<Begin Segment 15>

KL: I meant to ask you, we were talking about this a little bit when you arrived, but I meant to ask you on tape about your visit back to Manzanar, too. Can you tell us about that?

RF: After I graduated from Marshall High School in Minnesota, and before college at the University of Minnesota, another friend of mine, (...) his name was Min Takimoto, and his brother was one of the early teachers of the Japanese language military school, which started in Camp Savage, Minnesota, later moving to Fort Snelling. So his brother brought him out to Minneapolis to finish his high school in Minneapolis, so he graduated the same time we did. So his mother was still in camp, so we both decided that we'd go back and visit. So all I remember is that we took the Greyhound bus from Minneapolis through the Dakotas, through Montana, through Idaho down to Utah, Salt Lake City, over into Nevada and finally down into Manzanar. And I don't recall how we got official approval to go in there, to go into the zone that's supposedly not available to Japanese, down into Manzanar, and how we got into Manzanar. And we stayed there in Manzanar for about a week, I guess it was. And then I don't remember how we got out.

KL: Did the camp seem different to you than when you had left? How did it feel?

RF: No, it seemed the same. It hadn't changed much at all to me, except that physically... well, I guess the people seemed more settled to me, and the school had developed further. They had a gymnasium there, and they had classrooms. They were still barracks, but they had classrooms. But everything was still very regimented, mess hall's the same, people's barracks the same, people's time and their interests were the same. It didn't change a lot to me.

KL: Do you remember people on the Greyhound with you responding to you guys?

RF: No, I don't think anyone ever approached us and said, "Who are you, what are you doing?" that sort of thing. For the most part, everybody was sleeping on the bus. The Greyhound bus stops every two hours in some spot so people can use the restrooms or get something to eat. So the most thing you remember is a long bus ride with a lot of stops disrupting your sleep, the hard seats. Very few people if any, I don't recall anyone stopping to talk to us on the way, even at the stops, even in the restricted zone. So I don't remember anything negative that happened. I'm surprised that we did it, how we did it. I'm surprised that we got in, got out, and then going out, I decided I wanted to stop and see my friend in Salt Lake City, which I mentioned to you where he lived and all, and then on to Heart Mountain which was in Wyoming, just south of the route to, back to Minneapolis. And I stopped at Heart Mountain. I'm not sure how I was able to get in and get out of there again, but it was not the restricted zone. But I don't recall at all. But it was a nice stop, because I was able to see my grandpa, my uncle, and my cousins, and some of our family friends.

KL: How had they fared there? What were their spirits like when you saw them?

RF: Of course, again like before, the place was different because of the environment. People were still, not much different, they were trying to make do and trying to live as best they could. That's about all I remember.

KL: Yeah, thanks for backtracking. It was interesting to hear from somebody who had left Manzanar and then come back.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.