<Begin Segment 10>

SY: So what kind of person was Michi Weglyn when she was, when you knew her in camp?

YN: Well, she was a very serious type of student, very articulate, very caring type of person. She had some interest in art too, and she became a fashion designer for the Perry Como Show. She was a good debater and was just a very good friend to talk to. It was a platonic relationship. I mean, she and I are very good friends. We've remained good friends until she passed on. We've communicated quite often, and she knew what I was doing, we knew what she was doing, and we became friends with Walter. We visited her a couple of times when we were in New York, and we've seen her here when she came here. I would say she just was a fine person with a lot of integrity. And I would not have envisioned her to stick to something like she did with Years of Infamy, but I think once she started, she really became very dedicated. It just got her. And Walter would say, "You know, some of those people should be lined up and shot," he'd say, "for their behavior." [Laughs] And so as she went into the archives and found materials, that just made her very, very upset, and there were so many lies told about us that were uncovered.

SY: Later on, yeah.

YN: She felt a need to write this book.

SY: Do you remember when Eleanor Roosevelt visited?

YN: Absolutely.

SY: What was that experience like?

YN: One of the things she said -- well, she came and we were very, very pleased that she came. And John Tachihara and Kim Nagano, they were the two candidates who ran against me too, but Kim was the student body president, is in this annual photograph. And you probably saw it in the Pacific Citizen on the various camps; there's a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt and the tall fellow is Kim Nagano. We remember her coming, and (there) was a lot of excitement. She wanted to know everything. One of the things she said to us, because she didn't know our particular situation -- some of the Japanese Americans lived in segregated areas. I mean, they couldn't live with Caucasians and there were restricted areas. So she said that she recommended that we integrate more, you see, "If more people knew you, you wouldn't be here." And that may be true, but I don't think that would help too much because when the war broke out, the people were mad and hysterical, and they wanted to get back at somebody, and so getting back at somebody is, if you look like the enemy you must have something wrong with you, you see?

SY: But she was, she was very well received when she visited?

YN: Oh yes, very well received. And, well, they spiffied up the camp a little bit, cleaned up everything. [Laughs] So it wasn't just an everyday situation. It's like when you have a visitor come from somewhere to a house -- except this house, but any other place -- you would kind of spiff it up a bit.

SY: So did you actually end up graduating from Butte High School?

YN: Yes, I did.

SY: So you went through the graduation ceremony.

YN: Yes, I did. And one of the memorable parts of that graduation was that another good friend of mine, Minnie Sasahara Avery, who ended up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and married a sociologist who taught at the university there, was also a pianist, and she played a piece for the graduation. And another friend was the valedictorian, so there were many things about it that were quite memorable.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.