Densho Digital Archive - Jean Matsumoto Interview (denshovh-mjean-01-0015)

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KL: This is tape three, continuing with Jean Matsumoto. And I just wanted to ask you a little bit about, you said you had been back to Minidoka on one of the pilgrimages? What was that like?

JM: Well, besides the ride being a beautiful, it was a beautiful day and driving along in a charter bus along the Columbia.

KL: Was it a group from the temple that you went with?

JM: No. The annual group... I don't know who, if it's part of JACL or what, but Dr. Connie Masuoka always heads the group. And some people drive themselves, some people fly to Boise, and that particular year, they took the Minidoka Swing Band, which Robbie Tsuboi established here in Portland. And so they play all that nostalgic music of the '40s. So they were going to take them, and there was room for about... they and young people that danced with a group. And there were, was enough space for about a dozen people to go, and for I think a hundred dollars (round trip) you could go on the bus, and that's the easiest way for me to go, is with the charter. And so my sister and I went. We realized how far out, 'cause even from Twin Falls, it's quite a drive, and right now there's not much there except there's a few remnants of buildings that they had to tell us what this was and what that was. But it really was... and I think right now there's a lot more foliage growing in the area, but it was, when you think it was really all deserty. And there was a dust storm when we were there, too, and so it's still having dust storms. It was very nostalgic going back into the little apartment that we, was the one we lived in.

KL: Where was that?

JM: That was... the barrack, the one barrack that they have set up, and as you know, the barracks were set up for three people on the ends, and six people, families, next to that, and the two center ones were always for four, four-people family. And if you had a large family like the Muramatsus, you've got both apartments, so that you could have up to nine people living in there. But it really was very much like the barrack was back then. I noticed, the first thing I noticed was no insulation, but you know, I wouldn't have paid attention to whether there was insulation when I was in camp.

KL: You said you first started to think differently about this event when you were around your mom's age, maybe late 1960s?

JM: Yes, about how hard life must have been for them. Because we had no running water in the units, and someone had said we were, everyone carries some kind of psychological scar from the experience, and I said, "Who, me?" [Laughs] I just had a ball; it was fun. And then one day, somebody was talking about the bathroom facilities and the shower facilities, and I said, "I don't think I ever took a shower or went to the bathroom, because I can't remember one thing about it." And then some fellow said, "I remember what the women's bathrooms were like." They evidently had bored a hole through the... and they used to peek into it. So he said, "I know what the bathroom facilities and the showering facilities for the women were." But it must have been so, I don't know. I think it's because I was the age where you just realize, your body. And so like I said, to this day, I cannot remember. I remember the laundry room... no recollection. I think I blocked that out.

KL: Do you think it was that person's comment that got you thinking again about the trauma or the scars?

JM: Yeah. I don't think I ever even thought about it, then all of a sudden I realized one day when I went back, I think we were talking about the camp experience at Legacy Center in a group. And I thought, oh my gosh, I can't remember anything about what it was like.