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BN: I want to back up a bit and ask you about what your thoughts were on the whole redress and reparations movement that took place in the 1980s. Did that... I mean for many Nisei, that gave them license to talk about their camp story to their children and so forth. Did that have any effect on your parents, or your family, or your own views of the camp?

SH: You know, I don't know because by then I was away on the East Coast. So aside from what I've read, I know very little about the movement itself. As for my parents, I would assume that they felt some sort of compensation, but my mother was always very bitter. You know, when there was all this activism in the late '60s and '70s, there was this photographic exhibit called "Executive Order 9066." I think that was circa 1971. And that was one of the very first times that I was exposed to, you know, media about the camps -- which before then I had just heard about the subject as it was being discussed or referred to by my mother and her friends. And I asked my mom if she wanted to go with me to see those pictures. [Interruption] And she said, "I don't need to see those pictures." That was her response, you know. I've really wished that all of this that I've been involved in in the last few years -- that this had happened while she was still alive and I could have asked her. But like a lot of other things in my life, it's all lost. There's more loss in life than anything.

BN: So your parents never really, 'til they passed, really talked about or wrote about their camp experience?

SH: No, no. My mother made comments every now and then; she said that the government made a really bad mistake, but she never went on and elaborated.

BN: You did write a bit about some of the films that were made, documentaries that were made about the incarceration.

SH: Oh, yeah, briefly.

BN: Are there ones that have -- you mentioned Who's Going to Pay for These Donuts as being meaningful to you. Were there others that you particularly thought were worthwhile?

SH: Well, there's the one that that -- I think it was Rita Tajiri's film, History and Memory.

BN: History and Memory.

SH: Yes, that's been written about a lot because it's a more conventional film, you know. She cuts to all the movie stars, etc. I think that's a well-done film, and I think what comes out of that film reminded me of Donna Nagata's work. Her mother did not want to be filmed, you know, she kind of avoided the camera's focus, more or less wished to remain invisible. And, you know, that stance reminds me of what Nagata talks about in her book about silence, the silence surrounding this issue. People who were actual survivors never spoke about it, and then their descendants are the ones who want to know, who ask questions, and who were probably involved in all these bureaucratic movements and organizations to conduct pilgrimages, etc.. I think that that issue is very interesting -- you know -- not being seen, not being heard -- you know -- being the model minority, keeping your head down, which means not being seen, not being heard, etc. I've never been like that, and I've gotten into a lot of trouble, too, because, you know, I've been carpet bombed by both sides for not adhering to stereotypes. And another way in which I don't adhere to stereotypes -- I don't do numbers at all. So. . .

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.