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TI: So after the first march in Crystal City, and we're calling it a pilgrimage, but I think some of the organizers say that was really kind of the preliminary...

KN: It was a preliminary kind of a tryout if you will.

TI: And not really a full pilgrimage. But that trip, so you came back, you got some good feedback, but what else have you done since coming back in March in response to that trip?

KN: Well, almost immediately, I was on the committee, so we started to work on the next one. And we were, other than Hiroshi Shimizu, most of us are not experienced, so it was really difficult to get this thing going. So that's been, it started back in, boy, April or May, and only the last month things have really come together, but it's taken a lot. There's been a long learning curve, but we've been involved, and now we're meeting weekly, just getting down as much detail as possible. We still have a lot to do, a long ways to go, by the way, but it's coming together nicely. Other than that, I haven't done anything as far as protesting or anything else.

TI: But how about your research? Have you been doing more research about the family?

KN: Yeah, you know, I did the research because I saw bits and pieces of where... and the map that we had, well, actually, it's a smaller version of this.

TI: And this is a map from a website that you....

KN: Exactly.

TI: Go ahead and, why don't you show it?

KN: This is the map of the entire Crystal City camp, and we were really in this area here. I started to look at this because I wanted to know where we were, and I was surprised to see that our name is on there. I thought, oh, great, first time I know we were there, I mean, I had no clue. And the map itself, you have no clue. So now I know where we are, you know, we were.

TI: And what did it mean to actually see a map and to see where the family was and to actually see your name on here? How does something like that help you?

KN: It really told me that it wasn't just a vague "we were in camp," specifically we were in a spot. And speaking to Jimmy, my brother Jimmy, he could say, "Oh, yeah, we knew this family over here," and that started to put things together. It really made sense of where we were. The orchard, sugar cane that we used to gnaw at when we were kids, had to come from that orchard. And so everything started to come together just a little bit more, started to crystalize so that I could get a sense of what the camp was like. And that was important, and it was important to share that with Jimmy and George because they'd never seen that map. And then I started getting photos from my friends, Hiroshi, of my oldest sister. And there were three in particular, she was the teacher. And I figure, well, she's not teaching Spanish because there's no reason to, so it had to be Japanese, she couldn't speak English. So she was teaching Japanese, but it was more like a kindergarten. So it was maybe more of a preschool kind of thing. But anyway, it was great to have those photos, it started to come together. I showed that to my nephew who's never seen a photo of his mom, and actually, that photo is... and I'll show this to you. This is my oldest sister and my nephew, her oldest son is coming. So I said to him that this photo now has become one of the symbolic, iconic image.

TI: Boy, that's an amazing photograph because it's shot through the barbed wire with a guard tower.

KN: We had to piece this together.

TI: Oh, okay, so it's a composite.

KN: Yeah, because there isn't hardly any photos around. My friend Hiroshi had this photo, and this one, and there's the two guards there.

TI: They put all those pieces together.

KN: Just to make some sense out of it, this became our logo that we're going to be using.

TI: Can you hold it up?

KN: Sure.

Off camera: And which one is your sister?

KN: That's my oldest sister, she passed away many years ago.

TI: Yeah, I guess this had to be a composite because you have these power lines also and all that.

KN: Yeah, but what's interesting is that my brother Jimmy was just old enough that he could remember things, and I would check with him about where we were and so on and so on, that was important to get all that. So the more you start digging, the more you find out things, the more interesting it becomes.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.