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VY: David, I just have a couple more questions I wanted to ask, and before I do, I wanted to see if there's anything you think we should cover before we conclude today that we haven't touched upon?

DS: I'm better off if you ask me questions, but I do want to say, in retrospect, that it's been a real privilege to have this time to share my thoughts with you and with Densho. And I thank Densho and Tom and others effusively, because I've never done this before, but I'm so happy to have it in some type of repository where people can hear the story and hopefully benefit from it. I'm so grateful, so excited for this opportunity to talk with you. But also, I think about all the people that I worked with who really did all the heavy lifting. I'm basically the emperor without clothes. And all the people behind the curtain, I think they should have all the credit because they were amazing.

VY: I think the way you're speaking about it all shows what a great leader you are, because you do recognize how it does take so many people to work on something and to reach the outcomes that you're looking for, it's never just one person. But at the same time, you do seem to often be in that position where you are more in a slightly more leadership position. And I wouldn't be surprised if that comes again from your childhood of being the oldest child, being told you need to take care of the family, things like that. It's like that's just sort of a part of who you are, and you've developed that part of yourself throughout your entire life. You've even kind of put yourself in situations that weren't that comfortable on purpose.

DS: Yeah. Well, whatever. Certainly those are very kind words, but I've been very fortunate to have lots of friends who have supported me, who worked very, very hard. I think about Gary Glenn, who has now passed away, they brought skills that I've never had. Kei Kaneda, who was the driving force, she was the driving force behind all this. Glen Fukushima who is such a, he's the smartest guy I have ever known. So it's been a wonderful journey, and I've enjoyed it. And oddly enough, I had a lot of fun.

VY: Well, I've had such a good time talking with you, I don't really want to conclude. I just want to keep talking with you, but I know that it's been a long day. So I just have a couple more questions. One is, I was curious about when you first talked about your wartime experience with your kids. Is that something you did while they were growing up, or did it happen later in life?

DS: I really can't recall the first time I talked to Dan, Peter, and our daughter Meeya about the internment. But I think during Oshogatsu it was safe to talk about the internment. And there have been times, there are times when I would be asked to talk about my own personal experience as part of the Oshogatsu celebration. And the purpose was to pass the story down to the next generation, subsequent generations. I don't think Dan or Peter was ever in the audience, but for some reason the internment story was always lurking in the background. And I think Dan would be really uncomfortable if I told this little snippet of the story, of the Minidoka story, but here goes. And Dan, you're just going to have to bear with me. So I don't think any of the boys were really interested, but they had an inkling that that was part of my past and my family's past. So during the last several months of the, President Clinton's administration, I got a call out of the blue from Dan. And he said, "Dad, tell me about the internment." And it was amazing. We had never talked about the internment, he was in an important position in Washington, and out of the clear blue sky he asked me. So I briefly told me about the internment and redress, and he said, in his typical fashion, he said, "Okay, thanks, bye," and that was it. So he went on to... and you saw what happened with the signing of the executive order. So I don't think internment was ever integral to our discussion, but somehow Dan remembered the internment experience by our family.

VY: You know, that's interesting because my final question to you, actually, is related to your son Dan. Something that caught my attention earlier this year was, you know, this year is the eightieth anniversary of Executive Order 9066. And so I was attending several Day of Remembrance events in February, and one of the events happened to include your son Dan as a panelist. And one of the things that he said that really struck me, he said that his parents instilled in him "a low tolerance for injustice," that's a quote. And I'm just wondering how hearing that makes you feel, and I wonder if this is something you consciously instilled in your children, or do you think that they just observed how you lived your life?

DS: I don't know. I have no clue where that came from. Very kind remarks. But I have to say that I haven't mentioned my wife, Maryellen, who you met briefly. We've been married over forty-four years now, but she's been a great influence on my being comfortable looking at my roots, looking at the internment experience. She' been extremely supportive. In fact, one of the, several of the photographs that I use from the National Archives, actually from the University of California Bancroft collection, she and I were sort of browsing through the photographs, and she recognized the photograph of myself, my two brothers, peering out of the train window. She's an artist, and I would have not recognized me, but she said, "David, that's you." So that was an epiphany that here in the national records are photographs of our family, which I then use, with attribution, in my talks. But she comes from a Boston Irish Catholic family where politics, discussion, current events, is really important in the daily flow of life. So maybe that's where Dan got his feeling of being instilled with justice.

VY: As usual, you're being very kind and generous with your words.

DS: Well, Dan has a very strong sense of justice. And if there is injustice standing in his way, just watch out.

VY: Well, it sounds like he thinks he got that from you. And I will leave it on that. [Laughs] David, it's been such a pleasure talking with you. I'm just so appreciative of the time you spent with us. Thank you so much.

DS: Yeah. Well, I hope someday we'll be able to meet in person.

VY: Me, too.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.