<Begin Segment 6>

JA: What do you think, or do you think you lost anything by being put away in this camp?

DB: Well... I don't think I lost anything. I think I gained some appreciation for a culture that had I not been placed in the camp, I might not have ever enjoyed. Since leaving camp, I've been able to reacquaint myself with my friends in the orphanage, and so for me, that was a positive thing coming out of my experience. I think it's unique to me because I was the only one. I don't think that my friends, my -- members of my family that went to Heart Mountain, they didn't need that experience. So it's unique to me, and I guess I'm probably the only one that can say that it was a beneficial thing. Because it did create lifelong friendships, but it was wrong. It was terribly wrong. I think today that Americans need to be so alert because in the terrorist movement, the individual rights of people have got to be preserved. And I think back today, are we going to make the same mistake with these people that we did with a whole group of my family and friends? I really worry about that. That was aside.

JA: That's an important aside. How do we teach that lesson to people?

DB: One of the things that I've tried to do is I've tried to take the message, I've tried to take my 60-minute film to schools and acquaint students with what that piece of history was all about. And the only way that we can prevent it from happening is for all citizens to be vigilant and urge the officials to honor the constitutional rights of everybody regardless of expediency. Because it was -- I mean, that's what we were looking at in the interning of all the Japanese, was expediency, a lesson that we shouldn't repeat.

JA: Why did it take so long for this country's government to say, "We made a mistake"?

DB: Well, I'm probably somewhat cynical, but when you believe you're right, it doesn't know, matter how many facts you're presented, you're still right. And had it not been for the U. S. Supreme Court, we would still be having people say it was all right. But that's one nice thing about America, is that we have, do have a judicial system that works and causes rights to be given back, and punishment to be meted out when it's appropriate.

JA: [Coughs] Excuse me. I'm sorry, go ahead.

DB: And what the Supreme Court said was, You erred, you denied the constitutional rights." One time I studied this, and I believe there were nineteen constitutional rights which had been violated.

JA: To get to the process, to the point where the president issued an apology, there was also a lot of activism on the part of the community.

DB: Yes, yes. I wasn't involved in that because I was removed from the, my Japanese friends by a long distance. I grew up in a small town, which I was the only Japanese, so it, I just didn't have the association. I support, I supported the activities of the Japanese Citizens League by being a member and supporting it financially, but it was really the... was it four men? I'm getting into a little piece of history that I'm a little shaky on.

JA: Yeah, that's not a detail we probably will get too deeply into, but when, when a letter of apology was issued by the President, did that mean anything to you personally?

DB: Not really. I thought it was well overdue, and I just felt it came too late. That's my feelings.

JA: Did you get a check?

DB: I got a check.

JA: Did that matter?

DB: No. I gave a portion of it to some of my favorite charities, because it meant more for me to be able to do that than to receive the check.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.