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TI: So I'm going to jump here now, because I want to now talk about the pilgrimages. And so tell me when the first time you went on a Tule Lake pilgrimage.

JY: First time was in '91, when I first went, I really cried. Really cried because... tears came out of my eyes, just rolled out. We talked to different people, see different people, and I happened to run across... her name was Hara, last name was... I forgot what her first name was. She's married to a Chinese, name was Wong, changed it to Wong. "I'm so and so Wong." Yeah, they were in our block, they were one of those very unfortunate people with very little money. It was really, you feel sorry for them. Anyway, when I met her they talked about old times, about Block 27 and about different people we knew, this and that. And she just had tears in her eyes seeing that. I just wondered what happened to them. Especially the ones that really was struggling. We knew they were struggling. It was the only time... so then I decided I should be out there and tell my story. Tell everybody it was no picnic, I don't care what the hell they say it was. Because at the time, it was mostly all the young generations was running the pilgrimage there, and they don't know. They didn't live it, we lived it.

TI: And so back in '91, how many Niseis or how many former prisoners --

JY: At the time, I think there were only about, the registration was three hundred something, and there were like eighty-something former Tule Lake. And after that, every year, it started getting bigger and then it started going the opposite direction. There was more former Tuleans than the Sanseis. And I think about the third or fourth, we took over completely the operation of the Tule Lake Pilgrimage. Mostly all former Tule Lake people. So it got to be we have to do it attitude, all of us. We should go out there and tell the people the story. So it was an eye-opener for me, that we have to. My wife and I says, "You got to do this."

TI: So I have to ask this question because I asked my parents, they were at Minidoka. And I asked them if they'd ever go back to a Minidoka pilgrimage, and they kind of look at me funny and says, "Why would we ever want to go back there?" I mean, did you get a lot of that from Niseis saying, "Why would we ever want to go back there, and why would you have a pilgrimage?"

JY: Yeah. Well, I think it isn't why we had to go back there, we should go back there and show the people where we lived for four years, how we lived for four years. It isn't damning the government, but it's because we look like what we looked like. That's the only reason why we're there, because it wasn't military necessity we had to move. All the books were written later on, was strictly political and personal, and they wanted the Japanese out of California, that's it. There was nothing military about it.

TI: But then you said earlier, the first time you went to the pilgrimage, it was mostly Sanseis.

JY: Yeah.

TI: And then about eighty Niseis. But then over the years, it flipped. It was mostly Niseis and fewer Sanseis. But if it's all Niseis, then you're just, you all know the story already, right?

JY: But the thing is, Niseis, what the Sanseis are leaving, the new group, the kids start, want to come, of the former camp people. Not Tule Lake, Poston, Colorado. And then all the camp people, kids started infiltrating and want to know, want to know what's happening. It isn't that Tule Lake is good or bad or different, they want to know how was it in camp, why their parents, just like Will Kaku, when they went a few years ago with his dad to Tule Lake, he went by himself, that's right. And he confronted his dad about certain things, and his dad answered him. Until then, he could never, he was at odds with his dad. Then for the first time Will found out what caused that. It was a camp experience that made him so indifferent, so bitter. Because personally he's a very friendly person, but to Will, to the family, is very cold, just like a clam. Doesn't say a word. I think those kind of things there, I ran across, like one of the pilgrimage, I was the resource person, 'cause I was a camp person there. And this father and son, the son could never along with the father. He could never understand his father's feeling and this and that. And so we sat and discussed the issue, talked about this and that, I gave a few pointers, this and that. Then the father opened up and then told the story about his growing up with his parents and Japanese camp life and so forth. Then his son said, "That's why that's different." So the next morning at breakfast time I stopped by and saw them, I said, "How you doing? How's your dad treating you?" Says, "Now I understand my dad. I really understand my dad, what he went through. It just stuck in his mind, and he just can't let that part of it go." So there's a lot of closures for a lot of people. And I think, when I see that, I think, really makes me happy

I think one of 'em there, that was really, talking about how these kids, these youngsters, five, six, seven eight years old, they don't know where money comes from. So they see somebody over there with something in their hand, whatever, shoes or baseball glove. They ask the parents for it, the parents says, "Well, we can't afford it, we can't buy it." "Why can't you buy it? Johnny's father buys it for him, why can't you buy it for me?" I mean, you know, with no money, you can't, how do you tell your kids, "We don't have the money"? "We're poor, they're richer than we are"? What do you do? Things like that... anyway, the husband and the wife, and then they had a daughter with them in our discussion group. And I was talking about this. Simultaneously, they didn't know each other in camp, they were still youngsters, four or five years old, they, maybe older, but must have been about six or seven, they went through that experience. And both of them started crying at the same time. Then they realized why the parents couldn't get what they wanted to get for us at the time. Both sides later on told me, "Yes, I wanted certain things and I could never get it. I was so mad at my parents," and the other side, girls said the same thing. And that's... and then the daughter says, "It's okay, it's all right, I'm here, but let your feeling out. You went through the suffering, and then you could never understand to this day why." When I told the story, boy, to me it was just shocking, somebody just bawl out crying. So it did some good.

TI: So the pilgrimages are a place for people to be able to share and open up their...

JY: Share, yeah. Because I never asked which camp they came from or anything, they were both in camp. So Tule Lake or not, I don't know. I didn't even care. Anyway, those kind of things are, I think, different.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.