Densho Digital Archive - Sachiye Okamoto - Miho Shiroishi Interview (denshovh-osachiye

<Begin Segment 27>

KL: Well, this is my last question, and then I want you guys to add anything that I've left out. I'm so glad that you wanted to do this interview and that you did think it was important, and I'm curious about why you think it is important to tell your story, your parents' story, and to do interviews like this. What do you think the importance of talking about Manzanar is?

MS: Oh, I think, still, a lot of people don't know. And just looking in the papers and comments to the editors, I mean, you know that they have it all wrong, after all these years, what happened to, and how we ended up at Manzanar or the other nine camps. So with education, I think it was good that they'll know what really happened.

SO: Well, I just wanted it to be known that, for what the Isseis went through, well, like our parents... I mean, maybe some other people that have gone through something like that, they would be so full of hatred and, "Why me?" that I just wanted to do it because of our parents and what they instilled in us, that they were so proud to be Americans, that's why I wanted to do it.

MS: Yeah, even in camp they were constantly telling us, you know, about being good citizens.

SO: Good Americans. "Because this is your country. This is your country."

MS: Even if they said nothing else about our experiences, that they instilled in us. Still a great country, and be good American citizens.

[Interruption]

KL: Have I left -- I said we could talk for five more hours, but have I left anything out that you really wanted to include in this recording?

MS: I think you got everything. I have, what, six grandchildren, and you have...

SO: Six.

MS: Six, and they're all, they call themselves "half and half." [Laughs]

SO: Hapas, really.

MS: And even that, too, in itself, I mean, before I knew friends that were half and half, and they were very ashamed, because people made them feel ashamed. But now these people are very proud of it, which is good.

SO: And what I want you also to know, there's a lot of people that are bitter about what happened to them, and we're not like them. There are so many that were bitter, and we weren't brought up that way.