<Begin Segment 6>
EK: So when you were talking earlier about the GIS system for Voting (section), I was curious, what was the technology setup, or lack of technology when you were trying to verify people on camp rosters or any other data that you had that you were comparing it to?
MW: Right. You had rosters from all of the camps, you were trying to match up names...
EK: And these were physical books.
MW: It was physical books, yes. And the rosters are, I mean, my recollection, they were fairly sizeable and thick. They listed out each family unit, and then in most cases it would be the father and the mother and then the kids and grandparents if applicable in many cases.
EK: So that was not computerized?
MW: Not at all. It was all paper and pencils and books, yeah.
EK: So can you talk a little bit more about when people submitted their information and you were in the process of verifying it? What was that process like?
MW: So... well, we did have a database, okay. I mean, we weren't totally doing everything by paper. Once people had been verified, and once people had been identified with addresses, it was all put into a database, and so we all had access to that. So mail came out, mail came back in, and it was basically matching names to what was in the computer base, matching addresses. And people had moved, so it was one of things that oftentimes we would have to go back and say, "Your driver's license doesn't match what we have in our records." And in many cases it was date of birth, but that was because people were sending in birth certificates, oftentimes the years or a few days were off in that kind of a thing as well. But that, I think, was recordkeeping at the time, not necessarily. So if we could verify another way, okay. So the birth certificate was off by two days, all right, no big deal. Yeah, we've got driver's license that has the correct birthday on it.
EK: Were you involved with the help line at all?
MW: No, very little. But once again, ORA started from scratch. The fact that people had the foresight to think of things, needs like that, I think you give Bob a lot of credit for that, really coming up with, okay, what's the best way to do this. And I think things did change along the way, but not majorly. The main structure stayed pretty much the same throughout.
EK: Can you recall any groups of people that were not possibly anticipated originally?
They weren't on the roster? Can you talk about the evolution of people who were, I'm thinking of things like non-Japanese spouses who went in, or people who weren't originally anticipated, when the regulations went out, that kind of came to light during your early years?
MW: Yeah, I don't really know, because I think by the time I came on board, it was pretty well set who was eligible and who wasn't.
EK: Do you have any other recollections or stories that you want to share about what you experienced in those early years?
MW: Well, my fun one was when I was like, "Hey, Aaron, guess what? Here's my daddy's." And he goes, "Hand it over," because obviously I had to recuse myself from my immediate family. I mean, I was like, "this is really actually sort of cool." [Laughs]
EK: Can you talk a little bit more about your family's experience?
MW: So my dad actually was in Poston, my mom was actually at Topaz, and they met in Chicago after the war, kind of a deal. You know, they never really talked about it a whole lot. In fact, more of the stories that I know are other people's stories as opposed to theirs. So yeah, so my dad was from the San Diego area, so most of them were sent to Poston or Gila River. Then my mom was in Marysville, which was Sacramento area, so she started out at Tule Lake but moved soon to Topaz because one of my other uncles actually was already there in the area.
EK: And did you know all those details before you started with the office?
MW: No, I actually just found that out a few months ago from my cousins whose dad was the one who had driven from L.A. to Utah.
<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2019 Emi Kuboyama. All Rights Reserved.