<Begin Segment 21>

MA: Can you talk about changes that you've seen in the community in Salt Lake City, the Japanese American community over the years and what your thoughts are about that?

TN: Well, the Japanese are all very successful people. I think they've woven into the culture very well. As I said, many of them are LDS members, many are Buddhist temple members and many are Christian church members. They're a very active group, as I told you, they put out this three-hundred-page history book, and it's called Japanese Americans in Utah, and even though that was done in 1996, quite a few years ago, I keep hearing from people all over that, saying, "You know, we just keep reading that book and it gets more interesting as the years go by." And I'm sure glad that Ray Uno had the foresight to kind of force this project to happen, because it really chronicles all of the Isseis and pioneers, and the way things were in Box Elder County and Utah County, and Davis County and the great baseball games that we used to have in the '50s, and the great basketball tournaments we had in the '50s, and all of that would be forgotten if it weren't chronicled in this book. And there has even been talk that we might even update it for events that have happened in the fifteen years since.

MA: So you're very active, you know, with the museum and with this book, and what motivates you to speak out about your experience during the war?

TN: Well, it's, it's not difficult for me to talk about Topaz, because when I was in there, I was seven to ten and half years old. And that's just old enough to remember everything, but it's also young enough to not bear any heavy memories of what took place. And I was just a little too young to understand that our, our constitutional rights were taken from us, I didn't understand that, but I do today. But because of that, I think it's a lot easier for me to talk about Topaz than it would be somebody who was fifteen or nineteen years old in Topaz. And like my mother, it was a very stressful situation for many people. And I'm just happy that I can tell about my experiences there.

MA: Great, is there anything else you want to share or talk about?

TN: No, I think that's pretty much it.

MA: Okay, great, well, thank you so much for doing this interview. It was wonderful.

TN: Oh, you're welcome.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.