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TI: So in 1991 was your first pilgrimage, and then shortly after that you started getting involved in helping to organize the other pilgrimages. When you think about that first pilgrimage, what kind of things did you want to change? What things were kind of missing for you and you wanted to add to the pilgrimage?

JY: The story, the life, the conditions, and the living among other Japanese, and the pressure that the children would put on their parents.

TI: So almost the filler, the stories behind it. So the Sanseis kind of knew what the camp was, but they didn't know the stories behind it.

JY: The story, yeah. I mean, they didn't know how much money their parents carried or brought into camp, or, you know, they didn't know a pair of shoes cost six dollars, and then, but that six dollars is almost half a month's paycheck. Could you spend a half a month's paycheck for a pair of shoes today? Or things like that, don't realize it. Because that sixteen dollars, that's all the income they had, right? And then four or five people got to depend on the sixteen dollars. You got to buy soap, you got to buy tissues, you got to buy towel, clothes and everything else with sixteen dollars.

TI: So how do you get that information across? I mean, so you have three hundred people, how do those stories, those everyday little details come out?

JY: Well, usually I try to interject as little bit here and there, especially on the bus. I give more detail on the bus, you know, because lot of people said, "Oh, you're lucky, you got Jim on your bus." Some of 'em might jump buses. And the last time I jumped onto a Seattle bus, and, "Oh, you got to come back again." I said, "Well..." anyway, like traveling up there or traveling back down, sometimes I just pick up certain things, certain areas there. It's just the way I feel like, sometimes I just keep, my wife says, "Keep your mouth shut." But people got to know about it.

TI: Well, and another thing that you tell stories, and I've been on this, is the walking tour at the pilgrimage, that you would just take a group and we'd just walk and you would talk. And so when did that start? Did that start right away?

JY: That started about second or third pilgrimage I went up there, yeah, I volunteered. I did a walking tour, and then first time, I only had a bus full, next time, I had too many guys. [Laughs] So, you know, it's just very interesting topic. I mean, I know the grounds, I walked the grounds many, many times back and forth, so, and I see different things, you hear different things.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.