Densho Digital Archive - Lily Kajiwara Interview (denshovh-klily-01-0015)

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RP: Have you attended any reunions or pilgrimages?

LK: No. I was not interested in it at all until a few years ago, of going to any... I just completely had blocked out all of my memories of that. And until, like I say, I made that little presentation at the Corbett Historical Society, I never even talked about it. I don't think... my family never talked about it.

RP: And you never talked to your kids about it either?

LK: No, I don't think my daughter is interested in it.

RP: So tell us a little bit about what brought you out of your shell. You said you had this presentation or this program, there was a gentleman who kind of moved you in that direction.

LK: Yes, uh-huh, Mr. Misheran. I had known him not that many years, but he called me and asked me to make a presentation to the Corbett Historical Society. I had never been back to Corbett since we left, and I thought, well, maybe it's a good time for me to show the people of Corbett that I am still alive, that I had never gone to any reunions, high school reunions, grade school reunions, but I thought, well, that I have had a different life than what I had there, and so I thought I would tell them my story of where I had been, what I had done. And so I thought, well, okay. So I went to the historical society and made a presentation, and that was not so bad. So gradually I decided, I worked at the legacy center as a docent, and then I started working there in the library, and it kind of brought me out and I think that that was a turning point, that I made that presentation. And I did see a couple of people at the historical society that was at Corbett High School. And since then I have gone to a class reunion.

RP: And when would that have been?

LK: And that was three years ago, and maybe there was about fifteen of us, we had a class of about thirty, so about half the people. Well, they were not all classmates, there were wives or husbands, a couple of children. But I have gone to a reunion. So I think I've kind of made peace with the town of Corbett. [Laughs]

RP: What advice or insights would you share with young people? If you were going to share anything about your experiences during the wartime and after with people, younger generations, ten, twenty, thirty years from now, what would you tell them?

LK: Well, mostly young people today, a majority of them don't care. They don't want to hear what I have to say, really. But the ones that, are some that care, some that are really interested. So I would say that... I'm a Nisei, what the Niseis went through was important because the way we conducted ourselves, the way we accepted what the government told us to do, and the way we became model citizens, they say, is important because I think it led to how they are accepted. And I think the Japanese people are accepted as people who are hardworking, educated, good citizens, and I think it's because of the way we treated the situation. So I think it's important that they know some of what we went through. Of course, now I have a niece who always tells me, she says, "Auntie, just get on with it. Okay, just get on with it." But I think we have left them a history of how we acted and how we handled the situation, which I think is... even if I say it myself, I think it's to be commended that we handled ourselves well, I think.

RP: Do you think it could happen again in America for any group?

LK: Probably not to the extent that it happened to us, because I don't think anyone would go into a camp for a three years.

RP: Willingly?

LK: Willingly, because I think nowadays people would just not do that, and there would be enough opposition or resistance that I don't think it could happen in that sense. Although there is always going to be some kind of discrimination, you know, that's the way it is, I think. But we went and stayed there for three years, and I can't see a young person now willingly staying there for three years.