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-01-0017

<Begin Segment 17>

KL: Were you involved in redress at all?

JM: Well, I was a member of, active as a secretary for the Japanese American Citizens League at the time that we got sent. And if it was the time when Dr. Jim Tsujimura was president, and he was very active here in Portland with the redress program, if I remember correctly.

KL: So you were kind of keeping up with those developments?

JM: So I knew it was going on, but again, I knew there were some people who didn't want redress brought up because they would bring up bad feelings about... I guess I knew there were some families that might have been, that might have lost, you know, young men in the war in the Southeast, and some that I heard of, horrible stories of having been in the service.

KL: Who were, like, in the 442nd, you mean?

JM: No, the Caucasians who fought in the area of, like, what was it, they had the march, Bataan? And Iwo Jima and that area, and you know, I worked with them. And they never, ever... I didn't feel like they treated me any differently because I was Japanese. I think even where I live now, there's a whole bunch of veterans, World War II.

KL: What were your thoughts about redress?

JM: Oh, well, I think I wrote that I was grateful to be getting twenty thousand dollars, that was something we wanted. I wonder if I was making twenty thousand dollars a year at the time. So to be given that was, I was grateful for the money, but my main thing was it was too late for my dad. And if anybody deserved it, it was Dad. Mom was still alive, so she got it, but Dad could have really used it.

KL: Did your mom say anything to you when she got the letter?

JM: No, she was just grateful that she got it, but I don't think she really understood what it was for, except it was for, because of the three years in camp.

KL: That was telling the others, that question about whether it's good to bring up old wounds or to have that conversation, I think, is an important one.

JM: And I think people still hate to talk about it for fear of somebody, it might trigger somebody who is real bitter about having lost children. But then, when you figure that most of the... we have hardly, I don't think there's any Isseis of that generation, the ones that went to camp, alive anymore, and the Niseis are all ninety years old. And so I guess they're not that afraid. There were a few people even in Oregon that evidently someone in southern Oregon, a woman that used to always, quite anti-Japanese after. But you just never know when you trigger something like that. So I think we were all, people who were a little bit older were, didn't want to bring up the subject, didn't care if they got redress or not. And I think there's a little bit of shame of, for having been put in the camp, being in a camp, as if it was like an imprisonment, that you want to hide the fact that you were in prison, even if it was unconstitutional. And I think it was the third generation that went on to become... because a few, like Min Yasui was already a lawyer when he went against the curfew.

KL: Did you have any interactions with him ever, over the course of his life?

JM: I heard him speak, and I know his younger brother Homer, who is just a treasure, wealth of information, he's knowledgeable about a lot of things. So he's still active around Portland, but he has, he's been quite a historian for the Japanese community. George Katagiri was, but, and I think Hank Sakamoto, they're both quite knowledgeable. George Nakata even, for someone from my, is just a year (older), we were about the same age. He's really studied all about...

KL: Do you think there's value or things to be gained by people telling their stories or being public?

JM: Oh, yeah, it has to, because, you know, the main thing is "never again," is there any possibility... even when, I can't remember if it was from the Iranians or even the Iraq, you know. One time I heard they were, I think it was when the Iranians took the hostages, that emotions got fired up against them, and then, of course, against the Iraqis or Muslims.

KL: This is a segue, and this is the last question I'll ask before seeing if there's anything else you want to add, but over the... we're gonna keep this recording, you know, and people will watch it in the future, and I wonder if there's any lessons that you feel like, or any insight you feel like you've gained because of your experience?

JM: I think it's made me more... well, I've learned a lot more after I was out of high school, and more involved in the community. But I think the whole experience would make anybody a stronger person as far as having gone through it, because people ask you about, people always ask me, "Were your parents in camp?" and I say, "I was, too." And people apologize to me as if they were responsible, and I don't feel that they were. It was just the circumstances, and I think I understand more about what the word gaman, which Japanese are notorious for being able to survive experiences. I think it's just, from the time you're told, when you're little, you have to gaman about everything from shots to, you know, harder things that happened in life. But I think it's something that's... something good about the Japanese culture.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.