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TI: And so going back to the tribes, so, one, they were against having the government place these prison camps on their land, but what did they think about the people inside the camps. you just mentioned whether they're German POWs or Italian POWs or Japanese and Japanese Americans, did they have thoughts about that, feelings towards these people?

RO: I found out this years later but there was this one family who had chickens. So you could get permission to get out of the camp to go drive up to Parker and buy other dry goods and things. But this one woman who I interviewed, her family had the chickens and the Japanese had all kinds of variety of vegetables that their family didn't grow. So there was couple of Japanese older Niseis probably who met her, the family, and so they'd do a swap. They would bring the vegetables to them and they would give this group some chicken which I thought was really interesting. Nobody talked much about that until years later when I was doing some research and we actually had a Poston restoration project meeting on the reservation in 2003. We had thirty Japanese Americans and thirty Native American's, CRIT folks and that's when a lot of these stories came out. And so it was great because then the tribe approved of us trying to restore some of the remains in Camp I.

TI: That's a good story. At some other places, other WRA camps, sometimes the locals thought that the people in camps were actually almost Japanese POWs, not American citizens or anything. Was there any of that confusion with the tribes in terms of who was inside the camps? Did they initially think why are they putting Japanese prisoners here or did they understand that two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens?

RO: I don't think I can answer that. I only know later they knew but they knew I think that we were from California and they knew that they were farmers, I mean, that they were going to use the farmers and use the different laborers. Yeah, I wished the people who were alive then, I did interview one fellow who was a high school student at the time and he said, he's the one who told me and then I later did some research on it, that the Parker High School, the Native Americans there had a team. So they would go down to the Poston camps and have these basketball tournaments with the Japanese players. And when I did research on that I found mention of the fact that these Native Americans or this team from Parker High School was coming into play basketball against the Japanese players and I actually found names. So I went back years later to the Parker High School and showed them, the students there, and a lot of them are Native Americans at the school. I showed them the names of who played and I was showing them, I have a Power Point on that and this one kid said, "That's my grandfather." So it was really, that part of the research was fun to actually have these young people come to life.

TI: That's a good story. It's almost like you should talk to some of the Japanese basketball leagues in California and they should do a reunion.

RO: They should, shouldn't they? The high school, with the Parker High School.

TI: Yeah, and just bring a team over there and do it. That would be an interesting kind of connection. How about attitudes of the Japanese and the Japanese Americans of Indians, they were on a reservation and so there were Indians all around. Did they have attitudes? Did you ever hear about that?

RO: Of course as a child I don't remember but as an adult and talking to those who were in high school at the time, they had feelings about the Native Americans and being on their reservation. Ted Kobata who is the architect, he's not the architect but he constructed the Poston memorial, have you seen the memorial? He was responsible for that, the architect has unfortunately passed away. But I was talking to him one time about my research and he mentioned that because the tribe, I had talked to one of the tribal councilmen and in one of our videos he thanks the Japanese Americans for what they did to improve the reservation. And when I told Ted that he said, "Well, it was worth it then. I'm glad, I'm glad that the tribes have benefited from our presence there." Those weren't the words he used but he said, "I'm glad, I'm glad to hear that."

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