Densho Digital Archive - Ayame Tsutakawa - Mayumi Tsutakawa - Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn - Yayoi Tsutakawa-Chinn Interview (denshovh-tayame

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TL: Is there anything that you've seen that changes how you think about memories that your grandmother has shared with you? I guess this is a question for Kenzan and Yayoi. [Interruption] Kenzan, you mentioned before that coming here has, in some ways, it might feel a little distant or abstract or hard to relate to, but in other ways, that there's just too much. And I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that?

KT: Well, it strikes pretty close to home now, because, you know, I was standing in the place of the old camp, and I was there for a while. And I didn't, it's all green now. And it's, they moved the barracks. But I mean you look around and it is really a pretty forlorn place, and it's pretty... you know. You look at those pictures and you could think about how just desolate and dusty the place would've been without all the sage and whatever. That's just, it's really, it's really sad that they had to go through that, but at the same time, I was there about thirty minutes. Thirty minutes isn't a long time in the whole scheme of things. And I don't, it's really hard to realize something completely until it's actually done. I mean it's easy to conceptualize things, but that's not where it should hit you. And it was just kind of strange, the whole experience, that it was, I can, I knew it was happening so, well, but not really thinking about it.

Yeah, I think... I don't know. It says something about the people who are here and just humans in general that we do a lot of things and we get put into a lot of places, but really a lot of people only remember the good parts. And I think that was... you know, I went down to that panel discussion and they, the three panelists really only remember... you know, I guess they probably remember all the hardships and all that, but they don't really share it. And that's kind of, I guess that's more of a private thing. So in that sense, I probably won't get to know that part. But maybe it's not something I should know.

TL: Does this make you think about yourself differently as a Japanese American?

AT: Is that question to me?

KT: No.

AT: Kenzan.

KT: No, it doesn't. This was always around, but it's materialized. It was always part of family history and all that, but now it's kind of become material. And I'm not sure that, it doesn't really... yeah.

TL: Yayoi, I'm wondering if visiting the barracks and that stockade, I'm wondering if just like standing there in the sun has added to or in some way changed the memories and stories you'd already been hearing as you grew up?

YT: A little bit, yeah. To actually see it and be in a space, or not a space, but just the building or what-not that people would have to be forced to live in or be in. And I suppose it has changed a little bit, but not majorly.

TL: As you hear bits and pieces of conversations, either yourself with other pilgrimage participants, or just overhearing them talking among themselves, does it give you a different context for this history of the camps?

YT: Yeah. Because if you hear a person that was interned talking to a person that hasn't or another person, then you -- and they talk about their experiences or whatever -- then you understand, hearing from the person and not just out of the book, about that.