Densho Digital Repository - Amy Uyematsu Interview I (Densho ID: ddr-densho-523-4)

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BN: How do you feel your views of the World War II, the incarceration history, both your families kind of in general, how have they evolved over time?

AU: Well, I've learned... besides getting a little more detail from talking to my dad and my mom, bits and pieces here and there. The larger thing is I have such pride in being Japanese American and knowing the kind of courage and the dignity that the Issei and Nisei and a few Sansei who were babies. But what they showed when they were in camp, and the communities they were able to build despite everything being taken away from them. So I'm just really very proud of being Japanese American. I think I come from a strong, strong heritage. And also, over the years, I've learned more about some of the acts of resistance which I find really inspiring, too. Like the "no-no boys," or even hearing about the Manzanar fishing club, how people at Manzanar would escape camp, they'd get past the guards and they'd go sneak out and go fishing and then come back. To me, that was even a form of resistance.

The other thing I feel really strongly about, because the conditions in this country and the racial environment just don't seem to get better -- maybe some would say they're even worse -- is the importance of bringing up the camp experience in our history and letting people know about it. We have to keep doing it, we just have to. So I think that's a part of what I've learned, too, from the camps.

BN: Do you or your family go to, like, pilgrimages and days of remembrance, that kind of thing?

AU: Not regularly, but we've been to some days of remembrances. I finally went to Manzanar maybe around 2018, '19 for the first time, and I really enjoyed that pilgrimage. I had hoped to go with my uncle Sam who was just a little boy in camp. And we had talked about driving up to Manzanar together, but unfortunately he passed before we had a chance to do that.

BN: Okay. And I think we'll revisit some of these themes when we talk about some of your poetry because there's so much of it, so many poems are sort of inspired, seemingly, by some of these events.