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TI: So I'm going to now jump to the Japanese American experience. And wanted to ask you, when did you first learn about what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II, the mass removal from the West Coast and then the incarceration?

MS: Well, I never learned the full story, actually, until I became involved in Gordon Hirabayashi's case as a judge. But I knew that there had been an internment because I had an absolutely wonderful teacher who was a physical education teacher when I was about eleven, and her name was Miss Fujita. And I heard that she had been "locked up." That was the word that was used during World War II, and I couldn't understand why that was and I was always afraid to ask her. And I think I've always regretted that I never did ask her about it and what had happened and her experiences.

TI: And when you were eleven, where were you living?

MS: I was living in Illinois. By that time, my father was teaching at the University of Illinois, I was living Urbana, Illinois.

TI: Did you ever talk to your parents about this growing up? Did they ever mention or did you ever ask them about...

MS: Not that I can recall, no.

TI: So did it seem interesting or odd that it wasn't until much later in your life that you learned about what happened to Japanese Americans on the West Coast?

MS: Well, I don't want to be misleading. I knew that there had been an internment. I learned about it in high school and in college, but it was never brought home to me as to exactly who was taken away from their homes, where they were sent and why until much later.

TI: Okay. Now going to your legal training, did you learn about the Korematsu or Hirabayashi case as you went through law school?

MS: Yes.

TI: And what were your thoughts when you learned about that?

MS: Well, simply that this is terrible. This is a terrible thing that our country did this. And I think that was the general view of the students, and the kind of incomprehension about how this could have happened.

TI: Good, okay.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.