<Begin Segment 16>

DG: So tell me how, when you returned from the war, what was the reception like from the Bainbridge Island community? Not the Japanese that were returning, but how were you treated by people still here on Bainbridge Island, and how was that different?

ES: That was fine. I mean, I didn't, I had no complaints, I didn't feel anything.

DG: Do you think...

ES: Well, because we went to school, so we weren't that much involved in social activities of the island at that time. But as far as the school friends were considered, they, they didn't treat us any differently, it was just like before. Except the newer students, of course, we didn't know. But, we got to know some of them, too. There was just, there was just, yeah, there was just no animosity or anything. I don't remember...

Lucy Ostrander: Why do you think that is? Because in other communities there was animosity. What was different? What was unique about Bainbridge?

DG: Do you...

ES: Well, some communities, I think, had a more difficult time. And maybe it's because they didn't know them. That I don't know, but I know, yeah, I know I heard stories that some of them were saying, "No Japs allowed," and stuff like that. But, not on the island. I don't... didn't come across, maybe because we didn't attend a lot of these functions, we didn't know what it was like, I don't know. Of course, I was in school then, too, like I said, so I, at the school it was great. I didn't feel... the teachers were great, I enjoyed all the teachers. So it was a good feeling, I mean, when we came back. That I have to admit.

DG: All right. Is that good? [Laughs]

ES: Of course during the war too, that, the Woodwards had a lot of communication with the people in Manzanar, especially those, you know, like Sachi and them. Who else was in there? Ohtakis, they were writing back and forth, back and forth. He was telling the people on the island what it was like over there in Manzanar, so I think that helped, I mean, to let the friends know on the island what we were going through, that we were suffering also. So I think that... a lotta that helped, too.

DG: I had forgotten about that. That was...

ES: Yeah, he was, he was a great help. He really stuck up for the people. I mean, he didn't think it was fair that we were hauled off like that.

Male voice: And so he kept a connection going? He would publish reports in the newspaper?

ES: Yeah, he used to put it in the Review. I think he got a lot of flack from it, but that's what I heard. [Laughs] But he kept... that's what he believed in, so he stuck by his guns. So to this day, I give him a lot of credit for standing up the way he did, especially publishing a newspaper like that. I'm sure there was a lot of people that didn't believe in what he was doing, but I don't know if they eventually came through or not. But... I mean, 'cause there was no, not one sabotage done by Japanese people. So, look at nowadays, so many things happening, but not at that time. God, we had all these dynamite and everything, well, we never dynamited anybody's home. [Laughs] It was just for our matter of survival to clear the land, so that's why we had it. 'Course, all the shortwave radios or something, they confiscated, and all the cameras... that's right, we had all that taken. Except, I don't know how we had the box camera. We had that in camp, I don't know how we had that. But we took pictures in camp. Well, when we left here, they took all those things, so I don't know if we went and got it through the catalog or what. That I don't know, again. But we took pictures. [Laughs]

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.