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VY: And I wonder if you have any thoughts about redress. If you remember when it happened and how your family responded to it, and did you guys talk about it?

MM: We didn't talk about it very much. I was glad to have the money because I needed it at the time. (Alan is the most stable one in the family, let me tell you). [Interruption] I mean, but Shoji and I really had problems growing up, I mean, especially my brother. So I'm not really sure. I think guys tend to react differently, girls tend to more shut down maybe. That's the stereotype, so forgive me. [Laughs] But that's the stereotype I grew up with, kind of.

VY: But yeah, that's a good point. So the monetary compensation, it went to you and your middle brother but not your youngest brother, because he was born right after camp?

MM: What I want to say also is that we got a letter from Reagan, who was not my favorite... anyway, that's political. Anyway, I appreciate that letter more than anything. I still have that letter. Because if nothing else, the apology helps. I mean, monetarily, yeah, who isn't happy to get extra money? Unless you're a billionaire, then twenty thousand, who cares? But none of us are billionaires or millionaires, even at that time, was a lot of money. So twenty thousand was really great. I redid my lawn. [Laughs] I used it right away. But I think what bothered me more than anything was that my dad didn't get it because he'd already died. And he probably more than... he and my mom and that generation deserved it more than anything because they lost so much. Not just monetarily, but psychologically, mentally, physically, it's just bad. Now, I was just a child, and I didn't realize that it affected me, but it has. But maybe not as much as it affected my parents. So I think that's important to consider, that there were a lot of people who died because of being in camp, and they might have lived longer. I mean, I think maybe my mom and dad might have lived longer had they not been in camp. And Shoji for sure, I think he died because of the bad nutrition prenatally, and afterwards being, because of the way he was, he was hit in the bottom by the principal, and he had a low grade headache his life, and nobody could figure out why, I mean, why he had this low-grade headache. To me it was because he was, the doctor probably did something to his brain when he was being pulled out. Because he couldn't get the care that he needed.

VY: No, it sounds like he had health issues that followed him throughout his life.

MM: Yes, right, he's the only one in the family who's, that eczema thing, you would have been just horrified to see that, and the doctors couldn't help him. She found out through folk (medicine), somebody, it's a folktale, a folk remedy, you just put zinc on it and it went away. But she found this out from somebody, not a doctor. So it's interesting where you get this information. But yeah, he's had problems his entire life because of it, I think. I mean, that's my feeling, it's never been proven. Because I don't know, I'm not a doctor, but just having observed him for all his life, and how he's so different from the rest of the family, it just makes me think that. And also, I was in line at Starbucks, and there was this white woman who had been married to a Japanese person, and she was blaming the government, too, for why her husband died. Some cancer thing because of the camp. And so I thought, oh, I'm not the only one who thinks that.

VY: Well, and I'm wondering, going back to the apology letter, why was that so important, receiving that apology, that acknowledgement that something...

MM: Oh, yeah. To know that actually, well, I don't know that the entire government was feeling bad about it, but I think they should feel bad about it. You know, it was a terrible thing. And hopefully that never, ever happens again. But you know, it can happen again. So it's just that apology to me is more important than anything that they thought about it enough. I don't know how it happened that the twenty thousand happened, but it might be because the JACL put a lot of pressure on them. I don't know how it happened, but I'm glad to have gotten the money. But more importantly, to me, like I said, the apology is important, and to get a letter stating that. And I think if the government would just acknowledge that we have done some bad things, because it really bothers me when they come by and say, oh, the day of infamy, December 7th, when the Japanese came and bombed Pearl Harbor, okay, that was bad. But think about all the bad things you've done, too. You call those days of infamy? Like when they bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killed thousands of civilians, at least at Pearl Harbor, they were military people, right? I think. Am I right, or am I wrong? Well, anyway, it was a military installation. But to me... and that's not the only thing. I mean, you talk about racism, I mean, all the stuff they've done to the Blacks with the slavery and all that. And it's still going on, the horrible things that go on. So even if the government could just acknowledge it, it would help a lot. People can forgive a lot if they know that somebody really actually feels badly about what has been done to them. So I think that is important. That's more important than the money, in truth.

VY: Thank you. Thank you for sharing all that.

<End Segment 37> - Copyright © 2024 Densho. All Rights Reserved.