Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Henry Miyatake Interview II
Narrator: Henry Miyatake
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: May 4, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-mhenry-02-0008

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HM: And in fact she was so enthusiastic about some of these things that she found out about Gordon Hirabayashi being released from this honor camp in Arizona. And this is the camp that he was detained in for the curfew violation in Seattle and the evacuation, test of the evacuation law. And she found out that he was on his way back to Minidoka in September as a temporary stay. So she introduced me as -- I was an officer in the class - and she asked me to see if I could arrange that Gordon visit the class and tell us about his experience.

TI: He's at this point, Gordon had already had his trial and...

HM: Yes. He had been incarcerated and his incarceration process was completed and he was on his way back. And I don't know how she found out about this, but anyway, she knew where he was going to stay. So I went up there. And he wasn't home at the time I went up there. So I left a note for him asking him to contact Marjorie Pollock, the teacher, and we would like to have him make a presentation at our class. Well the other classes found out that we were gonna have him there so they had a joint, we had three classes joined together, and he was gracious enough to come and talk to us. And it was supposed to be 1 hour, but he ended up about 2 1/2 hours I believe.

TI: What was the reaction of your classmates to Gordon's topic?

HM: Well first of all they don't know anything about him. They didn't know what he was doing or what he was trying to do. And it was a brand new experience for these people to have somebody that was gonna become a legend in American constitutional history be, give us a lecture. And they were very impressed with his presentation. I was too. I was very impressed with Gordon.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.