Densho Digital Archive
Japanese American Film Preservation Project Collection
Title: Eiichi Edward Sakauye Interview II
Narrator: Eiichi Edward Sakauye
Interviewer: Wendy Hanamura
Location: San Jose, California
Date: May 14, 2005
Densho ID: denshovh-seiichi-03-0020

<Begin Segment 20>

WH: There's this one thing you told me months ago about the bumblebees and the butterflies and the little kids who were born in camp? Tell me that one more time.

ES: Well, you know, in Heart Mountain, we had the only flower garden. And it had bumblebees come in, and butterflies come in later. I don't know how they found out, but they were there. And these little kids come around, you know how they like to touch flowers and things. I said, "Watch out, there's bumblebee, it'll sting you." And then they wondered why I said that to them. And the butterfly comes along, the butterfly comes to suck the sugar from this pollen and so forth. We tell them how the butterfly lays its egg and it pupates to a worm, and from the worm, it comes to a butterfly. And these kids were quite interested. So the kids come from all parts of the camp and come to see us.

WH: Had they ever seen anything like that before in their lives?

ES: Well, you know, they're youngsters, just growing up, and I don't think they'd been exposed to nature.

WH: I think what you told me before was that the young ones born in camp had never seen a butterfly before.

ES: Yeah, there's some never seem 'em. I think they were city dwellers, so never seen 'em.

WH: I see.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2005 Densho and The Japanese American Film Preservation Project. All Rights Reserved.