Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Jean Matsumoto Interview
Narrator: Jean Matsumoto
Interviewer: Kristen Luetkemeier
Location: Portland, Oregon
Date: July 10, 2012
Densho ID: denshovh-mjean-01-0012

<Begin Segment 12>

KL: I wanted to... you said you were involved in the Buddhist Fellowship in Minidoka, also. Was that pretty much...

JM: No, no. That was in, after I was in high school age, after.

KL: Were you part of a Buddhist church in Minidoka, or congregation?

JM: Yes, and we had a different, there were different sects of Buddhism, so we had a different Buddhist minister each Sunday. I think there were four, and they just took turns and, but it didn't matter, because even if they're a different sect, they're pretty basically similar enough that it really didn't matter.

KL: So everyone met together, but then their leadership --

JM: Yeah, so it was everybody, I mean, that was the largest group. I don't know, because Epworth Methodist was going on before the war, too, but they were even older than the Oregon Buddhist Temple. So they must have been meeting with, you know, the Seattle Methodist group, and the, what else, Tacoma.

KL: Where did you meet?

JM: In a barrack.

KL: It was pretty full.

JM: Oh, yeah. And sometimes, I think Hanamatsuri was outside. Is was just a whole bunch of folding chairs outside, if I remember correctly. But yes, there had to have been two, because Seattle group just alone would be just humongous.

KL: Was it a different barrack each week, or the same place?

JM: No, the same barrack. But I think that we went to the one on Block 34, and I'm sure it's the same barrack that we went to the movies on Saturdays. So those barracks must have held quite a few kids. Or they might have had one service for children and a service for adults.

KL: Either the leaders, these four people who would rotate leading the services or any of the other members of the congregation, did they speak about the removal or the incarceration?

JM: No. We just had Buddhist... and not... well, see, this must have been after some of the ministers were let out, because almost all ministers got taken by the FBI right after. And like Reverend Ichikawa never got reunited with his family until they took them off to Crystal City or something like that. But, so we did have Reverend Terakawa and Reverend Henjyoji at the time that I remember. And I think Reverend Terao that I know. Probably Reverend Sugimoto, because he's the one that came back to Portland.

KL: Do you remember their absence in Portland? This is jumping back a little bit, but after the Pearl Harbor attack, do you remember your minister being gone?

JM: Being gone?

KL: Or were you too little?

JM: No, I don't. I don't remember. But it was Reverend Terakawa. And his family went to Minidoka, so I don't know why he... except that he spoke English, whereas I think a lot of the other ministers spoke only Japanese. But I think he was from Japan, but he did speak English.

KL: You may have been too little to notice this, but did you notice tensions in Minidoka between, you brought up people speaking Japanese or speaking English? You were just... Do you remember anything at all about the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" that people had to reply to?

JM: No, I don't. I don't remember anything about it, whether my parents had to sign or not.

KL: I want to hear about your recollections of leaving Minidoka, but is there anything about the camp that you wanted to talk about that I haven't asked?

JM: Gee, no. I'm that generation of kids who said it was a fun experience. Except afterwards, when we were the age that I really got more emotional about it, when I was the age of my mother, who I think was about... oh, gosh, must have been maybe late thirties. I was born when she was thirty, so if I was seven, eight, when I was in camp, she was only about thirty-eight. I think it was hard on anybody that was, certainly college-age students who had plans to go to college. Fortunately there were the schools in the Midwest that would sponsor students to go to school, to get out.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.