Densho Digital Archive - Ann Fujikawa Interview (denshovh-fann-01-0005)

<Begin Segment 5>

RD: And so after... when you left camp in Topaz, were you happy? Do you remember the day that you left?

AF: It was kind of a, I'm not sure that it was happy or what, because glad we were leaving camp, but then still, we didn't know what the future was going to be like. No job, our parents didn't have a job, so it was just...

RD: Did your parents ever talk to you about what happened?

AF: No, because actually I pretty much remember things.

RD: Well, a lot of people said that they were, their parents wouldn't talk about it at all afterwards, and that they were afraid to ask.

AF: Well, like myself, I didn't talk about it. I didn't ask.

RD: Yeah, you weren't supposed to. Okay, now, here's the kicker. This wasn't in the history books in my school or his school, and we only know about it because both of us lived near camps. And we know that a lot of people, not just our generation, but the next generation aren't aware of this. So why do you think it's important that, say, that the Yonsei know about this.

AF: Well, it's something that should not have happened to us, definitely, but it did.

RD: Do you think that... because it was illegal, what happened. It was illegal, you can't do that to American citizens, you can't do that. And it was illegal and it was, a lot of people say that it was like a concentration camp. But when you think that it would be important for people to know, because it can happen.

AF: It's true.

RD: Do you think that maybe people could have protested harder?

AF: Well, Japanese race isn't one to complain that much. And so the younger folks, I think, would have complained more than the few that did complain about being sent to camp.

RD: They just got sent some hard words. Usually if they complained they got sent some hard words, didn't they? So what do you think would happen now if they tried to round up a bunch of Japanese people?

AF: I think there would be an uprising today.