electricity bill, so when anybody came they would just close the door and window and never come out and then one day Mr. Muro came (around). Mr. Muro saw their situation and he gave them food, whatever vegetables and things that he had on his truck, he gave it to them. So, so this fellow named Doi, he, he sort of owed a lot to this Mr. Muro, so that's the kind of guy that Mr. Muro was. And he was married to this Mexican American lady and they had an adopted daughter. Her name was Hope, and at the time of the evacuation she was about eleven years old. She was a Nisei, but then when Mr. Muro went to Manzanar, Mrs. Muro (...) and Hope stayed in Los Angeles and they lived on Fourth and Main, was a sort of a skid row there, and there was a Catholic church, I think Third and L.A., Los Angeles, so anyway, close by, and she attended the Catholic school and so, and then also she lived in a neighborhood where they didn't care whether she was a Japanese or not, so during the time everybody was in camp, she stayed in Los Angeles and she's the only Japanese that I know of that ever stayed in Los Angeles during the war years.

TI: Yeah, so let me ask about that. So Hope was adopted by, by Mr. Muro and, and his Mexican American wife.

HU: Yeah.

TI: So Hope was Japanese American?

HU: Japanese American, Nisei.

TI: Nisei, and, and she stayed. Why did she stay and not go with, go to Manzanar? Or to a camp?

HU: I really, I really don't know the reason, but I've heard, or I read in the documents that, at least in the earlier days, when a father went to camp with a daughter or a child, the child would've been sent to the orphanage in Manzanar, so I don't know how the, how long the regulation lasted, but that could be one of the reasons maybe, or maybe they thought that maybe she might have better opportunity outside, but then it turned out that in her early forties after her, after Mrs. Muro passed away she took her own life, so if she had gone to camp she could've made a lot of friends and maybe her life may have been different. She might be running around with her grandchildren now.

TI: Interesting. But while she was in Los Angeles she was almost, like, under the radar because she lived in the skid row area.

HU: Yeah.

TI: Sounds like the Catholic church kind of supported her so that no one really found her.

HU: Right. And also that name is Muro, M-U-R-O, and that is not a typical Japanese name, so that may be another reason.

TI: Okay.

HU: And of course, she was white, she had a white complexion, so she could've been mistaken for Chinese.

TI: And so the Muros were kind of important after Manzanar for you, because when you left Manzanar they provided, I guess, shelter or, or helped you out.

HU: Yeah.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.