<Begin Segment 20>

[This transcript has been extensively edited by the narrator.]

SY: So how was it that you got from... how did you get from Grand Junction to Redlands?

GN: Okay. The only travel that was available to us that we could afford was by train. There was a train station in Grand Junction and then there was a station in Redlands, and they had found a sponsor for me, Dr. Pratt Spellman. He was a Quaker and he was a world-renowned organist. So Dr. Spellman and his wife were my sponsors.

SY: And what did that entail? That meant you were going to stay with them?

GN: Well, I could have stayed with them or I could stay in the dormitory. The University of Redlands gave me a scholarship and the Quakers raised (other) funds. I worked at the Redlands Congregational Church as a secretary to the Director of Religious Education while I was going to school. And I also worked in the youth program.

SY: So do you remember, as a test case, or one of the first to return to the West Coast, what your reception was?

GN: Well, it was very good. There was the group of students, they were not Quakers, but they believed that what the Quakers were doing was right. They were a disparate kind of group of students. I can remember them all. (Two) of them (were) my roommates. I had two roommates, they were both seniors who wanted to be my roommates. So we were all jammed in this one room. I have pictures of (them) I was going to show you. We still remained friends until they passed away.

SY: So was there any discussions with the people you met about the fact that, what you had just gone through and that you were Japanese?

GN: Well, I gave a lot of talks to the student body and to different young people in the church communities and at the Redlands Congregational Church.

SY: You spoke about your experience in camp?

GN: Oh, yes. They were very interested to know. I had a P-coat that they all loved. They had this kind of recycling center over there at Manzanar, and they brought in all these P-coats that they never issued, probably from an earlier war. And they had World War I, those old ugly-looking khaki (colored uniforms) World War I soldiers wore. But the wool was still good. And so there was a whole battery of women, and I think they had one or two power machines (restyling the uniforms and P-coats).

SY: So was there any negative reception at all, negative comment?

GN: No, not one.

SY: Not one.

GN: Not one.

SY: And you were the only Japanese American in this whole...

GN: There had been Japanese Americans there previous to the war, but at the time that I came... no. Later on, (a Nisei), he had been relocated to (Minot) University in (North) Dakota. Hiromu Nakamura, (who) had been at Manzanar with me. And in the Manzanar newspaper it said that we were the two top students at Manzanar High School, Hiro and I. Hiro's older than I am, but someone was ill in his family so he wanted to be in California so he could be closer to his parents. By that time, the curfew had lifted a little bit.

SY: So he was the second student to come to the university.

GN: He came, but the Quakers (had) already sent him to Minot, North Dakota, to college and then he came to Redlands.

SY: So you had a really good experience there, then.

GN: I had a really wonderful experience there.

SY: And you graduated from the university?

GN: I graduated from University of Redlands.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.