Densho Digital Archive - Aya Fujii - Taka Mizote Interview (denshovh-faya

<Begin Segment 14>

RP: So your family amongst hundreds of other Japanese Americans really had a very unique situation that you have sort of this interesting exemption from the camp experience.

TM: Right.

RP: Not very many other people --

TM: Not in like the relocation camps.

RP: Right.

TM: It's relocation but not --

RP: People were sent to the relocation camps and then they were allowed to leave later on. But you went directly from the assembly center and to a much... it seemed like a much greater degree of freedom. And so you had these expectations when you were in the assembly center, how did they match, did the experience you had in the tent camp early on match your expectations for freedom? Life always presents its interesting challenges wherever you are.

TM: Right, right well we, yes, not knowing what to expect it was --

AF: But I think we probably met our lifelong friends at that period.

TM: Yes.

AF: Because the friends we met in those years have become one of our best friends.

RP: And can you describe to me, was there a sense of a community within this tent camp?

TM: There was.

RP: Organized events.

TM Yes, they had social... it was more after we moved into the barracks that they had more of a social activities and at that time we had a little... I wrote in there that this little missionary lady that made... she wanted to make sure that we were getting good --

AF: Religious training.

TM: Well, religious as well as social, issues. She tried to see that we... welfare of the people.

RP: You were treated well.

TM: Right, right.

RP: So she was as you might call it these days, an advocate for --

TM: Right, see, she had just returned, Caucasian lady, just returned from Japan and as a missionary and so she spoke Japanese. And she was not a very elderly woman but she was gray haired and just a real loving lady that just took in... she wanted to have all the ladies meet whether they were Buddhist or whatever and she would teach them crafts. And so there wasn't anyone there that we knew that would have... gather them for the Buddhist, you know, faith. But she through these efforts she got us interested in Christianity and she started having church services and we didn't know a thing about Christianity because we didn't have that upbringing. But through her, you know, we all became Christians. She has really been my important lady in our lives.

RP: What was her name?

TM: Azalea Peet.

RP: And you mentioned that she really helped out the Isseis?

TM: Right.

RP: Language issues as well as... anybody else that kind of stands out?

TM: Well, there were, you know, the Quakers were such advocates for the Japanese but I don't remember any particular, maybe other people in the camp had ties with the Quaker group but we had another minister from Idaho that helped me get into the college of Idaho because I just finished and I enrolled in the college of Idaho but I can't remember what his name was.

AF: You mean Reverend Schaffer?

TM: Yes, Reverend Schaffer, yes. So and there were other, he helped us but I don't know who else helped the lot of my friends that went on to college.