Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Sue K. Embrey Interview
Narrator: Sue K. Embrey
Interviewer: Glen Kitayama
Location: University of California, Los Angeles
Date: September 11, 1997
Densho ID: denshovh-esue-01-0007

<Begin Segment 7>

GK: When did you, when did you more or less take over, and I say take over, but become the Chair of the Manzanar Committee?

SE: I think it was after the '73 dedication of the plaque. Warren said well, he wanted to go on to other things. And we had a lot more members, you know, a lot more people involved in it, but most of them were very active in Civil Rights movement, so after that kind of finished, they all kind of went their own ways. Some of them were still in school, and then so when Warren left, and when he left the JACL, we couldn't use their address anymore for the Manzanar Committee, so it ended up that, you know, everything was coming. I said, "Well, you can use mine," and ended up with everything coming to my address. And gradually, I guess... we didn't really work at it, things just happened, I guess, that way. People come and help us that were interested in doing the pilgrimage. They're not interested in coming to meetings the rest of the year or doing other kinds of things. Going out and doing presentations and things like that in classrooms. I get other people to do that, I get people like William Hohri, and people in the valley, San Fernando, I have two or three contacts, I call them up and say, "There's a school that wants someone to come and speak." And they all do it, they enjoy doing that. William does the one out by the beach, the South Bay area. So that way I could spread it out to different people.

GK: So the Manzanar Committee, does it run year-round?

SE: Yeah, yeah. In fact, you know, the Park Service put our address on the Internet, so I've gotten letters, I've gotten two letters from Germany, one from England, (from people who) want information. And I've helped a lot of students. They participate in a National History Day contest every year.

GK: Yes.

SE: And each year, there's a theme. The first one that I helped was several groups here in California. And then one of the winners was a Sansei gal in Hawaii, and she had written me and sent me a questionnaire, and I answered it and sent her a packet of information. Came out number one in the National History Day contest. She interviewed like sixty people over the phone.

GK: Oh, my gosh.

SE: And she interviewed her grandparents and her parents, and got all this information. Then... that was geography in history, how does geography affect history? And she did a really good job on that, the fact that we were all in desert areas or swamplands and how the climate affected people's thinking, and you know, she asked all these questions, and did a very good project. And a gal in Texas called me, and interviewed Norm Mineta and I sent her a packet of information, and she interviewed me over the phone, gave her some tips on how to do an oral history with her grandparents. I said, "Be sure and interview them. You want to know what your family history is." She came out number three in that state contest. She won the regional, local one. And then the last one was a gal in Florida, at a U.S. Naval Station and her mother called, and said, "She has no information, could you send her stuff?" So I sent her some information and talked to her on the phone. She won the state contest. I didn't really get to talk to her, but I left a message on her phone. I thought it was really wonderful. She went to Washington, I think, I don't know how that turned out. A number of these young students I've helped, and they're really bright kids, and it's really, you know makes me feel that it's, continuing that people do have an interest. And all of them want to buy all the books they can get a hold of. [Laughs] And I give 'em the Museum bookstore number, I said, "Call the Museum." And they said, "Wow, will they send it right away?" "Well, tell 'em to send it, you know, special delivery or whatever." "Oh, I've got to have it, I've got to have that book." And so it's been an interesting experience. It would be nice if we had an office where somebody could do all that, but all of it pretty much comes to me, and then I just send them out to people if I think other people can answer it better. You know, if they want to interview a veteran, I call my friends in veteran's group and have them contact the student, and that way they get more out of them. In fact, the gal from Texas, I told her to find some survivors of the "Lost Battalion," you know, the 36th Division from Texas. I said, "You know, that's a local story you really should talk about." So she said she'd try. But places like that where they don't have any (...) Japanese living around the area, it's important I think to get them as much information as possible.

GK: Right.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.