Densho Digital Archive - M. Jack Takayanagi Interview (denshovh-tmjack-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

RP: You mentioned this very poignant Christmas service. It came on the heels of a very extraordinarily tragic event in the camp, and that was the incident or riot, it was a tragedy where two young Niseis died, and a number of people were wounded, and threw the whole camp into a huge turmoil. What do you recall about that?

MT: My recollection was that that was a military presence, a strong military presence. There was also a presence of those who were somewhat in, some form of opposition to that presence, or even very strongly felt about the internment in terms of their being incarcerated. I'm not too sure now what triggered that off, something about sugar or something, if that's the same. But I do know there was a great deal of tension that existed in the camp. And then also there was a sense of division, that there was a group of people within the camp that were not vocally expressing their opposition to what had... whether that was stimulated or regulated by some military action or some... I don't know the story behind that, must be much more than I'd ever known. But I do know that those were sort of dark nights and dark days in some sense in the camps, solidarity of the camp being a sense of a community.

RP: And it triggered even a greater need to bring the community together, like you mentioned, with your service, there was divisions and fractures and perhaps in some small measure, the churches of Manzanar helped toward starting the process of healing.

MT: Yeah, right. The recognition that we needed to have more of a communal, a relationship conversation, whatever you want to talk with each other as well as with the administration as well as with the problem that we couldn't exist by having this kind of division within the community and with the administrative authorities that were present that were overseeing this in Manzanar.

RP: You talked about these certain people in camp who might have been expressing their opposition to return then. In your own life and your own experience, could you understand that? How did you reconcile your beliefs with this country and what they'd done to you?

MT: Well, I think there's a... you've heard the word shikata ga nai? That kind of accepting this and the move on kind of attitude. I think we needed to accept what was, we are in, but we needed to work, to examine and work at it to see what might happen, what needed to be rectified, what had to... I guess the point being that you were in a situation that you didn't have much power to do anything.

RP: Did you personally question the circumstances?

MT: Yeah. But at the same time, it meant that you had an opportunity to do something, whether it's working with the people in the community, working trying to develop a relationship with the authorities, the government authorities, whatever, to resolve situations that arise that cause unnecessary tensions and so forth.