<Begin Segment 25>

SY: And to change the subject, because I know that right now you're involved in getting this community marker in Venice, so can you talk a little bit about that, what that, what's involved in that?

AM: This Phyllis Hayashibara, a teacher at Venice High School, a student, one of her students brought in, maybe it was the Argonaut, but on the front page there was a picture of that corner that we lined up for in 1942 to go to Manzanar. And right away she knew what it was about, and so she started a committee going and she spread some word that she's looking for certain pieces of paper, like the California Civilian... some paper that they were putting on, putting on the telephone poles and posting things. And a friend of mine called me up and said, "So-and-So is looking for information," so I told him, "Okay, I'll call her and see if she wants to talk to me." And it turned out that I didn't have that piece of paper, but when she found out how old I was when I lined up there she begged me, she didn't beg me, she asked me to come to the meeting. And so I did, and most of them were non-Asian. Most of them were, many of them were people who didn't know such a thing had happened in their back door, and a very conscientious group of members. And I've been going to their meeting about, I don't know if it's over a year or not, but they're very knowledgeable people in the area that we need the knowledge, or how to do certain things that's required for this marker. Not the technical things, because we're looking, we're approaching the technical people now to put up that marker. It's gonna be known as a memorial because we graduated from a marker to a memorial, a larger piece of display. We had a, there was one original meeting quite a few months before October 29th of last year, and I had asked Bruce Kaji if he would be on the panel. It was so embarrassing because there were less than ten people attending. I felt so bad. So when we had this October 29th thing set up, fundraiser, I was on pins and needles because I didn't know how many people to expect, but we had a sellout and we managed to raise ten thousand dollars. And so now we're at the stage where we have a architect helping us, giving us ideas, and now we need an engineer to measure that precisely, where, what size, and we got Councilman Rosendahl to help us.

SY: So this, so the city, Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles owns that property?

AM: No. That corner is an interesting corner because, naturally, the carwash place is owned by, I understand, Mrs. Scherrer or something like that, and her son. She owns that carwash, but the sidewalk and the roadway around it, I think it might be owned, I go to sleep, asleep a lot of time at the meetings, but I think the state, it's a state owned area, but the city has a lot to say too. But we have to dig down, depending on the size on the top of the sidewalk, we have to go so many feet underneath to stabilize the object, the monument. And we, the National Park Service has a, they...

SY: Fund? Is it part of the fund?

AM: Yeah.

SY: The money that --

AM: So we applied for that.

SY: So you've gotten the permission to use that space for this monument.

AM: For the, for the, yeah. They doubled the, whatever we raise, they will double it.

SY: But you've gotten the permission to use the space?

AM: Yeah.

SY: So now it's just a matter of paying, or of building the actual monument. And it's gone from just a marker to something more.

AM: Uh-huh. We, when we, we put in a lot of work to come up with the marker, but when we asked the architect for advice and help he suggested a memorial. And we voted and decided we want a marker, I mean a memorial.

SY: So who are the, so you say the people are mainly non-Japanese who are working on this. And is it just, their interest is really just to preserve the history of, of the Japanese American --

AM: Well, not only that, but they were shocked, really, that, because these people are of such an age that these mandatory subjects in school wasn't there yet, and they didn't know that this had happened. And so they were really upset about what had happened.

SY: And are there other Japanese Americans on this, in this group besides Phyllis and yourself?

AM: Yes. Mae Kageyama Kakehashi and Yosh Tomita -- he was about seven years old when he lined up -- and a few others. Some people came only once or twice.

SY: So, and your, are you one of the few that was actually there in 1942?

AM: Yeah. Well, in the committee, yes.

SY: On the committee, yeah.

AM: Many of them are gone.

SY: So it started a while ago, this committee, before you joined.

AM: Well, some people are quiet Americans. I'm bashful and all that, but I speak out a little bit more than the real quiet ones. I mean, they, my friends, they like to talk among themselves, but when it comes to getting up to talk, that's another story.

SY: And so you're kind of, you have a job of being a little bit of a spokesperson?

AM: Yeah. Well, some of the experiences that I voice, the committee members liked it and they've even taken my quotes and polished it up and... [laughs]

SY: So can you remember what you've said that they've liked, or what you, what...

AM: They liked that part about my dog that I couldn't bring with me. And they liked that part where, when I used to pass by there I'd always point it out to my passengers that this is where we left for camp, and that I would get a gut-wrenching feeling. They like to put the word "visceral" in the, and that's what they published in the newspaper and my wife said, "You can't even pronounce that word." [Laughs]

SY: But I, but you speak, you've gone out speaking on behalf of the marker? Have you done that?

AM: Yeah. I've basically written it out and I read from it because I can't do that anymore.

SY: You can't...

AM: I can't remember my speech.

SY: I see. It's sort of lines like you were when you were acting, then.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.