<Begin Segment 19>

TI: During the break you mentioned a memory, I'm not sure if this is Topaz, but I thought it might, flags at half mast?

NA: I can't remember if I was coming home from school or whatever, but I just recall seeing the, a flagpole with the American flag at half mast, so I said, "How come?" because that was unusual. Flag's always up at the top. And I think it was my mom who said that, "Well, President Roosevelt died." "Who's President Roosevelt?" And it was just not something I was aware of, that I was, knew anything about why he, anything other than, "Well, he's the president of the United States and he died." "Oh." And that's why we all respect and had the flag at half mast. Along that line, I kind of also recall times when there were discussions about who's gonna win the war. And somehow this isn't, you say, the in house table talk, but I remember somewhere, and I don't know if it was outside or not, but there were people who were saying, well, of course Japan's gonna win, and my father would say, "I don't think so." But there was never any kind of clashing. And later on also I learned that my parents (didn't have) the questionnaire put in front of them because we were outside of the camp when that questionnaire had gone through, so that was never an issue that they had to make a choice. So, but I know my father just kind of said, just logically, you'd, this big country that could just drop bombs without even counting and Japan, even before, everybody having to give scrap gum wrappers and cigarette wrappers and send it so that they could, it's just it's a whole different, two different countries, one trying very hard but cannot. So he just looked at it from that part, too.

TI: And so you, I think you mentioned earlier, and I'm not sure if this was at Topaz also, but your father did farming when he was in camp. Was that his job?

NA: No, he was not ever, did no farming in camp. He always took a, what do you call those, release permits to go out sugar beet cropping.

TI: Oh, so he was gone quite...

NA: Quite a bit of time. Partly was he was trying to figure out what can he do. I mean, he kept the family safe is the way it is interpreted to me because of the experience of having taken them, us out and then having what happened in Provo and all that, and then at least the family is safe, but he's still trying to figure out, well, if, what does he do? What can he do? And they needed a lot of labor, so at least he was scouting around. He went to Grand Junction, met some people there, about farming there. He went to various places and I guess partly doing reconnaissance for himself as well as being out there doing the labor.

TI: And how about your mother? What, during camp, what did she do with her time?

NA: Well, she had the dressmaking skills and all, so I think she helped in some classes. She also did some, did some knitting type of thing. My grandmother, well basically she was watching the kids, right? Children. And my grandmother was very good in embroidery and all and that's where, I still have the little bag that we created and I did my first patterns of embroidery. I still enjoy doing that kind of stitch work. I did until, until I got involved with the museum and I don't have time. [Laughs]

TI: Maybe, maybe one day when you retire you can bring it back.

NA: When I retire. Yeah. So I guess they were really just, I could only remember as they were just really there whenever we needed them, they were there. Parents.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.