<Begin Segment 17>

AI: So you had, already, this whole background of values and concerns for nature, for people, and the belief in the goodness and beauty of all things.

AK: And Reverend Andrews of the Japanese Baptist Church was a good friend of ours and would come by and visit us and he'd be doing all these good things, doing the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts at the church, and we were, we participated. We weren't a good church family, so to speak. You know, we didn't belong like a lot of the other people. But we were a very loose-knit family as far as that goes, with lots of freedom that, I realize even now, how much more freedom we had than a lot of other Nisei kids. They didn't have... my older sister thought I was very spoiled, I was. Because I got to do anything I wanted because my folks just trusted us and let us do anything we wanted to.

AI: Encouraged you in your interests?

AK: Uh-huh. And, in fact, my younger sister says, "You always asked for things and you always got what you wanted." [Laughs] And she said, "Gee, Aki." And I said, "Well, you lost out because you didn't ask for it." [Laughs] I'd come home and say, "Hey, I wanna take some dancing lessons. Can I take some dancing lessons?" And I had just started taking piano lessons, I decided I don't want to take piano lessons, you know. But my folks allowed me to have that kind of change and...

AI: So from a young age, you were used to getting interested in things, pursuing them, looking into them, and by the time that you were in camp and war was going on. I think you mentioned yesterday, that you were then getting correspondence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation and you were in contact, also with, you knew that Floyd was coming into the camp to recruit for the student relocation program.

AK: Uh-huh. Because I had known about the Quakers. My father had told me about Quakers.

AI: What did you father tell you about the Quakers?

AK: And he said there was this group of people that didn't believe in war and did good things as an alternative. And I think the message he was giving us was that, it's, you don't just say something's good, you work at it. It doesn't... you can talk about it but if you don't act, then it's just as bad as not believing in it.

AI: So then, when did you first meet Floyd and what was...

AK: In camp. And mainly, it was after I came back to Seattle, is when I really... I went to work for him at the Service Committee.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.