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DG: Do you have an opinion on why Bainbridge Island was chosen as the first?

HM: As I look back, yes, I have a... it was easy for them to choose Bainbridge Island as the first community because geographically it was a definite boundary. We didn't blend into the Puget Sound or anything like that. It was a definite geographic entity. Besides that, Boeing, the Navy shipyard, Bangor, the torpedo base, Keyport, the Naval shipyards, they had all kinds of government installations surrounding the whole, the whole island. And so if I were to make a choice, that would be the logical, most logical place to start out with. I'm wondering too... you know, fate has a, fate has a funny way or an irony sometimes in that since our community was chosen, they could have chosen a better community if they wanted to have a lot of dissention. See, now our community is still together with everyone from the community and the uproar has not started with the Japanese community here on the island. The uproar came from the Caucasian community. They're the ones who first came to our Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community to say, "We want a memorial. Will you help us with this?" And so I don't know if this whole thing would have come out had it been a different community. Because the Japanese community sometimes is still a little meek and a lot of people from our community are still unwilling to speak out and tell about their experiences, because it was so hurtful. The other people from our community, not the Japanese people, not the Japanese, but other people from our community have urged us on to do this project. This is what I think... they are ones who are looking out for liberty. So I don't know... maybe they just took the wrong people to go up against. Or, I shouldn't say people, the wrong community to go up against.

DG: You think the government wanted to see dissention or not?

HM: Well, I don't know if they wanted it or not. But some of the people I have heard, not from this area but from south and things, say, "If you guys had just put up more of a fight or something, maybe we wouldn't have had gone to camp." But, you know, our community, we're thinking, well, "The government wants the best for us." I think that was the mind, the thinking of the Japanese community here on Bainbridge Island at that time. I don't know... I wouldn't say that they wanted dissention. I don't think they would have liked it. I'm just saying that in the aftermath, they probably never would have thought that this would come back in their faces. The loss of liberty will come back in their faces with such a strong voice as from the voice from the Bainbridge Island community.

DG: So do you have more thoughts on the Bainbridge Island community in general on how unique it was for the Japanese, for many of the Bainbridge Island Japanese, to be able to come back and continue living on the island after the war?

HM: I think they made it a lot easier. But, the reason that a lot of Japanese Americans did not come back to the island, is because they had no place to come back to. Because some of the youngsters were not old enough, not twenty-one, and so the parents were leasing land, like five years at a time or whatever. Since they didn't, many of them, since they didn't know when they would come back, they let their lease lapse or they did not pay the taxes on their lands. They had nothing to come back to. I think if you kind of look back, you see the people who had come back to the island are the ones who owned land, or owned a business, or owned a home. But the rest, most of 'em, have gone to other parts of the country, and they're scattered all over the country. I think this experience, when we have these reunion gatherings, this experience has gelled the Japanese American community. They still, even if they're living in Chicago, or Boise, or wherever, or Seattle, they still feel that Bainbridge is their home. So they come back. There's a bond that is hard to break because of the shared experiences. I don't know. Just... they're islanders forever even if they've been gone like fifty years.

DG: All right. Anything else? I think that's good. Thank you.

Off Camera: One thing I'm wondering, did your family have to pay the taxes on the home while you were gone? And did you just have money saved up to do that? Was somebody... or is that a story that I shouldn't ask?

HM: Oh, no. That's fine. Yeah, the taxes still had to be paid. But our, fortunately, our family had monies to pay them. I didn't realize it until way later 'cause they never talk about money. They were fairly well off. They had built a new house. They owned the land. They were fairly well off. They bought a tractor and this and that and so we were, by the time things, by the time they worked hard like that, they had enough money saved to do certain things. So we were not destitute, but they never really showed it. That's one of the questions maybe that also helped equalize the island. Is you never went up to anyone and say, ask them, "How much do you make?" Or, "Are you rich?" or whatever it is. You just lived with what you had and it was just kind of known in our family that you didn't talk about money and about how rich you were or how poor you were, but how you were inside, how the person was inside.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.