<Begin Segment 3>

JA: I think in your interviews with your parents, both of them, or one of them, anyway, talked about being out there on the day that some of the internees were brought into town or through town?

[Interruption]

JW: My parents were both waiting out by the gate where the buses would turn into the camp and they saw the people getting off the buses and they, they said to me later how sad and bewildered these people looked and it was, the dust was blowing around, the wind was blowing, and there were these crude barracks and these people were carrying their little bundles and their suitcases and they just looked so, so lost. And my parents just felt very sad about it for them. My mother said, she said many times, "I was so upset by that and I, I was so mad about that, that I was ready to write in to the newspaper and say that, 'These people don't belong there. They're American citizens, so why are they there?'" And then she said, "But, you know, this was the government doing this, and you just don't fool around with the government."

JA: Was there ever much interaction with internees at the camp and people in the town throughout that timeframe? I know some people in the town would have worked there, but what was the nature of any contact there would have been?

JW: My understanding is that the contact was very carefully controlled. That, as time went on, when the camp became functioning and self-sustaining, that they would hold these open houses for the people in the Owens Valley and they would have entertainment and they would show their, all of the produce that they had grown in their gardens and people would be invited in for a day or, and, you know, take a tour and they would be, the kids would do singing or little plays or... that's what I've heard mostly from people in the Owens Valley. People would go in who were working there, of course, and it's my understanding that some of the people that worked there were able to buy things from, through the camp at greatly reduced prices and... but as far as the general population of the valley, I don't think there was a lot of interaction except during these special occasions.

JA: What sort of reaction was there when word got out about the riot?

JW: I really don't know about that. I have not heard people talk about that. I have not heard my parents talk about it and I really didn't know anything about the riot until I started studying this.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.