Densho Digital Archive - M. Jack Takayanagi Interview

Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: M. Jack Takayanagi Interview
Narrator: M. Jack Takayanagi
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Independence, California
Date: April 22, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-tmjack-01

<Begin Segment 1>

RP: -- a short oral history interview with Jack, your last name, can you spell it for us, Jack?

MT: Takayanagi, T-A-K-A-Y-A-N-A-G-I.

RP: Okay. And our interview is taking place in the library at the Manzanar National Historic Site. And we're going to be talking just a short time with Jack about some of his experiences at Manzanar as an internee as well as his experiences at Drake University where he relocated to later on. Our interview is, date of the interview is April 23, 2008, the interviewer is Richard Potashin, and this is tape one. And, Jack, thanks for spending a little time. And you were telling me earlier that this was really the first time that you --

MT: Really the first time since the opening of the national center here. We came by one time when we were traveling south, and just drove through Manzanar. That was, nothing was developed then at that time.

RP: So really, essentially, this is the first time you've been back since you left the camp?

MT: That's right, that's sixty-six years ago. Hard to believe, but nevertheless, true.

RP: Well, let's do, share with us a little bit of your family background before you come to camp. Where did you grow up?

MT: I was born in San Jose, California, and that's where I got my early education. Eventually my father took the family and we moved to West Los Angeles, and that's where I went to high school, in West Los Angeles. That's where I graduated high school. And I wanted to, at the time of my graduation I wanted to be an illustrator, so I went to Chouinard Art Institute. But at that time, I had an experience, religious, or people might call spiritual experience, and a calling to ministry, so I dropped out of Chouinard and went to Sacramento State to start my liberal education toward a divinity degree, and that's when the war broke out and that's when all this turmoil began. And so I came back to be with my family, and eventually was evacuated with my family to my mother and dad and my brother to Manzanar.

RP: What was your, what's your birth date?

MT: My birth date is June 28, 1922.

RP: 1922. And how many siblings did you have? You mentioned a brother?

MT: I had three older brothers.

RP: Can you give me their names?

MT: Yes, Harry and George and John. And my name is Jack, and they always said, "You and your brother must be twins," because John and Jack, you know. I said, "No, we're not twins. He's John and I'm Jack." [Laughs]

RP: Where did your dad come from in Japan?

MT: He came from the Saga-ken, Japan.

RP: Can you spell that for us?

MT: Saga, S-A-G-A K-E-N. And however, that was more my mother's residence than his, because he went and, as I understand it, my mother's folks' parents were resort people, and had a hot spring. And he went there passing through, so to speak, he went there, I understand, and got a job, and he stayed there and eventually married my mother. So I'm not exactly sure where his origin was.

RP: So he brought your mother when he came to the United States.

MT: Yes, and he came in 1913. And he came on the Persian-maru, and docked in San Francisco. And my mother was eighteen, my dad was thirty-six.

RP: Whoa.

MT: That was a time in Japanese immigration history, if you recall, that the Japanese men were coming, many were coming to the United States, and many of them later on wanted to have a bride in order to take care of the house somewhat, I guess, so the "picture bride" came. My dad came with a bride.

RP: He brought a bride. [Laughs]

MT: Yeah, though she was very young, but she came with my dad.

RP: Did the discrepancy in age create any problems for that relationship later on?

MT: No. My mother was very obedient to my dad, and so in that sense, it never, as I can understand growing up, we were normal as anybody in the neighborhood we were in and around, growing up in the country. My dad was a farm worker, what he was.

RP: In the San Jose area?

MT: Yeah, he worked in the orchards. My mother usually oversaw the berry farm, usually a lot of these orchards had berry farms, and my mother took care of the berries.

RP: And you lived on this farm?

MT: Yes. The owner would provide us housing of some sort.

RP: Do you remember who the owner was?

MT: Well, one of the owners was Charles Olson.

RP: Charles Olson.

MT: Charlie Olson who hired my dad, and eventually built us a house on the orchard.

RP: So you were there, family was there for quite a while.

MT: Well, we were there for, all through my elementary school.

<Begin Segment 2>

RP: And so what age did the family move to West Los Angeles, how old were you?

MT: Well, I was just a freshman in high school when that happened, so that was, I must have been... what would a freshman be?

RP: Fifteen?

MT: Fifteen, I would say, yes.

RP: And what was the motivation for moving to West Los Angeles?

MT: Well, one was that my dad always wanted to be a gardener, and landscape gardening was an interest of his. And when he didn't work in the orchard he would work somebody's garden. And so eventually we heard about Southern California and the garden opportunities, and a lot of gardeners, Japanese gardeners in Southern California. And so after giving that serious consideration, we moved to West Los Angeles, which was made up of a large majority of gardeners who gardened, richer people in the neighborhood of Beverly Hills and so on.

RP: Right, it was quite an ethnic niche for Japanese gardeners. And what was the change like for you? You were used to living on a farm, and suddenly you were in...

MT: In the city.

RP: In the city boy.

MT: I would say, yeah. I adjusted very quickly, I didn't have any problems that I could notice or know about. For some reason I felt I could get along with people pretty well, and I didn't have any trouble adjusting to a new environment and a new, church life with young people and so on.

RP: Where did you live in West Los Angeles?

MT: The section called Sawtelle.

RP: I'm very familiar with Sawtelle.

MT: You're familiar with Sawtelle? Yeah.

RP: Uh-huh. I've interviewed a lot of folks from that community, and like you said, it was the community of gardeners.

MT: Well, I went to University High School, that may also be familiar, because a lot of those young people went to Uni High.

RP: Do you remember the street you lived on?

MT: Colby Avenue.

RP: Colby?

MT: Yeah. We moved a couple times, but Colby I remember.

RP: And you had your own single family residence?

MT: Yes, we had our own, rented our own house.

RP: And how did your dad do with his gardening?

MT: Well, he did pretty well. Yeah, I think he worked well, he sustained his family and provided for us.

RP: Did he work by himself or did he have...

MT: Yes, he worked by himself.

RP: Now did you ever help him out at all, say, on weekends?

MT: Oh, yeah. Then my brother George was also a gardener or landscape. That was something he did for income purposes, but he also did landscaping and gardening work. And I worked for him for a while, too.

RP: Now, you would maintain landscapes, but you also installed gardens?

MT: Oh, yes, we'd install gardens as the clients wanted us, and mostly he was taking care of the landscape, putting in new flowers, keeping the grass greener, putting in new lawns, that kind of...

RP: Did you ever on occasion install a Japanese garden?

MT: No, I didn't. My dad probably did, but I didn't have that kind of expertise. I always did what my brother told me to do, "Water those flowers and cut the grass." So I was more of a helper.

RP: And so you graduated Uni High School.

MT: I graduated Uni High.

RP: And you said you went on to Chouinard, so you had very strong ambitions to become a commercial artist?

MT: Yeah. I wanted to, had ambition to become an animator at Walt Disney, and Chouinard had a connection with Walt Disney. A lot of Chouinard or Chouinard students joined the course of the study would work at Walt Disney.

RP: Did you do that, too?

MT: Yes.

RP: And what did you do at Disney? Did you actually do animation?

MT: No, never got to that point. Never got to it before I dropped out and went this different avenue. But at the time, we were, Walt Disney was running Fantasia, was working on Fantasia, so I had an opportunity to see that a little bit, but I never did get into the point where I actually began to be an animator and got that kind of training. Because I was called into ministry, and I went that direction.

<Begin Segment 3>

RP: And were you, what was the religious background of your family?

MT: My dad was converted to Methodist and Methodist church, and he was a very strong member of the Methodist church. And I know my mother, my mother was more Shinto in her religion, but one of the customers, traditionally, when you marry, you take the religion of your husband. And at that time, my father was a Methodist, was converted, so my mother became active in the church.

RP: So your father originally was a Buddhist and converted to Methodist?

MT: Well, I don't know whether he was a Buddhist or he was an agnostic, I don't know just what he is.

RP: When he came to America he converted to...

MT: Yeah, he converted at Hawaii. He got in, he was in Hawaii in one of his churches before he got married, and he met a Methodist minister in Hawaii, and converted him to Christianity from whatever he was.

RP: So did he work for a short time in Hawaii?

MT: Pardon?

RP: Did you say your dad worked in Hawaii?

MT: Yes, he was, my dad, when he first, before he went to my mother, he traveled to Alaska, to Chicago, to the gulf states, and then he went back. On the way he came by to Hawaii, and in order to pay for some of his expenses, he became a professional mourner. You know, in Hawaii at that time they would hire people who would mourn for you at a funeral, they mourn, they would have mournings and so on, and he did this for some income. And through process he ran into this Methodist minister who took an interest in him, I assume. Because I don't know anything but our family being Christian, myself. Although my mother put, on New Year's Eve, on New Year's Day, would put up three tangerines as a symbol of Shinto.

RP: And what was the symbolism of the three tangerines?

MT: Well, I'm not sure. [Laughs]

RP: But that was part of, that was a ritual of Shinto?

MT: Yeah.

<Begin Segment 4>

RP: So your dad also had a little bit of knowledge of the United States through his travels.

MT: Well, yes. He strived to be self-educated. He read a lot, and he did writing.

RP: So he taught himself English?

MT: He taught himself to write and he did a lot of reading. So as I remember him, and so he was self-taught in a lot of ways. He's always wanted to become, back to America once he had been here. And when the naturalization law was passed, he was one of the first who went down to get naturalized, and he was naturalized the year after the law was passed and all the irregularities were cleared out, he went down and became a naturalized citizen.

RP: I'm sure he would have done that sooner if the law allowed him to.

MT: Oh, yes. Yes, I'm sure he would have.

RP: It sounds like he was very much bent on being, thinking and living as an American.

MT: Yeah. His reason for coming back was basically to be established, where other people came to make some wealth and go back home.

RP: Go back. Yeah, I think one of the proofs of that was the fact that he brought his wife over to settle and raise a family here.

MT: Yeah.

RP: So were you, as a teenager growing up in Sawtelle, were you active in the Methodist church there?

MT: Yes. We attended the West Los Angeles Methodist Church.

RP: On Purdue Street. It's on Purdue Street now.

MT: Purdue Street, right. And I participated in the young people's program there.

RP: Were you involved in leadership activities?

MT: Well, very minimal, not that great at the time. But later on I became active. But Mary you met, she's also from West Los Angeles. And we were, well, I guess you'd call it teenage sweethearts and we went to Uni High. She was a year younger than I, and she graduated from Emerson junior high school and then went to Uni High. And she came also to Manzanar. Her family was evacuated to Manzanar.

RP: What was her maiden name?

MT: Takemura.

RP: Takemura?

MT: Yeah.

RP: T-A-K-E...

MT: M-U-R-A.

RP: ...M-U-R-A.

MT: Yes.

RP: She wasn't related to a gentleman by the name of Kango Takemura?

MT: No, not that I know of.

RP: He was an artist in the camp.

MT: Saburo, her father's name was Saburo Takemura, and he had one of the original gardens here at Manzanar. There was a driftwood, a gazebo and driftwood furniture, and he just picked up and put together. He was a very creative man.

RP: Did he do that in front of his barrack?

MT: That's right.

RP: Oh, was his first name George?

MT: George.

RP: Oh, yes, we have pictures of his garden.

MT: Yes, right, George was his English name, or he went by George. Saburo was his Japanese name.

RP: He was recognized as a very extraordinary landscape artist.

MT: Yes, right. I think he was very skillful in that way.

RP: And that's what he did for a profession?

MT: He was a flower grower. He grew flowers to the market. And his mother, Mary's mother and Mr. Takemura ran a flower shop in Wilshire Boulevard, and that's how he was always into that kind of flower work or raising flowers, growing flowers.

RP: And where was his growing area? Did he have hothouses?

MT: No, he had rented acreage, and also areas around what they lived off of Wilshire.

RP: Did he have a special, some flower growers specialized in certain things like mums or gladiolas?

MT: Oh, gladiolas was his favorite. He grew gladiolas, was one of his major flowers.

RP: Yeah, that was an amazing landscape he put together during the camp.

MT: Yeah. Oh, Mary will be glad to hear that because we often look for it, seeing that, and say, "That looks like your dad's work." We see something, even in this Remembering Manzanar, you know, "Well, that looks something like your dad's work." But we had a show in Portland, Gaman...

RP: The Art of Gaman?

MT: The Art of Gaman, and there was a DVD that accompanied that. And when you go to the art exhibit, they ran this off, so we were there looking through. And this one looked like a gazebo, and Mary said, "That's Dad, that's my father." It went by so fast, I said, "Well, it probably was." Because it was uniquely... no one did that other than Mr. Takemura.

RP: Oh, he had a great style.

MT: Is that right? Oh, she'll be glad to hear that.

RP: I will tell her that.

<Begin Segment 5>

RP: Tell us about your recollections of Pearl Harbor day.

MT: Well, Pearl Harbor day I was working, I was at Sacramento going to junior college in Sacramento, and I was working as a houseboy, it's a term they gave us. But I did the housework and went to school and they provided me room and board. And on that Sunday, I was working, I had come home from church, and I was in the kitchen and the young son of the family that I was working with, Jay... no, they called me Jay because the husband's name was John, and John was called Jack, so they didn't want to get anybody mixed up, so they called me Jay. This young son came running in and saying, "Jay, did you hear? Did you hear? They've gotten Pearl Harbor, they Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor." And I said, "No, I didn't hear that." He said, "It was on the radio." And so I turned it on. Of course, my first reaction was my parents, that was my first thoughts. Because maybe at that one moment I didn't recognize it, but up to this time they were aliens because they were not allowed to be naturalized, so they were always aliens. Now they were "enemy aliens," which was a designation that created much more hostility toward them than just being aliens, now they were "enemy aliens."

So my first thought was to, was my parents, and I, during the Christmas holidays, which were not too much after Pearl Harbor, I drove down to my home. I think I came right down this place, because when I got to the Grapevine, you know, the Grapevine, you come up into L.A., there was a roadblock, military roadblock. And then they stopped me, of course, and I said, "Well, I'm going home for school, and it's the Christmas holidays." They interrogated, searched my car and everything, and they eventually let me go. But then when I was down during the Christmas, the conversation began, or at least the rumors began, of evacuation or at least of doing something with the Japanese in some way. So that became more of a concern for me and my parents, so I decided to not go back to school. I came down, transferred my credentials to Chapman College, and I went to Chapman College until we were evacuated. That was my first reaction, was that.

RP: Look out for your parents.

MT: Yeah.

RP: How about your other brothers? Had they gone to college, were they scattered around?

MT: Being as old as I am now, I'm the only one that's living right now in my immediate family. But my oldest brother was a jeweler, and he had a jewelry gift shop in Riverside. Then my next two brothers were in the army, served in Italy, 442nd.

RP: 442nd.

MT: Yeah.

RP: But when you were evacuated, were they with the family?

MT: One, John was.

RP: Just John?

MT: Yes. And his name is up here.

RP: And the other two brothers, where were they?

MT: Harry was in Poston because he was in Riverside, and he got evacuated to Poston eventually. And George was in the army. He was in the army before the war.

RP: Before Pearl Harbor?

MT: Yeah. So he was stationed at Fort Shelby, Oklahoma, I think, or somewhere. So they both, George and John both were sent overseas, and fought in Italy, and they told me that they happened to run into each other in Italy. Well, they knew they were both in the army, I guess, but they didn't know where they were. Then they just run into each other.

<Begin Segment 6>

RP: Tell us a little bit about the atmosphere surrounding the evacuation for your family in particular. Were you able to sell items, store items? What did you do with your material life before you came to camp?

MT: Yes. Well, we didn't, we just sort of gave 'em away as I recollect. We didn't have that much in terms of values. But one of the sad scenes that I do remember very clearly was that my dad was an artist, so he loved to paint and sketch. And he always carried a sketchbook with him, and a pencil, and whatever he had, he'd sketch, and he had these sketchbooks full of sketches. Well, when the war came and so on, he felt that he had to get rid of those, so he burned them, because he just felt that if he got caught with pictures of whatever he would sketch, he had other reasons for taking, for drawing those pictures, other than for the pleasure of his art interest. So he went and threw them one by one into the fire.

RP: You watched that scene?

MT: Yeah, I watched him do it, I watched him throw them in the fire there. But as far as the other possessions are concerned, assuming we gave them away or something.

RP: Some things were stored in the Methodist church there.

MT: Yeah, our property, too.

RP: Did you have something that you had to give up that was equally valuable to you? Some people might say their freedom, but was there a material item that you had to let go of, too, like your dad's...

MT: Well, I guess one of these, my friends. Not only my Nisei friends, but my Caucasian friends, we had a number of those. Because you never knew, when you said you were going to Manzanar, you didn't know where you're going, we had no idea of Manzanar, even if they said Manzanar, I don't even recall it. But we were going somewhere, but where, I don't know. My mother was prone to have carsickness, so in the procession of buses, municipal buses that took us to Manzanar, municipal bus, there was one Greyhound bus which was called the "hospital bus," for people who had, were prone to carsickness on long rides or whatever. And my mother was... so I asked them to allow my mother to go on the Greyhound bus. So I went with her, so I came up here on the Greyhound bus.

RP: So you were in the Greyhound.

MT: Yeah. And all the others came by municipal.

RP: The Santa Monica buses?

MT: Yes, or whatever it was.

RP: Whatever it was.

MT: I can remember they were red.

RP: Probably a pretty large convoy of them, too.

MT: Yes, right.

RP: Did anybody, did you get any support from other Caucasians, people who were friends who came to wish you goodbye?

MT: Oh, yes.

RP: Anybody who stands out in your mind?

MT: Herbert Nicholson was a very good friend of ours, well, of the whole church, but also friends of our family. Herbert Nicholson, Alan Hunter, Alan Hunter was one of my spiritual mentors, and he was also, both of those men visited us here in Manzanar once we got here. Of course, Nicholson-sensei, he could speak Japanese so fluently, so he was in Japan for all those years. And so he spoke very fluent Japanese, so he could communicate with Isseis.

RP: As well as Niseis.

MT: Communicated very well with Isseis.

RP: And his, many of his visits, he would bring items up for family members and things that were stored?

MT: You mean...

RP: Mr. Nicholson.

MT: Oh, yes. He would bring things that were stored that were needed. After they found what they could, room, they had enough, what they could maybe build, or a table or whatever, Nicholson would bring it.

<Begin Segment 7>

RP: Where was your family assigned to in Manzanar? What block?

MT: 15-9-4 sounds very familiar. I said I'll never forget those numbers, but recently I've tried to... where did I put that, I can't remember. And 24-9-4 seemed very familiar, but then when we got here, we found that it was too close. But 15-9-4 sounds familiar, but I need to go back and look at that.

RP: What did you do the first weeks that you were here in camp? Did you find a job? You did mention that you got involved with the church.

MT: I think first thing we did was just getting oriented.

RP: Get your bearings?

MT: Yeah, what is this place supposed to be? And how is the place after I found my bearing, is a place I didn't want to be. So I instituted the process of getting out.

RP: Right away you...

MT: Right away. It took me seven months to do that, to inquire what I had to do to get released. And so, well, that occupied some of your time, but I worked at the Shonien and I also...

RP: And did you volunteer to work at the Shonien?

MT: Yes, uh-huh.

RP: Can you tell us a little bit about what you did there at the Children's Village?

MT: At the Shonien? Well, I just went there to be with the kids, kind of socialize with them, and they had concerns, particularly the older kids. I made some close friendships with some of the older kids while there, and you know, how they were taking the experience and what their future held for them. I saw a picture while here, Dennis Tojo?

RP: Bambauer.

MT: Yeah, Bambauer, and I remember Dennis so well.

RP: What do you remember about him?

MT: That he had a hard time here. Looking, you know, visitors may come to the Shonien, they wonder what he was doing there. And when he told them his, one of his parents was Japanese, that's why he's in the orphanage. But Dennis had a hard time here at times, I think.

RP: Did you spend a little time with him?

MT: Oh, yes, I spent time, yes.

RP: Give him a little extra attention?

MT: Yeah. I'd be more or less being here, playing with them, guess you call it general counseling if you want to put a professional word to it. I don't know, Mr. Matsumoto would say, or Mrs. Matsumoto, but the other person we worked with there was Marvin Crites, I don't know, that name, Marvin was a Brethren teacher.

RP: Church of the Brethren?

MT: Church of the Brethren. Red-head, red-head, big stocky man with red hair.

RP: And how did you spell his last name?

MT: C-R-I-T-E-S, Crites.

RP: C-R-I-T-E-S. Had he come in early, too?

MT: Yeah, he came in as a teacher. I think he came as a physical ed. teacher, because he was built like that. He was a big man. Yeah, he came in... and his wife. So he worked with the Shonien.

RP: The Matsumotos.

MT: Yeah.

RP: And what other impressions did you have of how the kids were handled and what was provided for them from your perspective?

MT: Yes, of course, they were in some sense isolated because they were, you know, those were Shonien kids. The unit wasn't in and among everybody else, but the Shonien kids, you knew where the Shonien kids lived, because that's where they lived right there in that complex. So it put a little bit of a stigma on those kids, that they were Shonien kids, Shonien girls, you know, and boys. And they, for that sake, they had to stick together to get their own support for each other. So they pretty much stuck together. Although if I recall rightly they had competitions, they had athletic competitions like basketball, they played, had competition with some team outside of the Shonien. They were known as the Shonien team.

RP: They were?

MT: Obviously, yes.

<Begin Segment 8>

RP: Jack, tell us a little bit about your involvement with the church. What ways did you use your faith to help others in the camp?

MT: Mostly we felt the need to, those who were interested, to set up, if you want to call that, opportunities for people to worship. To gather together to worship, to have a church community of our faith, the Protestant faith. Not only because the Catholic church was also offering that, and also the Buddhists were, and that's fine. And we felt that the Protestants, we should offer also an opportunity for those who were of the Protestant faith, who were to come together to worship, to have fellowship, and to have a sense of identity with each other. As I remember, my immediate responsibility in those areas was to help others begin to have that feeling, a sense of that need for gathering for worship and for fellowship, and for exchanging their points of view. And to honor each other, to have the strength for the living of these days that they were passing. We all were going through change, and we needed, I always thought we needed each other more than anything as we went through this kind of change and so forth. And so it took us a little while to set up a council of church people interested to provide worship and so on.

And so I do remember that it was at, I think, a Christmas Eve service, and I only had one because only one Christmas. But Christmas Eve, sure, I think it, must have been Christmas Eve service, that we set up in the afternoon, three o'clock, maybe, and we worked hard to get soloists, letters, used people to read scripture, and even do drama, some of the Christmas concepts and so on, little drama presentation, nativity scene. And this was scheduled at three o'clock, and around two, a sandstorm came up, real heavy sandstorm. Well, you've been here, just couldn't see anything. So the question was, what should we do? Should we cancel? What should we do? So we finally said, oh, we're going to do it. We're going to go, and we're not going to cancel, we're going to just go ahead. Whoever will come will come and we'll celebrate the Christmas story in whatever way you could. Well, the place was full. [Laughs] I remember that, the barrack was just full, just completely. And though the storm was, sandstorm... it sent another message in terms of, in the midst of this storm of Manzanar, we seek a faith that will carry us through. That's what the birth day, the Christmas birth day is about, in terms of life's problems. And so I'll always remember that.

And not just that service, but putting just, having people come and be with one another and be strong, helping, supportive, through this time, help was an important thing the church needed to address. I think after being in the ministry fifty more years or so, I'm speaking it in a more mature way, so to speak. But back there, I was just a kid, nineteen, and I was just trying along with everybody else. And I'm sure my conversation was pretty much academic and not very professional, so to speak. But the experience was very memorable to me.

RP: Were you in, you had responsibility for Sunday services, regular services?

MT: Yes.

RP: And what was that? Did you help organize events?

MT: Yeah, we organized the service, we organized, we were to participate, and there was a committee of us, a committee of people. And oftentimes the participation revolved around those people being, who were interested in forming a partisan chapel or whatever, and was interested, would be the one who would provide the leadership until we began developing more interested people.

RP: Did it take a little while for things to catch on like regular services? Were people a little hesitant at first to come?

MT: Oh, yes. You didn't know just who, you know, was...

RP: You've kind of got to get your name out there.

MT: Yeah, right. You know, who was Protestant, whatever, you just didn't know was, 'til you were able to make the services available, and who came. And then you say, "Will you tell the story on? And next Sunday we're having the service at three, you have to pass the word on."

<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.

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RP: Tell us a little bit about leaving the camp and how the process developed that you were able to relocate from Manzanar, just briefly.

MT: After all the papers were run through and everything, regulation that was given, Mary's sister was talking about the fifth, something like that, she went to Drake, and she was my contact person at Drake, so that was, you had to have that contact person in order to, even to talk about being released. And Florence was my contact person. So with her helping at Drake, and with the administration at Drake, and her help there, I could make the connection with the authorities here, get approval to go, to be accepted at Drake, which I was.

RP: Right. And you said that immediately after you got into the camp, you wanted to leave. Did you entertain other ideas of how that was to be accomplished, or did it take a little while before this whole idea of going to Drake gelled? I mean, did you want to leave the camp and continue your education?

MT: Well, there were three ways you could leave camp. One is join the army, and one was to become a sugar cane worker, or...

RP: Sugar beet.

MT: Sugar beet worker, and also if you wanted to become a student. I'm sure there other ways, but those things come to mind. But I've always wanted to be a student in something, and that's something I wanted, I chose to get out of camp. It's something that was a part of who I was becoming in terms of my own life and career in the ministry, and I knew that I required education. My opportunity came when Florence made that kind of opportunity possible by being my connecting person, and then eventually the Quaker group in Des Moines, who also became one of my connecting supports.

RP: What did they provide in terms of support and assistance to you coming out of Manzanar?

MT: Well, adjustment. They provide room and board if you needed that, they provided employment, opportunities for employment. Then they had places where they could recommend employment. And just being someone supportive of who you are, because not everybody was supportive. So it was always good to have our Quaker friends being who they are and always have been in terms of social justice, peace in the world.

RP: And can you kind of lead us through, you were able to graduate from Drake? How long did you stay there?

MT: No, then I went to seminary from Drake.

RP: From Drake, okay.

MT: I was ready from Drake... oh, Mary and I were married in Des Moines, and the young man you saw here, he was born in Des Moines, he's our oldest son.

RP: So did Mary eventually relocate out of Manzanar to Des Moines?

MT: Yes, I found her a job in Manzanar, I mean, in Des Moines, and I helped her relocate to Des Moines.

RP: And then you went on to seminary school, did you say?

MT: Seminary, to Rochester, New York.

RP: And then you were able to start with a church as a pastor?

MT: Yes, I served as student pastor while I was at seminary, and after I graduated seminary I stayed on as the pastor. And I was in New York, state of New York for about twenty years before I received a call to California, to Santa Cruz. And I served another twenty years here in California, and about seven, six, seven years in Oregon before I retired.

RP: What is it like coming back to this place for you today?

MT: Well, it brings back a lot of memories, of course, and along with us is my grandson and his, our great-granddaughter. She was outside, she's two, and we were down to the, taking pictures at the cemetery, and she was playing around in there. And I said to Aaron, "I pray and hope that for Kayli, this will always be a historic place, nothing else." I mean, I'm just saying that I don't want Kayli to have to experience anything like this. We need to work hard and be sure that the next generation of kids will not...

<Begin Segment 11>

RP: And what do you -- we'll finish up here, Jack. But how did Manzanar shape your life, your future? What did you take from Manzanar that you incorporate into your life as a divinity student and then becoming a pastor? Do you preach some of the lessons and stories of Manzanar to your... tell us about that.

MT: Okay. When I left Manzanar and went to those guard centers down there to those two, what do they call those, guardhouses? And the sentries were both standing there, and I walked through, and without saying you can't, and I was free to go out to the other side of the street, other side of the highway to catch a bus. I wasn't being taken in, I just walked across the highway and stood there and waited for the Santa Fe bus. Not the Greyhound, it didn't come that way. Santa Fe bus came, red bus, commercial bus, going to take me to Reno. And as I stood there, Mary, my mother and dad, were standing on the other side. And up the way a little bit were the Shonien kids who had come, and they were all pressing against the barbed wire, and I could see them. And when I got on, the bus came, and I got on the bus and walked to the back of the bus to get the back seat so I could look out the window, and everyone was waving, and the Shonien kids particularly were all pressed against the barbed wire fence waving. And I said, "As long as I'm alive and happy, energy, this will never happen again." I meant that in my ministry, eventually got to be a ministry of justice, and that we have to be just and loving, kind and good, and overcome our differences in a peaceful, positive way. So we don't be putting... I don't know, putting kids who had no parents, orphans, into that situation. So that's what I told them. And I think that's always been there, that presence, in my ministry, in there, I think. I felt it had to be a ministry of justice and right.

RP: Well, thank you so much, Jack, for sharing your time.

MT: Well, thank you.

RP: It's a real honor to have you here, and hearing the stories was really powerful.