<Begin Segment 27>

SY: So do you have any different feelings now that you can look back on the camp experience? Does it seem like it was... does it seem more traumatic looking back at it or do you still see it as something that, because you were young, it wasn't so bad?

CI: Gee, I just don't know how to answer that. You know that when I came back from Chicago and went to Roosevelt it was like coming home, I think I told you that. Because I had gone to school, elementary and junior high school with a lot of my friends. And then they had just started senior activities, and they just embraced me and took me right in. I was elected as the... they had, at that time at Roosevelt they had a Host, they call it Host and Hostess. It was like the king and queen of the senior class, so I was elected the Hostess. And then they asked me to be a commencement speaker. So that was very gratifying, and my commencement speech centered around evacuation. I remember, yes, I remember it well.

SY: And what did you say?

CI: Well, I told them about that we had to cooperate to live in that kind of restrictive environment, that cooperation meant everything. Because otherwise, everything would have fallen apart, you know. And then so, well, anyway, it was well-received. Then when I left Harbor College, during my retirement, they asked me to give the... I can't remember what they call it.

SY: The keynote or something like that?

CI: Yeah, a speech. They always asked one faculty member to address the students. And so I took that speech and I said, "So many years ago..." and took them back to the war years, able to duplicate my speech.

SY: And the gist of it was...

CI: What happened to me in camp. And that they had to make changes.

SY: That the country had to make changes.

CI: They, they had to make changes.

SY: I see, the audience that you were...

CI: The graduates.

SY: I see. So it was kind of a message of what you had been through.

CI: Yeah. And reiterating my high school speech, graduation speech.

SY: And did you talk about the 442 in it?

CI: No.

SY: It was really your experience.

CI: It was just... it was not even my experience, it was just the fact that they had to, they're the next generation and they had to make some changes for America, really.

SY: Well, it has to be a little bit longer than that. So can you give me any more detail about what you said? Because that is amazing that you gave two speeches on this subject. I'm curious to hear more about that. Can you remember anything else that you said?

CI: No...

SY: Did you talk about what happened to you specifically and going to Santa Anita?

CI: Well, I did, but I can't remember exactly. I did remember the speech.

SY: That's great. I mean, it's nice that you used that as the subject for your speeches. It must have had a huge impact on you for you to want to talk about it, right?

CI: I guess. You want me to talk some more?

SY: No, I just, I'm curious what you said just because it's so amazing to me that you could get up in front of an audience and talk about your camp, whatever happened. I mean, I'm assuming that you...

CI: I talked a little bit about seeing America because of that trip, that I probably would never have seen before. You know, like the Rocky Mountains we had to go through. I did speak a little bit about the trip and what camp was like. I did do that.

SY: And you talked about camp in a positive way? That it was...

CI: Positive in that unless the Japanese acted the way they did, it would have been chaos, don't you think? Other races, they wouldn't tolerate things like that, and I think it would have just been chaos, but because we're Japanese and we gaman, we were able to succeed in having kind of a decent three years or four years or whatever. I think people don't understand that. They say, "You were so complacent and just gaman." Like the Sanseis and Yonseis, they think we were foolish in that we didn't fight for our rights. But it wasn't the time to do it at that time.

SY: But a part of you still thinks maybe if the same thing happened today, you would have...

CI: Oh, it would be different.

SY: You would have reacted differently?

CI: I think so, yeah. But I don't know if that's for the better or not.

SY: You've had a lot of experience, though, in terms of sort of being in positions where you have some sort of influence over other people, right? I mean teaching...

CI: Uh-huh.

SY: ...being the head of a department and all of that. You've never felt different because you were Japanese American? Do people look at you differently?

CI: No, I don't think so.

SY: Never?

CI: Yeah. Lucky. I had good colleagues. I'm still very close to my former faculty members. We go out to lunch together.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.