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VY: Since we're talking about your parents again, I'm wondering, did they ever talk to you later on about their life in camp? I know you've shared a few stories, but I wonder if you ever talked together about life in camp together?

MM: No, I can't remember. Because my dad didn't actually like to talk about it, he says, "Better to just go on with your life." So he said... one thing, though, that I would like to say, which I think is really interesting what he said. He said, so I asked him one time when I was much older, like thirty or forty, I don't know. Anyway, "What was it like to have loyalties to the United States and to Japan, and they're fighting?" And he says, "Well, it's like when your mom and dad fight and you just wish they'd quit." I thought that was a really good answer.

VY: That is a good answer.

MM: Yeah.

VY: Well, I'm just curious if they -- and I guess maybe they did -- talk to you about what it was like to have to leave, have to pack up really quickly and leave their home.

MM: No, they never talked about that.

VY: Okay. Because I was just curious what happened to the restaurant. This was in Tacoma, right, they were running a restaurant.

MM: I don't know anything about that.

VY: Do you know what they did in camp? Did they work while they were in camp?

MM: Well, I just learned from Caitlin or your dad or somebody that my dad worked in a restaurant or the mess hall or whatever. I don't know what my mom did. I didn't even know that... I don't know if she even worked.

CC: I don't think she did. There's no, like, pay stubs or anything in her case files, so she may have just taken care of you and eventually Shoji.

MM: And eaten too much of their bad food. [Laughs] Well, anyway, sorry.

VY: No, that's totally fine. Well, I'm wondering, so you didn't talk about this with your parents, did you and your siblings ever talk about the incarceration or... I'm curious, when you sort of, when was it that you first sort of became aware of the fact that this is something that happened and that you were actually a part of it?

MM: Oh, my goodness. I don't think it happened at once like that, I think it came in stages. Because we always talked about camp, I mean, I knew what they were talking about, but I didn't have any concept of what that meant. So I don't really know when it became a concept of being moved from a family situation in an independent kind of way to a camp kind of situation, and I don't know.

VY: Just something that sort of gradually, you became aware of over time?

MM: Yeah. I don't really know how I learned about it. I mean, I just became aware of it finally, I guess. But we talked about camp all the time.

VY: You talked about camp all the time but didn't really define what camp was?

MM: Yeah, right, exactly. And my cousins, too. The family of cousins I'm talking about, the oldest one is four years older, so she remembered a lot. And she told me how cold it was in the winters, I didn't realize, and she told me it was freezing in the winters. But that's one thing that she told me, I can't remember some of the other things she told me. But I was pretty young when she told me that, so I guess in stages I kind of found out about things.

VY: Did it seem like other people were aware that this had happened?

MM: No, in fact, I was shocked that I didn't... like my neighbors that I was telling you about, Dick and Jane across the street, they were from the Midwest. And I told them and they said, "What?" They didn't know anything about it. They took me out to dinner so I could tell them all about it. And that was maybe twenty-five years ago. Anyway, it's been more recently that more people know about it, because back then, I'd meet people who had no idea that there was this thing that happened, Japanese being sent off. Yeah, it's pretty amazing, but what's amazing to me now is that there are, like you guys do such a good job with disseminating the information to the public. I guess that's what's happening. I mean, there are more people who seemed to know about it now when I talk to them. Well, of course, that book that came out, Facing the Mountain? I've had people who wanted to read it and borrow it because they wanted to know. And the condo where I live, we had this group that I meet with on Friday nights, and they wanted to hear about it. I mean, they sort of knew about it, but they wanted to know more.

VY: Yeah, so that's a good point. So a lot of people now are aware, but they don't know that much about it and are interested in learning more about it. Back when you were, say, explaining it to Dick and Jane, how did they receive that information? Did people believe what you were saying?

MM: Oh, yeah, they didn't not believe it. I mean, they believed what I was saying, they were just shocked that that happened. And especially the fact that they didn't know that it happened. So I think it's just as shocking to them when they don't know that it happened.

<End Segment 35> - Copyright © 2024 Densho. All Rights Reserved.