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BY: Again, I'm sort of skipping around here. You said that your parents talked about camp a little bit, but in not a very in-depth kind of way. Did you ask them about it, did they volunteer that information? And just talk a little bit what they, how they talked about camp or what they said.

KY: I didn't think to ask them about their camp experiences until, gosh, I was in college. And so the questions, I think, were a little bit different than they would have been if maybe we had talked about it, sort of, not openly, but as a general course of part of their growing up. It's hard to get to know your parents as real people, individuals, they're just mom and dad. But more recently, talking about how did they make the decision. For example, why, since Mom and Baachan and Jiichan ended up in Tule Lake, they had an opportunity at one time to move to a different concentration camp, but they opted to stay, and so discussions surrounding the choices, and I guess, the ramifications of that.

We talked a little bit about Uncle George because when the "loyalty questionnaire" came around, that was very hard on him. Jiichan insisted that George answer "no-no." George was a twin, and before they were sent to camp, Harry, George's twin, he was a Kibei. Harry and George were both born in the United States, in Thomas, and then Harry and my auntie Ruby were sent to Japan to live for a while. Not fully for education, but to help out the grandparents on both sides. They spent about five years there, then they came back and they had just returned to live with the family. Family was whole again, they had maybe a few years together and then Harry passed away. He contracted meningitis. He caught a very bad cold and he couldn't get treatment out in the valley, and by the time they thought to take him into town, into Seattle, to try and find someone who would treat him. The cold had turned into a bacterial whatever, pneumonia, and then that made its way into his brain. So when asked if Baachan and Jiichan would be willing to allow George to enlist in the army and serve for the United States after the experience that both Baachan and Jiichan had gone through, the answer was absolutely no. Jiichan was convinced that Japan was going to win the war. And so then they stay in Tule Lake, and after the war is over, they're going to go back to Japan. But that choice for Uncle George had serious ramifications, probably long-term ramifications for him, I don't know if he talked about that after he left camp. But being in Tule Lake and being a "no-no" carried its own stigma.

For Dad, the same kind of discussion, and his dad, they continued to work inland. And when they were free to return to Steveston or to the business, the boatyard, Jiichan decided to stay in Christina Lake. He just couldn't, he couldn't do it. So the other side of the Kishi family went back. And so it was no longer Kishi and Sons, it was, it turned into Kishi Boat Works, and I think that also had an impact on Dad, because that was then the end of the line of boat builders, because Jiichan's father was a boat builder in Japan, and that's the skill that they brought to Canada, so it was hard.

BY: And you said that your uncle George, though, actually left. So why did he leave camp?

KY: He got married.

BY: Oh, he got married. Oh, okay. And so he and his wife...

KY: He and his wife, yes. They went with her side of the family, moved out. And I believe that they were in the Spokane area for a while, just not living in the same household.

BY: So the war was really a traumatic experience for both sides of the family, as is most Japanese American families. So you said that they didn't really talk that much about it until you were in college, and that you really didn't find out much until you took Tetsu's class?

KY: Right.

BY: Okay. Have you gone on any pilgrimages?

KY: Just one, to Minidoka. There is definitely... the healing, the value in intergenerational pilgrimages. I wish that I had gone to more, then I think probably I'll try to go to more if they continue on, I'm sure they will. I have an interest in going now, but for a very different reason. The first time I went, it was primarily because Mako Nakagawa was involved. I really felt that the healing circles that they conducted is really important to witness and to just... I sort of felt like a bystander. But I think if I went back, it would be more so as a, to do some healing as well.

BY: Go on the Tule Lake pilgrimage, I think they're every other year around the Fourth of July, especially with your family's involvement with Tule Lake.

KY: Found out that Jiichan was in the jail for a while. [Laughs]

BY: Oh, interesting. And that jail was sort of notorious.

KY: Yes.

BY: Okay. So besides, now you've worked for CCA and JACL and the J, are there any other Japanese groups or organizations that you belong to?

KY: Currently? No. I had taken up bowling. I didn't know that there's still a Nikkei bowling league, but there is. So at my age, I'm taking up this sport. [Laughs]

BY: And how about the Buddhist Temple?

KY: Still active. I teach dharma school, so I've been doing that for twenty-some odd years.

BY: And I see you dancing every year, so talk about that a little bit. Where did that come from?

KY: I love the dancing. That's Jiichan, my mom's dad. He used to love Obon dancing, he just enjoyed dancing. And then Mom took, as I said, classical dance, that she was one of the teachers for the Tacoma Buddhist Temple, dance instructors there. So started up helping out. Now my daughter's helping. So for a minute there, there were three generations that were dancing together.

BY: That's very cool. So I think, well, so were you involved in the redress effort at all, or your tenure at JACL was after that?

KY: Yeah.

BY: Okay, all right, okay.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.