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VY: Do you want to talk a little bit more about what it was like for the kids to be in camp and to have that experience of being separated from the family?

NO: Okay, very good question. So myself, although I'm given the opportunity to speak today, is very different from my two sisters. My eldest sister told her son on her deathbed, "I'm not going to tell you about camp, this is my burden." Because she really could not go to school because of her illness, and she was unhappy, very unhappy. Her dad was gone, but he would arrange for her to get toys for Christmas, all these little special things that kids think about. Then my middle sister was highly traumatized. She had nightmares, and she passed away two years ago. And we talked a lot about camp through the years, we've gone on pilgrimages together, and she always would, to the last time, she would have nightmares. She would be in her blue nightgown, running, and people would be chasing her. So she had been a ceramist for many years teaching at the Irvine Fine Arts Center making cups and teapots and bowls and things that most people do and like. And after she went to the Tule Lake Pilgrimage, her memories reawakened, and she was breathing the air and she says, "I feel disquieted." And so she began to... excuse me, she began to do her best art. She drew pictures of faces with, very grim faces, and she really was traumatized.

VY: Do you think that helped her work through it a little bit, her art?

NO: Definitely has helped her work through it. We've had several shows, and I think people who come to this show have responded to it. Because Tule Lake was different. There were not only a lot of searchlights, there were lots of bayonets, tanks, lot of people who were very rough, pushing people around, innocent people who really didn't know why they were there to begin with, and it only accelerated over time. So her artwork is named Endure, Gaman, and if you could picture this one has about a hundred faces, each one different, like Sanjusangendo in Japan, Kyoto, and so it was the faces she remembers, and it's wrapped in barbed wire. And another one is our family, my father's tall, my mother's about five feet tall, and the two little girls hanging on. And he's in the shadow because he's in the stockade, and my mother's carrying me, (an infant). I brought a picture of this for you because we take photographs of it. And the back side is the EO 9066 and soldiers with bayonets and watchtowers. So she was able to express herself.

VY: Well, you brought up family separation. When you hear people talk about that today, currently, how does it make you feel?

NO: First of all, it's wrong. We have laws, of course, which are important for order, but I also think that we are human beings, too, people of the world. And America is a place that is thought to be a place to come to, that's why my parents came here, or lived here. We remain here, we believe in the principles of America, and so when we see children separated, I'll just pick different things like just the anxiety of being separated and not knowing where you're going be next. They've been moved from different detention centers, very close to our own detention centers like Crystal City or where the Indians had their protest about three years ago, Where Water is Life, if you recall that protest. And so we really feel it's an important time for us to speak up for this separation. The kids are not getting educated, either in whatever language they come from or in English. And so my friend Kanji who was also interviewed by you, his mother put him back a year because she felt his education was not good. Then you'll hear in another seminar it was great, and they say it's great because in Tule Lake you learn Japanese and English, but that's because you're going to go back to Japan and see the elders, you realize you didn't know the language. So it just depends on your entry point into camp, like if you enjoyed it or if you're a parent or a baby like me, or different things, but the idea, your question was how I feel about the separation, you could see the longing and the people covering their fears. Because my mother will say, "Oh, so and so dropped by today, that was so kind, and brought these foods." And so this is why these people are so dear to us today, that I thought all these people are aunts and uncles, but they were part of our camp life. But the separations has to end, and there has to be a solution that's peaceful and not military. And right now I understand they're sending more troops to the border, and I think that's the wrong way to handle this problem. I'm sure that the pendulum will swing the other way, but hopefully we'll do the right thing.

[Interruption]

NO: My sister, Ernie Jane Masako, used to take cod liver oil, and she needed to do this because she was underweight. Maybe we were a little overweight, but she was underweight and always a little sickly. We thought she'd outlive us all because she took such good care of herself through her whole life. But no, we all have a date, and so she did pass away. But her time, her last few months, she stayed at my house, and we would talk about her memories. And she would tell me of the various nightmares of being lost and having to go in the cold and crying, and her tears would turn into snow, or to ice. And so that's the kind of things that children should not be bearing. It's cold and they should be warm, they should have their family around them, they'd have the best time. Because we depend on them to be the leaders of tomorrow, and what kind of adults would they be if they have this kind of trauma in their lives? And so she really, as an adult, finally found after, if you can imagine, seventy-plus years of living like that, finally found her outlet. That's a long time to carry that burden. And so hopefully people will learn that we should not be inhumane to children. I as an elementary school principal, probably unique, because my grandchildren said when I retired, "Why do you have so many toys? You're the disciplinarian of the school." And I said to them, "Because you make your point, then you have to wait for the parents." I said, "I need to talk to the parents more than the kids. So we let them play. It sounded like they did something that can't be fixed or corrected or improved. And it's beautiful because I have six years to make a little dent. I don't want to change them, I love kids, I like them the way they are, full of joy, energy, but I think you want them to be successful and get along with the greater society. So I think kids come today with a lot of baggage because of the increased poverty. And I say increased because it doesn't go away. I thought things would get better, but the school that I worked at mostly were Title I, the majority of kids really didn't have food outside of school. I took a child home, the parents weren't here, they went back to Mexico from some reason, and there was a dried up cabbage in the refrigerator. So my husband said, "How many chickens did you give away today?" [Laughs] So I said, well, they needed it, so we have to think like that.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.