Densho Digital Archive - Kazuko Miyoshi - Yasuko Miyoshi Iseri Interview (denshovh-mkazuko

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KL: What do you think about... how do you think that places like Manzanar and Heart Mountain and Crystal City and any of these sites should be treated? Do you think there's a role for those places in people's memories?

YI: I think it's really important. Because while we were standing there, these people said, "We never knew this happened." And these kids, their children were there, we were at the mess hall, you know, they had the actual reproduction, and they said, "Were you here?" and I said, "Yes, I lived this." And they said it wasn't in their history books. I think they were from Texas, and so they knew nothing about it, and they marveled, I mean, that they had lived their lives... they were adults and not had heard of it even. So it was really nice. And then we went to San Jose? Joe, what was that museum?

KL: Japanese American Museum of San Jose?

YI: Yes. I want everybody to see that quilt. Had you seen it?

KL: I don't think I did see it.

YI: Oh, my gosh. It's about camp, internment, and it has it in segments. And I wanted your museum to get this quilt and exhibit it. It's outstanding, I mean, it just gave me goosebumps to see it, it was done so well. And it's pretty big, it's like a floor to ceiling kind of thing.

KL: What is the content? You said it's in sections?

YI: Yeah. And what it was was a teacher in, where, Joe, Kansas? Someplace...

Joe: It was Ohio or somewhere.

YI: Someplace in the Midwest, knew nothing about, and then they studied it, and then they made this quilt, and it was really impressive. I think that a lot of people would really enjoy seeing this because it's done so well. And to think it's children, it's kids.

Joe: There's the names of the 100th Battalion on there, too.

YI: Yeah, everything pertaining to the Japanese involvement in World War II is pretty much on there.

KM: Joe's brother George, the barracks reproduction is in the museum in L.A., and there's a little block with a story about George, who, you guys were going to Heart Mountain, and they said you can pack whatever is precious to you, so he ran home and got his baseball mitt, because that was precious to him. And he was 442 also.

YI: He actually worked on that, bringing plank by plank from Heart Mountain, that original barrack that was in...

KL: George did?

YI: ...the museum here, yeah, in L.A. He actually worked on that, dismantling the one up there in Heart Mountain to bring it here.

KM: So he should be interviewed, too.

YI: Are you doing all of them?

KL: All the ten thousand people?

YI: No, all of the different camps?

KL: Oh, the camps? Yes. And another story that I think is important to include is the people who left the West Coast without going into the camps, who went to, relocated to Utah or whatever, or some cases Japan. I mean, I talked to one man whose father took their family to Japan in 1940 on one of the last ships out because he had a feeling that things were gonne be bad and he moved them to Japan.

YI: Well, yeah, there were a lot of those that believed that Japan was gonna win the war.

KL: More stories, or the military story, anybody who was affected by Japanese American removal in a significant way is part of the context and the story. So yeah, we do interview people from other camps or other closely related experiences. And people, you know, it's an Owens Valley story, too, it's the story of what happened locally. And so we interviewed people who have connections locally both to the camp or to the Paiute story of that place, or the story of the orchard community that was there from 1905 on, or the L.A. story, the story of the water is significant to the site of Manzanar even.

KM: Well, they're finally returning some of that water to the Owens Valley, because they took it, Mulholland.

KL: So it's a broader collection than just Manzanar Relocation Center stories, but that certainly is why it's a National Historic Site and what the bulk of the collection is. My last question, and then I'll kind of let you go, and if you have other questions for me or Jim, you can ask them. But you think it's an important thing to remember, and I'm curious what you think we gain by remembering, why is it important to remember, and also if there's anything to be gained by forgetting, or by not talking about it. So why is it important to remember Manzanar?

YI: So it doesn't happen again.

KM: But also it's part of the story of the valley, Owens Valley. From Paiutes on to us. It's a history, and we should never forget history.

KL: Why not?

YI: I just hope it's still, they do get it in the history books --

KM: Why not? So they don't repeat their mistakes --

YI: -- so that kids...

KM: I like history; I think it's important for your progeny to not repeat and do more damage.

YI: How many stories have you had?

KL: Close to four hundred. We've recorded close to four hundred interviews, and we have some written recollections from other people, too. But through this oral history program there have been close to four hundred interviews done. Yeah, and some of them have been with groups, there's a really wild one from the group of people who worked in the hospital. So it's kind of been... different people have worked with it, and different theories over the years. Some of them are more free-flowing conversations, some of them more structured.

YI: Did you ever hear about this from somebody else?

KL: I haven't, but I've only been working there for about a year and a half.

YI: Oh, okay.

KL: So I've interviewed... I've been interviewed in the last, say, close to forty interviews in one way or the other.

KM: Who's that famous said, "Nisei are people who know that camp doesn't mean tents and fishing." We go through a whole list of what camp was. Because my friend Eleanor is from Buffalo, New York, and Sylvia from the East Coast and Florida, they never knew.

Off camera: We didn't know anything about it.

KM: And so Eleanor says, "Why did Kazy's mother send her to camp in December?" [Laughs]

KL: How did that, what were their responses when you answered that question? What have been the responses of significant people in your life you didn't know?

KM: That they had never heard of it. They were worried about Germans, because they were on the East Coast. The Japanese didn't mean anything.

Off camera: Also nobody had heard... we didn't know about it, nobody ever said that these camps existed. So when my family comes from Florida, I drag 'em out to Manzanar so they'll know.

KL: Sylvia was saying she grew up in Florida and she had never heard about this. And so when her family comes to visit, she drags them up and shows them Manzanar so they'll know.

KM: And then they learn something new, and they share. Their friends come out and they go out to look at it, too. Because I remember the goon box, I mean, the sentry building, the sentry house.