<Begin Segment 21>

TI: Okay. Is there anything else? I think we covered it pretty well, this whole area. I really learned a lot by really talking to someone who lived through, especially that Tule Lake experience. But is there anything else you wanted to talk about before we end?

KG: Well, the thing I want to get across, that the people who stayed and were stuck like myself, there were reasons why they were there. They were not disloyal, but there were reasons. Like in my case, my brothers, and there were other people who didn't want to go to Japan, but the parents thought this was the thing for them to do, and they didn't want to go through all that. And it troubles me that Tule Lake has been labeled as the "disloyal camp" because for a while, if you said Tule Lake, (it meant disloyal). And that... I guess I'm sensitive, and that really hurt.

TI: Well, I get a little bit of that in the Northwest, because as you know, a lot of Washingtonians were sent to Tule Lake before it became a segregation camp. And in a similar way, people ask, "So which camp did you go to?" and they'll say, "Tule Lake." And the assumption is that they were there because they were transferred there after the "loyalty questionnaire." But many Washingtonians, like you, initially went there, and some just chose to stay there. And they said they had good jobs, or they thought the jobs were better than if they went to another camp. So they just ended up staying there. And so there are, as you say, lots of different reasons why.

KG: Yeah, it has troubled me in terms... everybody knows, if you say "Tule Lake," they knew that we had a difficult time. It wasn't like all the other camps.

TI: Okay, good. Well, so Kazie, thank you so much for doing this. I know this was something that you thought a lot about, doing this interview, and I really appreciate your coming forward.

KG: Well, it's all in the past. And I don't know if it will do any good, but I have been troubled about Tule Lake period because the Japanese, we have a number of Japanese at the University House, and... well, they know that it was different.

TI: Well, thank you.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.