<Begin Segment 21>

TI: Now your, this group, are there plans to do future things?

MK: Yeah, they, well see, I think after this year it's gonna be, we can go directly from Miami, I think. But we're waiting for... but we still correspond with them.

TI: Interesting.

MK: And one of the girls wanted to buy a piano, so we all got together and put the money in and sent it over there. So I mean, it'd take her ten years to get her a piano.

TI: Interesting. So this is an interesting story that I'm gonna keep following. I'm curious what happens with all this.

MK: Yeah. It was really... and then I went and I asked 'em, I said, "Well, what religion are you?" And they said, but then I looked at one corner and I saw this butsudan-looking thing and I said, "That looks like a butsudan." And they said, "I don't know, my father left it." And they had never, never opened it.

TI: So they're not, well, they used to be maybe Buddhist, but not anymore.

MK: Yeah, now they're not Christian, they're not Buddhist. But they celebrate...

TI: Obon.

MK: They celebrate Bon and Shogatsu.

TI: But they don't really understand, maybe, the history.

MK: Yeah, and then they wanted us to bring music for Bon Odori, so we taught them Bon Odori and we took their recording. We taught them taiko. And what's his name, one of our Okinawan guys that went with us, he took a shamisen, the Okinawan shamisen, and he left it there. We left taikos there. And we made a, we made one of those Okinawan lions and made out of -- you can't make it out of straw, you have to make it out of cellophane or whatever. But there're so many stories in Cuba. It just, it makes you... and all of them, they are so revered, the Japanese population there, especially in the Isle of Man. They are so revered that it is really something.

TI: What, why? Why are they so revered?

MK: Because they sent them over there and it was saltwater coming in and they couldn't, they couldn't farm. Well, some Japanese guy stopped the saltwater from coming in, and now per acreage they make the best sugarcane. And all the horticulture, all of the herbs, all these herbs that they are, these are the -- and this Japanese guy, he came from Okinawa and this loved this gal in Okinawa, and so when he wanted -- but the family wouldn't let him, her come. So he went and grew this orchid and he named it after her, and it's just the most beautiful orchid. And some of the things that you hear, it just, and he's, he died and his ashes are in that columbarium. But we, but they, it's really a, but they're... and I'm saying to them, "Well, why don't you want to get off this godforsaken island?" And they said, "How're we gonna go?" Two hundred fifty don't even get you the bus ride to the thing. But they get all the, every kid gets a quart of milk or something, every, they get ten eggs or something (a month). They get sugar, they get, they get everything. And there's a clinic every fifteen blocks, so nobody -- and then you get to be sixty years old, you retire. I mean, I'm looking at that and thinking to myself, nobody seems unhappy.

TI: Very simple, easy.

MK: Yeah. But that two Okinawan ladies, they wanted to come back. They didn't want to stay there.

TI: No, that's a good story. So Molly, that's all the questions I have. Is there anything -- I didn't cover the postwar -- is there anything that you want to talk about or a story during that time period before we, we end the interview? 'Cause I know we've been doing this for over two hours now, so this is, I don't want to do too much longer.

MK: What do you mean?

TI: Is there anything else that maybe is important for you to talk about, just to get on the record? Is there anything that you want to talk about?

MK: Well, you know, at one time I think all the Niseis are trying to run away from our, our... but when, since I've joined the Tule Lake group and learned more about the difference in "no-no's" and "no-yes," and that's what I've, I was very, very surprised about -- because I am in Union City and there is so many people from Tule Lake, and they didn't even want to admit it. They didn't even want to... and so finally when I started to work with the Tule Lake people, I said, "Didn't you go to Tule Lake?" And they didn't want to own up to it. Well, now when we've done so much work and we've got recognition and getting... so I feel like I wanted the people to come out and let it, let them shed their...

TI: The shame.

MK: Yeah, the shame or whatever it is. Because even the Japanese Niseis or Sanseis, they condemned some of those people, so nobody even wanted to say. So this is the reason why I'm, to me, I feel that, I mean, when my father was put into the compound, I'm thinking, I didn't say, "You shouldn't say that, Dad." I mean, he was trying to, he's trying to help his own people. Well, it's the same thing. To me, I feel that it's, you know. So now the only regret that I do have is that the Issei parents who did all of the hardship and all that, they never got any of it.

TI: The apology or any money.

MK: Or anything. I mean, you know? And they're the ones that bore their knuckles to buy the land or do anything. My mother, at the back of the truck, looked up and she said, "I won't see this again." And she was right.

TI: When she left the farm in Strawberry Hill.

MK: That's right. And so when, as the truck was moving out, we all had to stand in the back of the truck. And my mother was only forty-eight or something. I mean, I was upset 'cause, but then another old lady had to sit in the front, and when I think about it -- but as we were leaving the farm, my mother said, "Oh, I won't see this again." Well, she was right. But it's, there should've been something that they should have... but to me, like the Cubans were allowed to get back the land, but not all of it. If you owned a hundred acres you were, everybody was only given so many. But they're perfectly happy. They can toil there. And Cuba, they, it's all organic. They have no fertilizer, no, it's all organic, and so they learned. So to me, I feel that some things great come out of hardships.

TI: Yeah. No, that's a good way, that's, I think, a good way to end this interview. So thank you so much, Molly, for doing this.

MK: You're welcome.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.