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TI: You know, I'm curious in terms of in either group, was the war effort discussed back then? Did people talk about the war years?

NA: It's usually the camps. "What camp were you in?" But it didn't really go beyond that. There's also another part that, I don't know if I discussed this before or not, but I think at that time we all knew somebody, at least one if not more than one person whose either mother or father had become mentally ill because of the war experience and were either in the state hospitals or under treatment or something. And in fact, in our church there was one family the mother was, but nobody ever said it out loud. It was one of those respectful things -- and I call it more respectful than hidden because we all knew but nobody would ever say, such-and-such, your mom's... you know.

TI: And in that situation, would there be, what's the right word, assistance or help for maybe the kids from that family, like maybe a pick up or something or little things like that?

NA: It could've happened, but I was just too young to really be engaged in that or know that. But that's one thing that I was real conscious of as, when, around that time is, 'cause even our family, I knew we had this one, my mom's friend from camp and she would periodically place herself in a state hospital. And as kids we knew when she came out our family would go down there to visit, and so my mom would say, so-and-so's home, so let's go down there on Sunday, and we'd get manju and stuff and drive down towards Gilroy to visit with the family.

TI: Well, knowing that other families dealt with this, was there still a stigma attached to mental illness or things like this? When people struggled because of the camp experience, or whatever, you said it was kind of respectful. I mean, it wasn't like it was hidden, but what kind of stigma would you say was attached to it?

NA: I don't know. Certainly it wasn't in our, it wasn't discussed like that in our house, and maybe that's the tone that I just took. Maybe there was stigma, but I didn't know, I mean it wasn't, I didn't, I didn't have to deal with it as a stigma. I just knew that everybody either was somebody that we knew, and we even had our neighbor who was in Topaz, the second year after the war they went back into farming and -- this was down in San Jose -- and the second year of farming there was a terrible rain, rain weather, and the family got wiped out. Their crop got totally wiped out and the father committed suicide. And so those things I was aware of, but certain for the mental illness, I never heard of it as a stigma or, you know, buzz, buzz, buzz kind of thing.

TI: Yeah, it was interesting when you were talking about that. I just, it made me think about in Seattle, I mean, yeah, right after the war and I'd hear stories about suicides. Oftentimes they might be bachelor men, but it's just like it was just known that that happened. Again, yeah, you're right, it wasn't like there was any, it was just --

NA: Like, shame on them for doing that. No.

TI: Yeah, there was none of that.

NA: None of that.

TI: But it was just like it just happened.

NA: Yeah, and whether everybody understood why it was there or not I don't know. I was, I was a kid. In that sense I was a kid, and I certainly, I was a sponge enough to pick up on things, but that was not what I picked up, but I just knew it was in the community there. But nobody talked about it.

TI: But you did mention that when it came to the war people might ask, "So which camp were you in?"

NA: And that's the biggest thing. Oh, you were there, or you were there, or, do you know so-and-so? Oh, that was my cousin. It was that kind of talk more than anything about how horrendous it was. I mean, it was just something that you just went through.

TI: That's what I remember growing up, my parents, and always one of the first things that would come out is, "So which camp were you at?" And they would have that conversation and I was just clueless not having lived through that experience and not knowing what that was. It's interesting.

NA: Yeah. But that was an identity marker. "Oh, you weren't in camp? So where'd you go?"

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