Densho Digital Archive - George H. Morishita Interview (denshovh-mgeorge

<Begin Segment 36>

KL: You guys have kids, too, is that right?

GM: Two, no grandkids, though.

KL: Tell us who your kids are.

GM: Yeah, my son is fifty-three... fifty-four, excuse me. And then my daughter will be fifty-three this November. He lives in Hawaii, Kauai, that northern island. And then my daughter lives in the city, San Francisco. Two nice places to visit, I think. Yeah, I think after their mother died they came to Tucson, and I said, "All right, you guys, I'm not going to even buy me a grandchild, don't worry about it." [Laughs]

KL: When was that, when she died?

GM: She died in '99. Yeah, so it was about 2000 they came one time. I wanted the pleasure of spoiling a grandchild, you know. Because when you see all your... my mom and my father-in-law.

KL: Did you ever talk, or have you talked with your kids about your Manzanar experiences?

GM: You know, I think I shared a little bit. Because I know my daughter, there was a book written by a Chinese gal, a Chinese American gal, The Rape of Nanking. And my daughter read that, and she called me up from San Francisco, and I still remember she said, "Dad, I know you told me so much about the Japanese. But still, reading this book, I'm almost ashamed to admit I'm Japanese, that's how bad it is." And she said, "I know you told me all those things." I didn't pull no punches or whatever, I knew. So we might have talked a little bit about camp, but not that much. I know that my nephews and nieces, they said, "You need to record what you remember."

KL: Aha, they're on our side.

GM: But I take off, so I said...

KL: Well, we'd be glad to share, we'll send you a copy of the tape and we'd be glad to share it with them, too, if they want copies. Were you involved at all in the redress movement that occurred?

GM: Yes, yeah.

KL: What was your involvement with that?

GM: Oh, no, only thing is I got the money. I was involved in getting that for my wife in a way, because she's from Peru and not all Peruvians got it. And around that time, my mother-in-law was living with us, and I saw in the Pacific Citizen that it said on there, "Any Peruvians, if their green card shows that they were admitted July '44 or sooner," and I said, "Mama, let me see your green card." It said July '44. So I got the paper going for her, she got it, I found out. My wife, 1956, I said, "This is baloney." That's when we got married. Just by chance, my sister Jean, older sister, and she was living in San Francisco by this time, and she met a Peruvian lady by this age, and she connected me with this lady. And this lady was mad at the JACL. She said they just thought about, they didn't think about us and all that. And I forgot the head of the redress money, this guy from Washington, he made the rounds talking about it to the various Japanese groups all over, and supposedly when he came to San Francisco, this lady raised her hand, and he called her down, and he showed her exactly how to do it. So she told me what to do. I went down to the federal building in Tucson and got all these forms and filled it out, and my wife got it. I still remember that. Because they would ask questions, and I would just say, "What's wrong with you guys? Why are you asking that for? She couldn't have been a daughter at that time."

KL: Yeah, sent over.

GM: But then I found out, yeah, because my kid brother-in-law, when he was in Tucson with his mother at that time before my mother-in-law moved, and we read that article that it was approved, he says, "Damn you, George, if you guys get twenty, we should get forty." I said, "You know, Pete, you're right."

KL: Yeah, I was gonna ask what their response was to the settlement.

GM: Well, my kid brother-in-law, he just said, "If you get twenty, we should get forty," and I said, "You're right, Pete."

KL: What did Sets and your mother-in-law think?

GM: Well, they got it, so Sets and mother, I found out after I initiated the papers and then she moved to San Francisco to live with her other daughter, then I found out she got it. And then with this lady in San Francisco helping me, guiding me, and then Sets got it. Then I found out that Peruvians didn't get it otherwise. I thought, "Oh, my god." I'm not very good, I didn't go around telling people how to do it. There's not that, whatever you call that, organization of something. I don't know to this day if they all got it or not.

KL: Some people refused it because they didn't think it was adequate. Like your brother-in-law said, they wanted to keep working --

GM: But I read that they were offered five thousand.

KL: Right.

GM: Well, I could see where some of them might resent that. I mean, they were not even Americans, I mean, they were...