<Begin Segment 33>

TI: And so, Min, for this interview, I'm, I'm gonna kinda bring it to an end because we've been going for almost, almost five hours now. And I guess where we're ending is kind of the, the, just after the war and some of the difficulties in terms of adjusting for your parents and for you, and I guess the last question I have is, in thinking about the experience you went through, in particular during World War II and, and the camp, Santa Anita, Amache, what thoughts do you have about that?

MT: You know, the thing about it, and because of the, the experience we had, not so much about the, the meeting all the friends and stuff, but having to go that experience has, has determined me that no one else should ever, ever experience that again, and so I'm very vocal about when something happens like this. The Palestinians, whatever have you, to put them into camp, I say you've got to have due process of law. You don't have due process of law you do not have freedom, so you got to have, so any time something happens I'm very vocal about it. I'm not afraid to speak up. And so I'm determined that it will not happen to anybody else again.

TI: How well do you think the Japanese American community in general speaks out about these issues?

MT: I think the various organizations do, but individually they do not. I don't think my friends, some of my friends speak out. They avoid any kind of thing like this. I think so. But if you pin 'em down then they would speak up. But some of 'em don't intellectualize this thing, so it's hard. They just say, "It's wrong." They don't go into any of the details, and so it's, it's avoidance. They don't want to think about it. It was a, it was very unpleasant. It's, parts were unpleasant. Having to leave home and have to be incarcerated and not be able to do it and the fear that they had, and then coming back and having to pick up from scratch again. Some people had it easy. Most people, ninety-nine percent of the people had it difficult. Some people had the farms when they came back. The Livingston people in Northern California, the lawyer saved the farms for 'em, so when they came back they just right back into the farming business and they didn't suffer at all compared to us. I mean, they suffered because during the -- well, in camp there were, people were sharecropping, so they were getting money. They were getting income, but they weren't making the kind of money they should've been making. But I think people had different, different take on it, and some people just don't want to talk about, don't even think about it. They just say it was just a bad time for them.

TI: Okay, good. So I want to thank you. I know this was a long interview. A lot of things we didn't cover. I mean, in terms of your military experience, your, your career and all these things, but I think we, for, for our project we hit the heart of what we wanted to cover in terms of the, the early prewar life and then especially the war years and then coming back and what that was like, so Min, thank you so much for the interview. This was excellent.

MT: You're welcome. I'm glad I'm able to do this. From my aspect is you're helping me to, to put down on paper my experience, 'cause I have bits and pieces written other places and so forth, but nothing like this continuous interview. It's a, it's a pleasure for me for be able to do that. As you know, I'm quite vocal, verbal. [Laughs]

TI: [Laughs] This is probably the best way to do it, rather than writing, just, just talking to you.

MT: But it, if you, if I use just a microphone to do that, it's hard.

TI: So it's almost like having someone to talk with helps.

MT: Yeah. And, and steering me back, 'cause I would take off in places all over the place, yeah.

TI: No, this was, this was fun. Thank you so much.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.