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VY: Today is Friday, July 22, 2022, and we are conducting our second remote interview with David Sakura, who is located in Thornton, New Hampshire. Running the video production is Dana Hoshide and my name is Virginia Yamada, and Dana and I are both located in Seattle, Washington. So, David, it's good to see you today.

DS: Oh, it's great seeing you again.

VY: So during your first interview, we covered your early life, your time growing up in Eatonville, Washington, you and your family's experience before, during and after World War II, and we left off in 1954 when you had just graduated from high school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So I'd like to pick up from there, but before we move forward with that, there's one thing I wanted to clarify from our previous conversation. And during that time, you described living in a Japanese village that was built by the owner of a lumber mill in Eatonville, Washington.

DS: That's correct.

VY: And I was just wondering, yeah, and I was just wondering if you know if your parents owned the home that you lived in there, or were they renting it from the mill owner?

DS: No. The entire Japanese village was part of a company-sponsored town, so it was company-sponsored housing. And my parents did not own the apartment, but they rented the apartment from the lumber mill.

VY: Okay, so that's interesting. Do you have any idea what happened to the village after the war or during the war, because it was basically completely vacated, I imagine?

DS: Well, yes. The entire village was vacated during the evacuation to "Camp Harmony," and after that, it fell into disrepair, and finally the buildings were disassembled and it's now heavily overgrown. The company itself lasted for a while after the Japanese American workers left the mill, but because of labor shortages and other issues, the company ultimately folded, and now all that remains is the skeletal buildings. But the village itself is completely gone except for, perhaps, one flowering cherry tree that still is hidden amongst the bushes. And we think that that cherry tree was planted by one of the residents, and it's the last vestiges of our home in Eatonville. I should add, however, there is the remnants, or there are the remains of a Japanese cemetery that's part of the Eatonville cemetery. And it's a small piece of the cemetery, but it has the memorial and the headstones of several of the residents of the Eatonville Japanese community, that are buried there. So that's the only remnants of the village.

VY: Well, that's interesting. So does that mean you also have family members probably from your mother's side that might be buried there as well?

DS: No. None of my family members are buried there, but I should add that the romantic in me says that when I pass, it would be appropriate and maybe fitting that my remains be brought back to Eatonville and placed in that Japanese cemetery that's within the confines of the Eatonville cemetery.

VY: Yeah, that's interesting, you still have a very strong connection to Eatonville, it seems, even though you were forced to leave when you were a child and you never really went back after that.

DS: Yes, I think you're right that as a child, I had very fond memories of my time, of my family's experience in Eatonville and of the residents, the Caucasian residents that were so gracious and that reached out to us and made us feel comfortable in their community.

VY: You know, since we're talking about Eatonville, I wonder if this would be a good time -- I wasn't planning to do this -- but if this would be a good time to talk about your dad's, his dispatches and how you were recently able to review them again?

DS: Right, right. With the advent of the internet, one has access to a lot of documents. And it turned out one evening that I came across a very long article about the Japanese American residents in Eatonville that was published by Dixie Walter who was then the editor of the Eatonville Dispatch. And in the very extensive article, she mentioned meeting my father, who had gone back in about 1975 to visit old friends in Eatonville and to drop in to the newspaper office and chat with Dixie, and she was very effusive in terms of describing that visit with my father. And it was something that I found on the internet. And so I reached out to her and she and I started a correspondence, and she indicated that there were letters that were published in the editions of the Eatonville Dispatch shortly after our departure to "Camp Harmony." And these letters written by my father would be published by the editor, Eugene Larin. And I thought it would be very interesting to read these letters, because my father had never talked about the whole internment, relocation, and subsequent disruption to our family. And perhaps these letters back to the newspaper would give me some clue as to who my father was and what he was thinking.

VY: Okay, that's so great that you had that opportunity. Okay, well, thank you for kind of going back a little bit to Eatonville and the earlier days.

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