<Begin Segment 25>

BN: Then wanted to make sure we got to... I wanted to make sure we got to the JANM stuff.

RM: Okay, yeah.

BN: You told me you retired in '98, and Nancy got a hold of you?

RM: Well, Nancy got a hold of me while I was still working. They wanted me to join but I said, "Wait 'til I retire." So I retired in June, I think, and I started working in July, I volunteered in July or something.

BN: We should clarify, this is Nancy Araki.

RM: Nancy Araki, my cousin.

BN: Who was also, held many positions at the museum.

RM: Yeah, she was the first employee. They were volunteering and they needed somebody to take care of all the things that were piling up.

BN: What did you do at the museum?

RM: Well, first I had training. Bill Shishima and Hal Keimi, Mas Matsumoto, they were the ones that trained me at that. And then we moved to the pavilion and then they had training for the tours. So we had to learn about the exhibits that's in the gallery. I guess the current people don't know that all the inputs that the volunteers put in, all the older people that knew about the wartime thing, we put in a lot of inputs, corrections and things like that, we were able to do that. And the staff was very receptive, they always came to our meetings and were very receptive to anything that we put forth. Maybe it's harder now because there aren't too many docents left that knows about the... so the staff knows more now than the volunteers. So I was volunteering. We tried to do everything or anything that's asked, not just tours. We do whatever asked, so stuff envelopes, or if we need to work on the store, we did that. We did whatever was necessary, we were volunteers.

BN: How often would you go in?

RM: I used to go in three times a week, maybe, but I cut it down to two times a week until the pandemic, and then I haven't been back since. I've just been giving some tours virtually, which was nice. I liked that, because it was a long drive, and my wife doesn't want me to drive, it's too far for me to drive, she doesn't want me to drive. But I know I can drive, I wouldn't mind driving once a week or weekends or things like that.

BN: What about being a volunteer? What was the best thing about it or the thing that appealed to you?

RM: Alone where?

BN: No, being a volunteer, what was it that appealed to you to do it, to keep doing it for all these years? What did you get out of it?

RM: Oh, well, there's a lot of satisfaction teaching people what happened to us. I mean, people should know and that's history, and most people don't know their history. To teach history, there's a lot of satisfaction especially when it concerns our part of the history. And I know what my grandparents had to go through, all the hardship that they had to go through. So I really appreciate what their contributions have been. In fact, I got my grandfather, if you don't mind... this is, see, like this is a picture of my grandfather, that was I able to get him an award, the Japan Agricultural Society. So this is the picture I got for him, and these are the pictures that I think they sent him. So it's got, it's in Japanese. There's two pictures, one of the group, I guess they're celebrating here, so if you can see that, I don't know.

BN: This is your mother's...

RM: Yeah, my mother's father. It was 1974, I got him the award. So I had to... because my mother knew a lot of the story because she's the oldest. And so I was able to get a lot of information from here, and I had to get a testimonial. So I think one of his friends that knew about him, I was able to get that submitted. But even his compatriots had all died because this is already in the nineties, he was already ninety-four. And when I got him the award, in fact, he died shortly after he got his award.

BN: What was the most memorable thing that you can remember that took place as a JANM volunteer?

RM: As a JANM volunteer? The most memorable... I don't know what's that memorable.

BN: No Debbie Reynolds sighting or anything like that? [Laughs]

RM: Well, I was there to give the tour to the queens of northern California, queens that come down for the Nisei Week. I usually give them a tour if I can, but none of them are my relatives. What else is there that's memorable? Sometimes I try to give the Japanese visitors a tour in Japanese -- not tour, but just point things out to them if I can, but it's very, very difficult because I don't know the words, the vocabulary. The vocabulary I know are when I was a child, so sounds so childish. Sometimes I tried my best, though. But in the virtual tour sometimes I put in some Japanese, I welcome them in Japanese.

BN: Has there been... because you've been there and seen many exhibits come and go, was there any in particular that was memorable for you?

RM: Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty, yeah, we had a line of people waiting to get in all the way around the, several blocks. That was really something.

BN: Do you go to, like, camp pilgrimages or any of those types of things?

RM: Well, I went with JANM to the conferences. I went to, I'd say it was Denver, was it Denver we went to, and Seattle, and where else did we go? I can't remember.

BN: There was one in Arkansas.

RM: Arkansas, right, yeah.

BN: You went to the Arkansas one?

RM: Yeah, I did. The Arkansas one, what we did was before the conference we took a trip, a trip on our own. So we were all over, went to Camp Shelby, and we went to, like... oh gosh, I can't remember now. Where's the jazz...

BN: Oh, New Orleans.

RM: New Orleans and what's that other one? Well, anyway, and where what you call it was killed.

BN: Martin Luther King?

RM: Martin Luther King.

BN: So Memphis.

RM: Memphis, yeah, we went there. So we took a nice tour, then went to the conference.

BN: That's about all I've got. Is there anything else you want to add? I mean, I often ask people how they want to be remembered.

RM: How do I want to be remembered? Well, you try to be honest, you want to be able to give, not only monetary but your experiences. What else can I do? It's pretty hard to think. To be remembered... I can't remember, I can't think of how I want to be remembered.

BN: Well, on that note, thank you very much. This was great. Thanks for spending so much time with us.

RM: Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.