<Begin Segment 14>
RP: So when did you start going to the Topaz reunions?
MK: Whenever they had them. We went to every one that they had. It was...
RP: Were you involved in the planning or development of those?
MK: They were in, in the Bay Area.
RP: Oh, it started in the Bay Area?
MK: San Francisco, San Jose. We had a four camp reunion in Sacramento a few years back. I guess most of them were in San Francisco. My younger sister's class, when they graduated, they said, "Every five years we will have a reunion." And they have had it. Every time there was a Topaz reunion they had their own reunion besides that. The Topaz faculty had a reunion. And so we were at that faculty reunion too.
RP: When was that?
MK: This woman had a house in... oh, San Leandro is it? In the east bay? She bought this house that had a huge recreation room and we all pot-lucked. And so then all these older people, we all got together. We'd go to the Topaz reunion and then we'd go to the faculty reunion. And I'm, to this day if they say Topaz reunion, I'll be there. Yeah. But you know, it was the younger people that were organizing and doing all the work and I think they got tired of doing it. But it was, it was a real good affair for us older ones. And then you find out who is still active and what have you. Because being in the late eighties here it's, we've lost a lot of friends. Especially the last three, four years. Because see, my husband was one of the younger ones in the Topaz faculty.
RP: Right.
MK: Yeah. 'Cause there were some people who had actually finished Berkeley already. But at least he went back to school and finished.
RP: Finished, right.
MK: Yeah. I'm sitting here slumped and I shouldn't do that.
RP: What was your impressions and feelings of, about the redress?
MK: I didn't think it would really happen. But you know, the people that worked on it, they really did a bang up job. They stuck with it, they pushed, they got influential people to speak up. A lot of like Koji's age group, a lot of 'em they, they really worked hard on it. The part I regret is that the first generation, a lot of them had passed away when it went through. And they were the ones who really suffered the most. When they first came to the U.S. they had to struggle and make a living and all this kind of stuff. They lost everything when evacuation came up. And then they had to put up with living in camp. And I really felt bad that they didn't get it. That they were no longer living. So, it's, I'm... you won't say well, because they were in camp the family would get the money... it isn't a case of where we needed the money. We just needed the acknowledgement that it was wrong.
RP: And how did that feel when you got that?
MK: I was kind of relieved. Because it made people aware of what happened to us. A lot of people didn't know. Because even when we moved to Huntington Beach, my neighbor next door came from the East Coast. She didn't know anything about the camps. And I thought gee, she should have known something. If you were in California you would have known. Like being, when we went to the movies or what have you in Madison, Indiana, people would just stop and stare. Because they had never seen an Asian. But it's funny, when you stop and think about it. My brother-in-law said this. He said, "You know, you can go to some small towns, there'll always be a Chinese restaurant and you can eat rice." He went like that. Yeah. And it's true. You find a Chinese restaurant in an odd place. We go through Valley Springs. There's a Chinese restaurant in there. And it's just a small town. But and it's crowded. People are eating. We don't go to the Chinese... we go to Quiznos or a coffee shop, something like this. I'm looking for something else besides Asian food.
RP: Right.
<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.