<Begin Segment 17>

MN: Now, I know you've been back to Topaz several times in addition to the pilgrimages you organize.

TS: Right.

MN: Do you feel some peace, going back to Topaz? Have you made peace with your past?

TS: Yeah. Well, you know, it's really interesting. I have a friend who's a Catholic nun, Joanne Haruko Doi, and I went back to Topaz with her last year. And she has this thing about burning incense, so we were standing in front of Barrack 10 in Block 4 and she said, asked me, "Toru, I brought these pieces of incense. Would you like to burn some incense for your..." And I said, yeah. So I went to, we were standing in front of our barrack. We were in Block 4, Barrack 10, Apartments C and D, and Apartment C in the southeast, west corner, my mother's, my mother's bed was there, so I lit a incense, I stuck it in the ground, and next to that were, was where my younger brother slept and my younger, my sister, and I put a, I burnt incense for them. And then on Apartment D is where my sister Mae and I and my, my brother Walt slept, so I put a, burned incense. After that experience I have never had the yearning to go back to Topaz again. I've always had this yearning, and I used to tell people if you want, somebody said to me, "You want to go back to Topaz right now, Toru?" I would've hopped on the car, said let's go. But I don't have that urgency to go back anymore. I don't know, there must be some magic in burning incense. I don't know if it's, it's acknowledgement of people or validating their lives, to, to acknowledge them, that they're good people. I don't know what it is, but it's like magic. I've been back to Topaz over twenty times. I used to go at the drop of a hat, but I don't feel that urgency anymore. I kinda feel like -- I mean, I'll go back, but I don't feel that urgency anymore.

MN: I know you're always at the Tule Lake pilgrimage also. You were not at Tule Lake. How did you get involved with Tule Lake?

TS: Well, back in the '80s I was on the Tule Lake Pilgrimage committee. We used to sell spare ribs at the, at the Cherry Blossom to make money to lower the cost of the, of the pilgrimage. Now, I wasn't in, you're right, I was never in Tule Lake. I was in Topaz. But you know, the truth of the matter is it doesn't matter what camp, every camp experience is the same. People were pulled out of their houses, they were put into some godforsaken place, they suffered the, the climate change and the insult of being put, becoming a prisoner, etcetera, etcetera, and you hear the same stories of self deprecation or deprivation, people learning to, to blame themselves for what the government did to us. But to me it's, it's a place of healing. It's a place to learn that if anybody should feel shame it's our government. Not us. And so it's like my therapy. I'm learning every day that it doesn't matter what anybody thinks of me or calls me or does to me. It doesn't make me one iota a lesser person. And I think this, this theme permeates all the camps. And I've been to every camp except Heart Mountain, Poston and Gila River. I've been to every other camp, and even camps that nobody'd ever been to, like Lordsburg, New Mexico. I've been to Leupp, Arizona, I've been to Moab. There's umpteen other camps. But I guess, people have asked me, "Why do you go to every camp?" I guess unconsciously, to me, to go back to the camps is a way to, to overcome all the bullshit they put us through. That, it's another step towards learning that we never did anything wrong. We're the good people. We are, we're the ones who were victimized by all this crap that our government preaches but never practiced. That we could, this is another opportunity to put a feather in your hat and say, "I'm a good person. I deserve nothing but the best." They did all this shit to us, but you don't see no shit on me. It's a healing thing. It's therapeutic. And I think without, without exception -- I met lots of people at the Tule Lake pilgrimage, I've been to the Tule Lake pilgrimage umpteen times and it, I always see people leaving the place with a sense of, of freedom, a sense of relief and a sense of a, just a weight lifted off of their shoulders that, you know, it's nothing for us to be ashamed of, that they did this to us. It's, it's like being resurrected almost.

So it's a good thing and I recommend everybody to go, whether you were in camp or not. Most people say, "I'm a Sansei. I was born after." It doesn't matter. You, and when you go to camp, and this is an interesting thing, people -- and this is what Satsuki said and I really, I agree with her -- people express their feelings and the emotions that their parents never did. They knew their parents were in the camp, they knew their parents suffered all these hardships, but their parents never bitched about it, they never threw a fit about it, they never cursed the government. They did none of that shit, but it's interesting, the Sanseis and the Yonseis, when they go back, they express the tears and the anger of their parents. And so it's, their parents are long dead, but they, they kind of maybe, I don't know what the word is, they kind of tip the scale the other way. They thought we were down here, but then they, they go to the camp and they go, "Hey, if anything my parents, it's like this. The government should be ashamed. They should be hiding their ass in the closet." So it's always a good thing. I always see people leaving with a smile on their face. It's one place, it's interesting, it's one place where you see Buddhaheads, they look at you, they smile and say, "Hi. Good morning." You see these people in the streets of Berkeley, San Francisco, they act like they never, you're a nonentity. They see you, they recognize you're an Asian, they look the other way, because they don't want to acknowledge that "you look just like me." It's a healing thing.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.