<Begin Segment 19>

KL: Where in here did you start to realize that your Manzanar experience was unique? I mean, you were a child when you were in Manzanar, and now you're a member of the Manzanar Committee, so I assume at some point...

JO: Oh, it was a long ways after that.

KL: ...your thinking changed.

JO: Actually, I didn't know anything, I did not know anything about what was going on. I got married in 1963, so it was before all of that, the pilgrimage started, even. I was not... I read about Warren Furutani in my mother's Rafu Shimpo, my mother used to get it, but I never really knew anything about it. I know he was kind of a rabble rouser, but that's all I knew. I didn't really follow along with what anybody did. And not until Wynne Benti wanted to reprint the book, did I even think anything about it. She contacted me and needed to get my approval, and so that's how that happened. And then she was telling me that, "Oh, I might not put your picture on it," and I said, "Well, that's fine. If you don't, that's okay. It doesn't make any difference to me one way or the other." Then when I saw how nice the book was, I felt kind of like obligated to do something. But still, you know, I didn't do anything.

But before that, before the book came out, I think it was in the pilgrimage of 2000, my father had passed away, and my son said, "I want to take Grandma to Manzanar," out of the clear blue. "I'm going to take her on this, to the pilgrimage."

KL: Had any of you been back?

JO: No. I wasn't even interested in going. "Okay, okay, I'll go with you." So, well, I would have to go with her, so we went. My father had passed away in April of 1999, so I don't think it was in April of 1999, because it was the first year that they started to honor all the camps. So the first camp was Amache, and the very last... Amache and the last camp, which was... which was the last letter of the alphabet? Tule Lake?

KL: Oh, probably. Probably Tule Lake.

JO: Tule Lake. Yeah, so I think it was Amache and Tule Lake. And she was at Keiro at that time, living at the retirement home. One of the board members was Tom Shigekuni, and he was from Amache. And so he, my mother, she loved talking to everybody, so she talked to him, and she was going to go to Manzanar, to the pilgrimage, and he said he was going to be there, he was going to be speaking about Amache. He says, so he says, "I'll look for you." So we went to the pilgrimage, and Tom shouts out from the stage, "One of the people that was here, she's a PE teacher, she's here. Is Yae Nakamura here?" (we shouted). "Yeah." And so then the park rangers came to her and wanted to talk to her, but after that pilgrimage, they didn't contact her at all. So time passed, she's no longer here. That was from 2000... she was all right to answer questions for a long time. Her memory was really good, and then that became, after about ninety-five, she was like ninety-one then.

KL: What was your son's response to being at Manzanar?

JO: Oh, it was just a plain desert area. We did stop by Block 12, the foundation there, we looked at the foundation, we checked things out. He took us all around, we drove all around, and we went to, even to Independence to see the museum there. And I think, on the way back, maybe even before we went, we also stopped and looked at the auditorium, and we talked to the rangers that were there, said, "Boy, this place really looks a mess." Because in 2000 it was really a mess, all kinds of stuff all over, everything looked really dilapidated. But, see, he's never been back.

KL: Your son? You were at the opening of the interpretive center and the auditorium, and I wonder about your memories of that day.

JO: Oh, I just really marvel at how wonderful it was, because the last time I had seen it, it looked so bad, so shabby looking.

KL: So was that your next time back, was in 2004?

JO: Yes. I don't think I came back after that.

KL: What was the mood?

JO: Well, I came with some friends... see, I really wasn't a dedicated Manzanar Committee member then. I had joined and I had done a few things, but I came with friends who wanted to see Manzanar, Caucasian friends. So we did, we looked all over, we went all over and looked, and it was very nice. I didn't really pay attention to the pilgrimage too much, I'm afraid. But I remember the book being out, you know, the book was out.

KL: When did you become... when and how did you become more involved with the Manzanar Committee?

JO: After that. After 2004, I... well, you know, there was a panel set up, I think, at Manzanar, or was it at the museum?

KL: There was a panel sometime around there at the museum.

JO: At the museum?

KL: I don't know if it's the same one.

JO: I think it was 2003, and I remember Dr. Hansen was... maybe that was afterward. There was an earlier one with Sue Embrey on the panel, and it was at the, I remember it was at the old museum part, it was at the old part of the museum. There was another one at the newer part with Dr. Hansen. But I just really did not do anything about the Committee until after 2004. I started going, and I started to see that Sue's health was failing, you know, she was getting weak. And so I thought, well, I'd better help a little bit, felt kind of bad, I wasn't doing anything hardly. Well, I was still working then, still worked until 2008. Until 2008 I just really attended meetings and stayed on the sidelines, and when I worked at the high school, I started talking to the classes there, world history class, and then the librarian there put my PowerPoint together. She dug up all the photographs from the archives, the Library of Congress archives, or our... what's that other one? The other one.

KL: The California one?

JO: Bancroft, the Bancroft Library.

KL: What school were you at?

JO: Los Alamitos High School. I still go there, and once a year they have me come and talk to all their history classes, and I've increased it to two teachers now, but they've been my loyal group. Most of the others don't care to have me back, I guess. But anyway, they have used my...

KL: What's been the response to those presentations? Are there any memorable questions students have asked or responses that stand out? How do people react?

JO: The kids, the kids all... they seem to really be interested, especially when I show them a PowerPoint, you see the pictures, the old pictures. I also, because I like to preface things with the background, I showed this video clip I took from a documentary that I won't name, and it really, in a short period of time, talks about how we were not able to, how Japanese were not able to become citizens, about the alien land law and about the exclusion act, and then EO 9066. And so I showed that to them, but I noticed that a lot of kids would sleep during this period. So I said, "You know what? I'm going to talk about it instead." Well, they sleep through it anyway. Some kind of will just put their head down and fall asleep. But anyway, I have since spread to other areas like the Los Angeles Academy with my Quaker teacher friend, who became a friend... I also helped him with getting money subsidized for a school bus, he's the one that drives the school bus up to the pilgrimage. And the kids just love it, they love going on the school bus. But they liked it even better when the bus broke down.

KL: I was gonna ask, they weren't the ones who broke down, were they? Oh.

JO: Well, a different class broke down, but they got to ride the coach. And when I went back to talk to them, they said, "We really like the bus we were taking to Manzanar." But then they had to wait a really long time for their bus to come for them.

KL: They did. Yeah, I felt guilty leaving the building that day, I recall that, because it took them a couple more hours.

JO: Yeah, seven o'clock or seven-thirty.

KL: Is it the first time most of the students have hears about this, or are they pretty knowledgeable?

JO: No, they've been coming. Every time you see the school bus there, they've been coming. And I think this year is the third year, because the first year I taught, he sent a bus, he went up with a bus, and I had asked the Manzanar Committee to donate money. And they also had applied for a grant. They got the money for the grant, but they didn't give the money to the guy because I then had my problem with my breast cancer, and I couldn't be there, and they didn't give him the money. They charged him, they gave him three hundred dollars, and they charged him two hundred dollars for lunch, so that left him a hundred dollars, and the school bus cost him nine hundred, and he used his own money out of pocket. Oh, he got some money from one of the city council people that was two hundred and fifty dollars, so he then used the rest of the balance from his money. So I was kind of upset with that, especially after they got the grant, and they didn't give him the money. And I didn't know, you know, I didn't realize that, I didn't keep track of it because of my health problems. So anyway, then after...

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.