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BN: And then since you mentioned it, the stories that may have worked its way into poems, I was going to maybe ask you about that later. But since you've broached it, I kind of want to maybe ask you about that now if you don't mind. But there is a story in the poem "Desert Camouflage" about the camouflage net factory. I'm wondering if that's one of the stories?

AU: Yeah, that's the story that Mom told me about Grandpa Morita. Now, Grandpa Morita's the one that spoke to you in English, and he was very pro-American, proud to be an American... well, I guess he couldn't get citizenship yet, but he did even serve in World War I. He didn't see action, but he was in the army. And so very, very patriotic. At Gila, I guess the internees were supposed to or required to make camouflage netting for the military. And, of course, there were probably plenty people in camp that didn't want to do that, understandably. Here they're locked up, and then they're supposed to help out the government that did this to them. But my grandfather being very patriotic, I could see my mother's telling me that he actually used his, he had a good way with people, and he used his personality and charm to try to get people behind the effort and to help make the camouflage netting. So that's where that came from.

BN: Do you have a sense of where that kind of patriotism came from?

AU: In my grandfather?

BN: Yeah. I mean, for an Issei...

AU: Yeah, interesting question. I don't know. He was very Christian, both sides were very Christian. I don't know if that had anything to do with his learning English early. I know when he first came over to San Francisco, he had rocks thrown at him. So it's not like he had it easy, I mean, he had it rough like all the Issei that immigrated. So I'm not sure where that came from, I should ask my mother if she knows.

BN: And then given that stance, was there any stories or discussion of the, having problems with other Japanese Americans who maybe opposed that perspective or might have considered him an inu? Or you know what I mean, there's this stigma, or there was this portion of the population that really turned very anti-American, understandably in that context.

AU: Right, right. You know, I don't know anything beyond my mother's telling me that story about the netting. I don't know if Grandpa had that kind of, there was that kind of discord within Gila. But he would have stood out anyway just by the fact he spoke fluent English, right?

BN: Right.

AU: Right? Yeah. Living kind of different.

BN: The other story that I wanted to ask you about was in the "36 Views of Manzanar" where you tell a story about your father brokering a deal to go to Manzanar kind of in exchange for providing cherry trees. So I wondered if you could talk a little bit about that story.

AU: Well, that has to do with the fact that the Uyematsus were assigned to Heart Mountain, Wyoming. And my dad happened to know Paul Bannai, another Nisei about his age who had already found a job at Manzanar. So he had some authority to do things. And Dad made a deal with Paul to get the Uyematsus' orders transferred to Manzanar in exchange for Grandpa donating cherry trees and I think also wisteria to the camps. And I later learned that those cherry trees were planted in Manzanar at the Children's Village where they held many orphans during the relocation. So I hear these bits and pieces, like from my dad's interview, and they ended up in the longer poem, "36 Views of Manzanar."

BN: Did they remain friends, he and Paul, throughout their lives?

AU: I don't think so. I see pictures of Paul and my dad and both the wives before then, pictures probably taken in the '50s. The '50s, early '60s, but I don't see anything later than that, so I don't think that relationship kept going.

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