<Begin Segment 13>

MN: Now who in your family actually ended up at Heart Mountain?

MU: My mother and my brother above me. Because my sister who's above my brother, she had applied... she graduated Tri State High School in Tule Lake, she was a graduate there and she knew she wanted to go on to college. And she applied at Marquette University in Wisconsin and she had been accepted. I don't know what other schools she may have tried for or what schools would not accept her, I don't know that. But she did go to Marquette and she did enter Heart Mountain because I have a snapshot of the two of us in Heart Mountain. But she was not there long, she must have left from Heart Mountain because she would have to go to school, to college since she had graduated as a senior in Tule Lake. She would have to enter the freshman in college so she didn't stay in Heart Mountain very long. So she left and so it was then my brother and myself, the three of us.

MN: Now how would you compare Heart Mountain to Tule Lake?

MU: What I remember with Heart Mountain, I think we had some steps because our barrack was on a hill, not too steep, whereas Tule Lake was a riverbed, the whole thing was flat, no mountains at all. Heart Mountain had a little more hills and a variety in the terrain so I remember we had some steps going into our unit and we were in one of the middle units, not on the end like at Tule Lake. And I don't remember it being very far from the latrine or the shower or the washroom area. And as to the mess hall I don't remember how far it was either but I remember walking to the junior high and it seemed a distance. However, in Tule Lake we lived at one end of Tule Lake and so the Tri State High School was the other end, so that was quite a distance. But it was flat whereas Heart Mountain I remember having to walk downward, not really a hill but downward toward the junior high and then back up to go home after school. And Tule Lake had the Castle Rock Mountain. Heart Mountain had a Heart Mountain and we were there in the winter, very cold, blizzards, very cold, of course Tule Lake too had its heat and its coldness too.

MN: So when they had blizzards at Heart Mountain, did they close down the school?

MU: I don't remember that.

MN: Now how long were you in Heart Mountain before your oldest brother came to get you?

MU: I was in junior high in the ninth grade at Heart Mountain. When we got to Fruitland I was in the ninth grade so it was just a matter of months that we were in Heart Mountain. We were there Christmastime because I remember having Christmas in Heart Mountain because that's when my mother helped with some of the distribution of the toys that came from churches outside of camp. And when she was quite impressed with some Christian churches sending homemade dolls to the camp, that was very important in her life. And so I know we spent Christmas there so as to when after Christmas I do remember like I mentioned when we went to Fruitland school had started already in September.

MN: Now this Christmastime at Heart Mountain, where your mother saw these toys brought in, did this influence her decision to become a Christian?

MU: I think that was one of the decisions. Or her curiosity: "What is this religion, Christianity?" And she heard that they say "love your enemy," what does that mean, "love your enemy"? And she sort of correlated that to the Christian churches, the ladies group making homemade dolls to be sent to people in camp. The Japanese, who are sort of termed "enemies," although we're not from Japan. And she sort of I think correlated that and she realized the strength of the religion of Christianity, love your enemy and treat others like you would want them to treat you. Which I'm sure Buddhism has their equal to that in their religion, but to her she was not familiar with Christianity at all. And so it makes me happy to know that that was one of her influential incidents in camp that later she adopted the religion of Christianity, the Methodist.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.