<Begin Segment 26>

SY: -- this community marker kind of, I mean, the reason that you became involved in this organization, does it, what kind of feelings do you have about camp that led you to really want this marker to be put up?

AM: Well, that's, that's kind of hard for me to put into a few words, but I think it's a terrible thing that happened to us. And although I made a lot of lifetime friends, we meet almost every, since 1994 we've almost met every year, a reunion.

SY: Manzanar Reunion Committee?

AM: Uh-huh.

SY: Is that the big Manzanar reunion?

AM: Some people don't understand what we have to talk about, but there's a, something that keeps us together. And I guess even though it's not a pleasant thought, I would never want to forget about that place. But even though I didn't have the piece of paper that Phyllis wanted, when I met these people and heard them voice their feelings about the black mark on U.S. history, how they felt about it, it just, I felt that I could help them and if they have a question, if I have an answer I'll be happy to tell them about it.

SY: So the feelings that you have about camp, are they things that come up now, or did you feel the same way when you were going through it?

AM: I had some of the feelings there, but a lot of is, like you say, thinking back.

SY: Because in some ways you had a, you had good things happen to you in camp. You were in the music, play, theater, and a lot of people your age, who were your age in camp, kind of say that it was a time of making a lot of friends. Was that feeling something that you had when you were in camp?

AM: Well, when some people talk about it's the best time of their life, it depends on the age of that person. I guess I can't blame them if they, if they were of such an age that all they had to do was play and study a little bit, or like the older people who no longer have to work hard to feed themselves. It may have been easier for them. But just the thought of taking you, a citizen, into a place like that, I think that was a horrible thing to do. And I'm thankful that many key people did what they did, found what they did to bring these things out, the generation that followed us, to get redress and things like that. I mean, that twenty thousand dollars is a drop in a bucket for, they should've awarded us much more. In fact, what's his name, my classmate, William Hohri, according to his calculation we should've gotten about, something like two hundred twenty thousand dollars apiece. But I think that encouraged the government to hurry up and give us twenty thousand instead of having to give us ten times that. So we owe a lot to these people, and we probably, if it was left to us maybe we would never have gotten to what they did for us.

SY: You mean left to the Nisei?

AM: Yeah, the Sanseis, Yonsei.

SY: So your relationship with the people that you knew in Manzanar, it's still, you still have an ongoing relationship with many of those people?

AM: Yeah. In fact, more often than that, some of the people who worked in the hospital, especially the medical stenos, social workers, mostly ladies, they get together every, about quarterly. And some of the, I worked in surgery and next was minor surgery, x-ray, and Kiyoshi, who was my big brother in camp, was an x-ray technician. He comes to that meeting still too.

SY: That's great. So how would you, have you ever thought about it, what your life would be like had you not gone to camp?

AM: I've wondered. I probably would have been able to get into the medical field, but then I'm not so sure about being a doctor now. [Laughs] Too much work. Like my son, he was going to an accelerated medical course and he said, "Who wants to study this hard?" And he dropped out of that subject.

SY: So what do your, are your children, do you, do they ask you about camp? Do they know very much?

AM: Hardly. I think my grandkids ask me more than they do.

SY: And you tell them, I hope.

AM: [Nods] I got to go to my older grandson's class and speak a little bit about camp. My wife said, "Ten minutes, that's the maximum. Can't hold their attention." [Laughs] I found out it was different.

SY: How long did you speak?

AM: I think it was about an hour.

SY: And they were how old?

AM: I'm guessing he must've been in about, I don't know, fifth or sixth grade. Wasn't too old.

SY: That's amazing. Well, I'm so glad you've shared with us, and you have a lot to share. That just goes to show. So thanks, Arnold. I really enjoyed this.

AM: You're... well, thank you for saying that.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.