Densho Digital Archive - Yoshino Grace Fukuhara Niwa Interview (denshovh-nyoshino-01-0009)

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AL: Do you know how the whole workshop started and when it started in terms of becoming a Manzanar, Henry Fukuhara's Manzanar watercolor workshop? Do you know when he started doing that?

YN: I don't know the year he started, it's about sixteen years ago. And I guess he had this idea, and so he came to Manzanar on the pilgrimage bus, and someone met him and took him around. And not only Manzanar but other places in the area, and I think he already had the idea then that that was what he wanted to do. Because he remembered it as a beautiful place, and he wanted to experience it, but also to learn about what Manzanar was.

AL: You said he remembered it as a beautiful place. How, could you elaborate on that?

YN: Well, the mountains. Despite the wind and severe conditions at times, it still, surrounded by the mountains, it's beautiful.

AL: So when you moved out here in 1968, usually people would count the first pilgrimage as being the first public pilgrimage as 1969, even though Reverend Wakahiro and Reverend Maeda were going for, since the '40s, Reverend Nakatomi. What about your own consciousness of Manzanar in terms of, as a place? Did you ever go on a pilgrimage, did you hear about the pilgrimages? I mean, how did you start getting Manzanar in your consciousness, or did you?

YN: I don't remember coming with my family. I know that my husband brought me. It was either... it was on our honeymoon, either, I think it was coming back. And we stopped at Manzanar, my husband used to fish and hike, backpack in the mountains. And so he knew it was significant for him because he went to school there, and he knew it was significant to me. And so we stopped there. That's really the first time I think.

AL: So it would be after your honeymoon?

YN: Yes.

[Interruption]

AL: This is Alisa Lynch, the second tape of an interview with Grace Fukuhara Niwa on the 6th of August, 2013. And we were talking about your first visit to Manzanar coming back from your honeymoon. So what was it like when you... what did you see there in 1969?

YN: The guardhouse was there, and the cemetery monument was there and not much more. A little bit of gardens, what was left, but really nothing.

AL: Do you recall any of your emotional reaction to going back there?

YN: No, I don't.

AL: You said your husband lived in Block 29. Could you just give us a little background on your husband and his family, his name when he's born, his parents' names, any just basic background information about his camp experience?

YN: My husband is Ujinobu Niwa. He was the older of two sons of Ujio Niwa and Haruko Niwa, and his younger brother is Ujiaki Niwa. My husband spent his high school years at the Manzanar high school. He graduated in the year, in the class of '44.

AL: Class of '44 is always interesting to me for Manzanar High, because it seems like, at least in previous years, the sort of movers and shakers of Manzanar High, and the people we always associate with, they're almost all class of '44. So when I interview class of '44 people, I always say, "What is it that makes '44 so special?" Because they're so much more involved in so many different things. Maybe not so much now because of health and time, but '44 seemed to be a very active, vibrant class.