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TI: Well, let's talk about, then, the Japanese leaving, and in particular Sachi leaving. So the weeks roll by, and pretty soon the Seattle people are starting to get the notices that they're supposed to report to a certain place.

MA: I think it was Puyallup, wasn't it?

TI: Yeah. They were supposed to collect what they can carry essentially, and then there'd be buses to pick 'em up to take 'em to Puyallup.

MA: Right.

TI: So tell me about what happened with you and your friend Sachi.

MA: Well, Sachi and I had a real serious conversation telling each other how dear each one was to the other, and how we would correspond and how we would exchange birthday cards and totally keep in touch, and that we would always be friends. And that, in essence, is what we talked about. And as we always did, that particular day we ended up with our usual tea and crackers in one or the other of our kitchens. And insofar as how serious did I think it was, I think that I believed it was, but I don't think I was facing it. I don't think I was admitting it to myself that this was really, really bad, and maybe I didn't believe that it was really, really bad at that time. It was really later that I began to realized what a terrible mark on our history this was and is. And so what ensued and what happened later is what surprised me, if, whenever you want me, I'll go on with that.

TI: Yeah, let's go ahead and tell me.

MA: Okay. So we did exchange our letters. We corresponded, and we did send each other birthday cards. And in the interim, while I'm at home here, she's there at the camp and I'm at home, and I'm going to movies and I'm going to the dances I love and I spent my usual lots of time downtown Seattle, and I was living kind of a very safe, nice life. I worked at Papa's and business was good, and so everything seemed just great. But then in the interim, too, we're watching movies that are very, very big impact of what they saw as what was happening, watched the statistics and listened to the statistics of those that we've lost not only at Pearl Harbor but what had happened as it went on, and also I was watching, I mean listening to the radio, and something began to happen to me at that point. And I was rather surprised that it was happening to me, not just for Sachi, but as an overall picture. I began to get to be a biased person. I was beginning to acquire a feeling of anti Japanese, and I was very upset with myself because, as I mentioned, being Jewish for one thing, I should know better, and besides which, if I was being honest with myself, these were Japanese Americans. They were Americans like I was. And I was upset with myself because I felt guilty. I felt very guilty and very unfair, being very unfair to Sachi and all others, and so I thought, I realized I had this feeling, and no matter how upset, though, I felt I had to be really honest, not only with myself but particularly, in this case, with Sachi. And so I felt that I could not go on as if nothing was bothering me and that I had not changed. I couldn't do that. I felt that I had to be honest with Sachi and myself, and I felt to go on as we were, corresponding like nothing ever happened, was not being real. It was a farce. And I thought I had to call, I had to write to Sachi. And I did, and I told her, "Sachi," I said, "I'm writing this because I believe we need to cease our correspondence." I said, "because I feel it's only right to be honest with you that, I'm not proud of it, but I've developed an anti Japanese feeling, and I don't think it's right to handle it and myself like nothing ever happened, so I believe we should cease this correspondence."

Well, after that, of course, I never heard again. Not until the war was over, so it had to be, possibly the later part of '45, possibly the first of '46. And I was sweeping my front porch at the house where I grew up, and I happened to, my eye, just see movement at the bottom of the steps, and I thought, turned my face and it was Sachi. And I almost passed out, I was just mortified. And I thought, oh my god, it's Sachi. And I thought, I wanted to run into the house. Before I knew it she was face to face with me, and she says, "Hi, Marge." I said, "Well hi, Sachi." She said, "How are you, Margie?" And I said, "I'm okay." I said, "Sachi, I think I need, we need to clarify something." I said, "Did you receive a letter in about mid war that was unlike the first letters that we had exchanged?" And she said yes. And I said, "Well, Sachi," I said, "why would you come and see me?" And she said, "Why would I not?" I said, "Because what I did, a friend would not do to a friend if she's a true friend, and yet you have come and you're facing me and I am feeling guilty. But I felt at the time that I was doing the right thing, but I still can't imagine that you would even want to come and see me." I said, "Were you not angry? Were you not hurt? Were you not disappointed in your so-called friend?" And she said, "Margie," she said, "it was the times." I said, "The times? Well no matter the times, yes, a lot of things happened those days. Times happened, did a lot of things to a lot of people," I said. "But you know what? It still doesn't excuse that a friend would do this to another friend, not if she's a true friend." So I kept repeating that part, and she said, "Margie," she said, "it's okay." She says, "The bond that I have for you, from our, as a friendship, has never been shattered and it never will be shattered." And at that moment I was ready to just break down and cry. The tears were at the brim of my eyes and I felt worse than I had felt before, and then I said, "Well, Sachi," I said, "would you, could you... first of all let's establish that you are a lady, one that I am not. I am not the lady, the nice lady that should've been." I said, "I am not proud of what I did," and I said, "The only thing that I can ask of you is could you possibly accept an apology from me? Could you possibly forgive me? And if you can't it's certainly understandable." She says, "I have nothing to forgive. As I've said, you were my friend, you are my friend, and you always will be." Well, then I did break down, and I wanted to put my arms around her, but I just felt that was kind of presumptuous. She made it easy for me. She put her arms around me. We hugged and we cried and we cried. And then I said, "So you will forgive me, I hope?" And she says, "I forgive you, but I don't need to because there's nothing to forgive." And I said, "Well, this certainly makes you a real person."

TI: Did you have a sense, when she talked about receiving the letter, that it was hurtful for her?

MA: She never gave me, I felt that she had to have been, but then she didn't give me any feeling as she talked to me that that would be the case. And I thought that if she was really hurt I don't think she would've come back to see me. And so we had a very emotional, very stressful moment, but very satisfying at the same time. It was what you might call bittersweet. And so then I said, "Sachi," I said, "what you have just done for me, I'll never forget you for, because you put my head back on my shoulders. You put my..." I can't remember the words. I have it in my story. But then she put me, she really did a huge favor for me because I was able to shed that anti Japanese, not only of Sachi, but of all of them, because I felt that she did this for me and I was extremely grateful for it. Never forget it. I'll cherish that memory for as long as I live. I haven't got that much time, but anyway, you know what I mean.

TI: Well Margie, thank you for sharing that. I know it's cathartic almost to be able to talk about.

MA: But you know, the thing that bothered me after the fact was that when she left I believed, and I believe she believed it, I believed she was being very truthful, but I believed that we had reestablished what we'd had before the war. And, however, when she left, Tom, she had my address, but I didn't have hers, and when she left I kind of figured that I would hear and I in turn could respond, but I never heard again. And then I had afterthoughts because I thought she might've had afterthoughts. Did she have, did she leave and think, "Yes, I was hurt, yes, I was angry, yes, she was not a good friend, yes"? Did she have those feelings? I was thinking. And that stayed with me, and partly to today, even though she's gone, and that was because I thought, well, maybe she began to think, yes, I was not the friend that she had hoped I was. But you know, after the ensuing things, receiving these letters and, I'm going a little ahead, and pictures and everything, I chose to look at her picture and be happy and feel that it was all okay. I just couldn't let myself feel that she left and was angry with me, and I didn't feel when she left that she was angry with me. So that's why that story, when I think about it, I say I have two stories. That's my emotional, personal one. The other one is a different type of story, but this one was the most, the most important to me, and so that's how I ended it. I had to end it for my own feeling of it's okay.

TI: Well thank you again for sharing. It really sort of helps... yeah, I think when I interviewed so many Japanese, they, I think there was this uncertainty of, one, what was happening in places like Seattle, and two, their old friends, and I think many of them felt this sense of shame and guilt even though they did nothing wrong, and many of them were concerned about how their friends would feel about them.

MA: Yeah. Well, like I say, that she came back, she really made me a different person. I mean, she added something to my life that no other thing could have, could have done it. Nothing could have done what she did for me that day.

TI: Up to that point when she went face to face with you and came back to Seattle, did you still harbor those anti Japanese feelings?

MA: No, it just seemed to vanish.

TI: Okay, so it was at, the point of that letter was when it was probably at its height. You wrote it and then after that it started just disappearing after that.

MA: Yeah.

TI: Do you know where that came from? Was it just the media? Was it friends?

MA: I think I was influenced by, the movies had big impact. I mean, they were tough. They were really powerful movies and they were definitely anti Japanese, for a lot of good reasons, but on the other hand, the impact, I couldn't separate the reality from it, you know? It was, I let it do to me what it did. And as I said before, being Jewish, I, what we've all, what the Jews have gone through should have been immediately important to me that I not do this to someone else.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.