<Begin Segment 23>

TI: Going to, you saw lots of people come through Denver. Many of them had been in the camps, incarceration camps. And I'm wondering if you ever had, kind of, like a perspective in terms of, for the people that went through the camps, the impact on them. Could you see something different or a change in people because of that experience?

JU: Well, that was a huge problem of resettlement. We were pretty well involved in making sure that cities that were willing to resettle got some message as to why they should allow them to resettle. And that's where Father Dai's book is, I mean, he was appointed by the WRA to visit all the cities that he could and the camps that he could and to try to make some arrangements, seeing real people in the real cities to help with resettlement. And that's why he traveled all over. And he was appointed by the WRA, and, of course, supported by the Episcopal church. And then, of course, the other Protestant churches kicked in with the National Council of Churches, they helped, they kicked in with help financially.

TI: And the reason they did all this was, the observation was the people coming out of the camps needed this extra support to get resettled in these communities?

JU: Yes, and to generally, with the theme, they're really Americans, you know. and they need to not be picked on when they traveled. And Father Dai was very good at that. He was very good at talking that issue.

TI: And the reason, I'm trying to understand, was the reason he sensed and did you also see almost like a trauma that they had gone through?

JU: Oh, of course. And it's taken them sixty years to have these little celebrations that, "Where did our students go?" Many, many schools didn't know they'd left. And that's wild. I mean, that's absolutely silly. And yet, had taken them sixty years, a few celebrations that -- we went to one at Willamette, and, of course, there was one at Oregon State going on at the same time and so forth. It was really, that was the program that Dai was working on, and that the Quakers were chief in making sure that Dai didn't come around in vain. Now, the Quakers were very good at that, but the connectional churches, too, were very good at that.

TI: Good. So I'm going to kind of --

JU: The colleges were really...

TI: Really good.

JU: The private denominational colleges were very good at accepting students.

TI: So you mentioned earlier how your father served in Denver for a really long time, all the way through the Depression and all the way through the war.

JU: Yeah, it was crazy.

TI: So after the war, what, where did he go, and what were the circumstances that he left Denver?

JU: Well, under Methodist appointment system. [Laughs] He was assigned, well, he wanted to retire about '47 anyway. And they had more, there weren't any ministers to fill them, and the guys that had, were all appointed, he was asked to go to San Jose, and he thought San Jose would be okay. But before he got there, they had moved him to Fresno. And so he spent his last, oh, few years in Fresno. And Fresno, the interesting thing with Fresno is it has two Christian churches, Methodist and Congregational, and, of course, they were always in competition. But about five years ago, they had to merge because the congregations were getting too small.

TI: Oh, that's interesting.

JU: [Laughs] You haven't done Fresno yet?

TI: No, I haven't done Fresno. We're scheduled later on this summer, though.

JU: Are you?

TI: So I'll find out more.

JU: It's a very interesting place.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.