<Begin Segment 12>

AI: And then you also mentioned forming a YMCA. Can you elaborate on that?

DT: Well, you see, they sent the fellow from the national office named George Corwin to help us start a YMCA in Topaz. And it was not a -- remember now, we had no building, so we had clubs. And in my movie that I -- there's a movie of my, one of my, the Topaz Hi-Y Club, and then we had a camp out in the desert. And I have some of the religious services that we had in camp, the mimeograph sheets, but it was not an extensive YMCA. You didn't have a building, you see, but we got these small groups organized; that's what we did.

AI: So did the national YMCA support it in any way?

DT: Oh, yeah. They sent a fellow named George Corwin all the way from the national to get us started.

AI: And was there funding from them?

DT: I don't remember what it was now, but there must have been some funding. I don't remember the details now.

AI: So you were a YMCA executive director? Is that the...

DT: Well, not executive director, but a officer of the Y. Yeah, got it started.

AI: How large was the group and what did you do?

DT: Huh?

AI: How large was your membership and what did you do?

DT: It wasn't large. It wasn't large. They had Hi-Y Club, and we had Y camp out in the desert. That's the two thing I remember now.

AI: Okay.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.