Densho Digital Archive - Jean Matsumoto Interview (denshovh-mjean-01-0016)

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KL: Did your parents talk about it after coming back?

JM: Never talked to my parents about it. They just accepted what was, was, and I have a few friends who were pretty bitter about the experience, because when they came back, they were so poor and things were really rough on that family. But Mom and Dad never mentioned any bitterness (after camp). And we had good food to eat. A little bit warmer, I think we used to heat the hotel rooms with something in the middle of the room that kind of smelled when I was... I don't know what they burned for heat, but there was no central heating in the hotel, which was called St. George's Hotel, which was very appropriate since Dad was still called George. And then when we lived at the Kamm Apartment also, it was K-A-M-M, and there was a prominent family in Portland, the Kamm.

KL: Oh, I spelled it C-A-M when I wrote it.

JM: Oh, no, it's K-A-M-M, and I believe there's a Kamm House or something, there was something. And I just said, "Oh, no, that stands for Kametaro and Mikiye Matsumoto. How appropriate was that?

KL: When you started thinking about it more again and having these conversations, did it change the way you thought about this country or about yourself?

JM: No, no. I talked to a group of children at a school once, and they asked, one little boy asked me, "Were you scared?" And I said, "Never scared. I had Mom and Dad were there, once I got camp, my grandparents were there, and some cousins were there. I was never scared, never frightened about anything." And the other question I got asked and I had to think about was, "How come most of the Japanese Americans are Democrats when it was a Democratic president that put you into...?" And I said, oh, I finally figured out, nobody voted in those days. I don't think our parents could have voted, so...

KL: They weren't citizens.

JM: So they didn't know the difference between Republican and Democrats. That made sense to me, but I've had a few questions like that. But I really had to think about, you know, I really never was... and we weren't really rich, but, you know, we had everything we needed. Not all the cashmere sweaters that some of my friends had going to high school.