<Begin Segment 22>

TI: Let's, let's talk, so let's switch gears, and around the early '80s you attended, I think, your first Heart Mountain camp reunion?

BS: Yes.

TI: Do you remember that, in like 1982?

BS: Right.

TI: So describe that. What was the first reunion like?

BS: Oh, it was, it was really tremendous to have, I don't know, we had a full house of eight hundred, nine hundred people. It was really a wonderful feeling to get together with all of your friends from the camp. It was, it was really tremendous. So I was part of the committee that put that on, and my job for that reunion was to put on a slideshow about the history of the camp and I didn't know too much about the camp, so I went to the library and looked up in the books about the camp, and boy, I was just amazed at what was written about the camps. I didn't know a thing about all the illegalities and all of that about the camps, and, and so I guess that was the start of my research on the camp.

TI: So now you're becoming much more aware of, of the reasons why it happened and all that, but going back to the reunion, though, why a reunion? Why in 1982 did people want to put on a reunion?

BS: To get together with their friends. It was a place where we were not the minority. We were all the same. We got to know a lot of people, and so for the teenagers it was, well, it was a different kind of experience and we had this bond, and we just had to get together to, to see our old friends.

TI: And so where, where was the first reunion? Where'd you hold it?

BS: In Los Angeles.

TI: And where in Los Angeles? Do you remember?

BS: I believe it was the Hotel Regency.

TI: And do you recall what kind of program you had for the first reunion?

BS: We had Norman Mineta as speaker, Bill Hosokawa as another speaker. I think we, one of the orchestra, we had a orchestra at the camp and one of the members of that orchestra put together a band to play for us, I put on a slideshow, we had exhibits. So it was a, really a successful event.

TI: Now, how did, this was the first one, how did you get in touch with people to let people know?

BS: Well, I guess through word of mouth, newspaper, and so we had to turn people away.

[Interruption]

Okay, so Bacon, we're gonna start the third hour now and where we ended up that last segment was you had just described the first Heart Mountain reunion, which, I didn't hear about this, it's pretty amazing how large it was, how many people came, how much fun and then later on how it continued over time. So I guess my question is how did that reunion change you?

BS: Well, since that reunion I would say I have not stopped working on Heart Mountain. I have not stopped. Just one thing or another led to other Heart Mountain activity and it has been a continuous, just continuous since that 1982 reunion.

TI: And, and what changed for you that made Heart Mountain become so important to you?

BS: It's a fascinating place. It really has a fascinating history, not just the place itself but all the people connected with it.

TI: So that was about twenty-eight years ago, that, that reunion, 1982.

BS: Wow.

TI: It's, yeah, twenty-eight years. So describe some of the things that you did that, you said you haven't stopped working on Heart Mountain, so after that first reunion, what else did you do?

BS: Well, so I have to go to Heart Mountain. I met these Caucasian people who came to our reunion who were from Heart Mountain, so in 1984 I went to Heart Mountain and, boy, I could feel my heart pounding when I got close to the camp and I saw this chimney that was part of the camp. I recognized that chimney and I, I remember I, the anticipation as I got --

TI: So Bacon, why don't, before you tell the story, when you do that with your mike, it hits the mike, so we can't hear you, so, so tell the story from when you saw the chimney again, but don't, but don't hit your mike.

BS: Yeah. I felt it within my body that I was returning to this place. It wasn't a place of all the bad things that we went through, but I was going back to my boyhood home of three years, and boy, I really felt it. I don't know why, but I really felt it. And so I got to the camp area, looked around. I met, the friend whom I met at the reunion, and the first thing I wanted to do was to hike to the top of Heart Mountain. See, Heart Mountain is this high peak. And so we did that.

TI: And why did you want to do that?

BS: Because I couldn't do it while I was at the camp and this friend had a four wheel drive that could drive most of the way up there, see.

TI: And how did you change by visiting Heart Mountain?

BS: Well, I don't know. I just did a lot of research, I went to the University of Wyoming six, seven times to look at the original camp administrative papers, I looked at all of the newspaper accounts of, Wyoming newspaper accounts. I was just totally amazed at what was written. It was, it said the war was ready to start. It's all in the headlines. I couldn't believe it. And all these headlines of "Jap this" and "Jap that," "ten thousand Japs gonna come through Heart Mountain to this concentration camp." It's all in the headline and it was just amazing, and so I, I just copied everything and put everything into my computer and got this tremendous, large file on all these papers of Heart Mountain. And not only the research, all these activities that came around Heart Mountain, just a endless journey since that 1982 reunion. And it's still going on. I can't believe it.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.