Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Chiye Tomihiro Interview
Narrator: Chiye Tomihiro
Interviewer: Becky Fukuda
Location: University of California, Los Angeles
Date: September 11, 1997
Densho ID: denshovh-tchiye-01-0013

<Begin Segment 13>

BF: I wanted to ask you to sort of reflect back on some of the personal, I guess, growth or lessons that you think are a result of your involvement in the redress movement. How do you think it changed you personally?

CT: Well, I think I, actually I think it did a great deal for me. I mean, as I mentioned before, I was reluctant, I wanted to be all-American and you know, I just wanted to be a part of a society where I wasn't different or whatever. I mean, actually, we were kind of -- the WRA when we left camp, told us we should be unobtrusive. Don't make waves and all of this -- we were told this -- and don't congregate, so we, most of us we were very quiet. And then we, well, like me, I was going to college and I tried to just keep my nose in the books and you know. So when I started to get involved and accept what had happened to me during the war, I became much more outspoken. I also became much more sensitive to other minorities' plight and I volunteer now, even now, for the American Friends, the Quaker organization. And I think that certainly made a better person of me, I mean, to some extent. My friends call me Barbara Streisand. [Laughs]

BF: Do you sing as well? [Laughs]

CT: No, I wish I could. [Laughs] But, you know, they think that I'm out there waving the flag all the time, which I really am not. But compared to my friends, I guess they really think of me as being very liberal. So yeah, but...

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.