Densho Digital Archive - Sumiko Yamauchi Interview (denshovh-ysumiko

<Begin Segment 26>

WP: And so they were living during the redress.

SY: Yes.

WP: What did they feel, what did they think about that?

SY: Well, like I said, my mother said, "No, I'm going to stay with my children." And my father said he wanted to go back to Japan. So my mother said, "If you want to go, go." He didn't; he stayed here. But nobody questioned him as to why he changed his mind.

WP: And so the redress in the late 1980s where there was the official apology that was given to everybody --

SY: I got mine. I got mine.

WP: What was your response to that?

SY: Well, you know, I went to a Kiwanis meeting, and they wanted to, they wanted me to talk about Manzanar. So when it came to question and answer, somebody came up and stood up and said, "As I understand that, you got some money from the government," and how did I feel about it? And I said, "If somebody gives me, no, if the government sends me twenty thousand dollars tax free, what would you do?" There was no more question on that. [Laughs] Yeah. It's a funny thing, though, my mother and father didn't get it because they were not American citizens. It was just the American citizens, I'm pretty sure. I don't remember my mother saying she got one.

WP: Yeah, my understanding was that it was everybody who was directly affected.

SY: I can't remember my mother ever saying whether she got twenty thousand. All I know is I got mine.

WP: Do you remember their response to you...

SY: Yes. I can't remember who it was. Was it George Bush?

WP: Reagan.

SY: Oh, was it Reagan? I have the letter and the apology.

WP: What was that?

KL: The apology came from George Herbert Walker Bush.

WP: Oh, okay.

SY: It was during that era, yeah.