<Begin Segment 18>

RP: How did you feel about the, the redress and reparations movement that occurred in the '80s?

MW: Well, I thought it was wonderful but all the people that really deserved it like my parents, they were dead. All the old people, gee, the rest of us were younger so we were able to form a life again and have an income. But, right, I thought, I totally agree that we should have gotten it. I know a lot of people disagree, but I think that if you don't somehow monetarily, if you don't put money on it, our society says it has no value. So I think that that was good. Not that it compensated for what we all lost. But I thought it was good and I know that these young people that fought for it, well, young people and everybody, have to give 'em a lot of credit. Because there were certainly a lot of people that were against, against it. So, but when my parents, I mean I thought, "Oh boy, wouldn't they loved to have had that." That's, that would have been a lot of, a lot of money to them. So, and of course they couldn't become citizens either until fifty, about fifty-four I think.

RP: Did they become citizens?

MW: Eventually. And then my dad died.

RP: Oh, right after that.

MW: Right. He was really like, like it's written all over, Japanese in blood but American in the heart. I mean he really was. He said this was a great, it's a great country. So, yeah, so they were able to become a citizen.

Off Camera: But not until your dad was seventy years old.

MW: Huh?

Off Camera: Your dad had to be seventy by the time he was, by 1953.

MW: Yeah. And he died at seventy-nine. I think those were, I mean, they didn't, they don't say much. Do you know what I mean? It's so different. My husband's Chinese American and we look alike but wow, there's a world of difference. In certain things it's alike. But in other respects there's a world of a difference. It's interesting. Although we stem from the Chinese, the Japanese stem from the Chinese and the Koreans. But it's very, very different.

RP: Right, and some of the historic animosities that occurred between those two groups.

MW: Oh my gosh, yes.

RP: And I guess, I guess this is a little more of a personal question, but were there any issues that came up between families and marrying, a Japanese American marrying a Chinese American?

MW: Right, yeah. Yeah, well, my first husband wasn't Japanese. And the mother said, "Oh that's terrible." She says, "In the bible it says, didn't you know it said at the Tower of Babylon, it says the races shall never meet." And so she said... but we got married anyway. And, she was a lovely woman. We got, she got to know me. And she realized, hey, she's okay. And so...

RP: Right, in the heart.

MW: It really is. That's where it counts.

[Interruption]

RP: Do you have any other stories about camp or, or your feelings or attitudes about camp that you would like to share that we haven't touched on?

MW: Well, as a child, when I went in there I had, my mom just said okay, to get the suitcase and we're going away. And so I was educated there and they fed me. People were nice to me. So from that respect I have no qualms about it. But as I got older and I realized the effect of it, I mean, it's totally wrong. It's just insane that that would happen in such a free country or democracy without any due process, without any, anything. That somebody at the flick of a wrist can do that to 120,000 of us. But because we were such a minority, we were such a minority of people and, and they really didn't, like it says, the Isseis, the first generations, weren't knowledgeable about the American ways and the Niseis that would have known, there weren't too many. So if it happened today I'm sure it would be totally different. But it was a terrible, terrible injustice and I, for all the older people. When I saw they were taking this man in the... he was an invalid. He was an old man and they rolled up a sheet or something. They were carrying him. I remember onto, onto the bus. 'Cause he couldn't walk and they didn't have a wheelchair I guess. So, when I think of those things I just think how could it be so, so awful. And when I heard that they said oh camp, there's too many babies being born and so that in, in Congress they are introduced -- and fortunately it didn't go, it didn't come to fruition -- but that to sterilize the women. I mean that's, that's Hitler. And things like that. That even to think that somebody could even think to do that. So, but if we have to speak up. I know most of us are complacent. So the thing is, we do have to speak up. But most of us we go, "Oh well." We hear it. We look and it and says well that's those people, they're back there. And so I realize how important it is to state your opinion and stick up for what you feel is just. And it, it's made me the person I am today. Camp? It's very unfortunate, but because I was there, that's what formed my personality. That's me. Yeah, and I wouldn't meet you and Kirk. 'Cause you wouldn't be interviewing me. [Laughs] Right?

RP: Yes, right. Well, on that note, we will thank you, both of us and the National Park Service for...

MW: It was a pleasure.

RP: ...sharing your, your special experiences and unique I might add, experiences.

MW: I mean, the guys that you interviewed yesterday, they had more knowledge. 'Cause they were older. I'm...

RP: Right, but just within the three people that we've talked to, just this great sort of diversity of different ways of seeing a similar experience. As a child, as a teenager, as an older teenager, almost a young adult.

MW: Well that's good.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.