<Begin Segment 21>

KL: Well, I have just sort of two big picture wrap up questions, and then if there's anything I've left out, I definitely want to hear it from either of you. But one is just to you, what is the significance as Manzanar? And there's many ways you can answer that, but for you personally, what makes that a significant place?

JO: It makes it a significant place because it was a time when citizens were denied their civil rights. Our rights were taken from us, we were not free, not only our rights, but future, everything that was taken from us. And I'm not speaking of me personally, but my parents, citizens who are older and who are really impacted by having had to go to camp for three years and denied their freedom. And I think I have to emphasize the civil rights as the basic thing being denied. I tell that to schoolkids. You know, when you're denied your civil rights and you're denied your freedom, you're really an American citizen, and you should be allowed your rights, and they're not taken away by the government. Of course, they have since apologized, but still, Manzanar is that symbol of this could happen again. Because there's no law that prevents it from happening again. And I think it's interesting that I saw on Japanese television -- and this is NHK -- a documentary with Oliver Stone, I don't know if you've seen that, but he refers to, he goes to Hiroshima, Nagasaki, goes to the, Vietnam, and he goes to other places in Southeast Asia, and he said that we should always be aware of these places so that this could never happen again, and he referred to the relocation, called it "relocation." But I didn't see the whole beginning of the film, and I'm really wanting to see the whole thing, and I'm thinking maybe it'll be repeated again. But I think it was a special documentary.

KL: Well, you answered both of my questions with that answer. [Laughs] So were there things that you wanted to hear about, Whitney? Were there things that you wanted to talk about that didn't come up?

JO: Oh, I think I've said everything. [Laughs] I think I've said everything in my head that I could possibly say, in my memory, I think I've included almost everything.

KL: Well, it was... I probably have told you this story before, but it was really exciting for me to have the first conversation I had with you on the phone. I kind of got off the phone and hung up, and was like, wow, I've really arrived. I've just spoke on the phone with someone who was photographed by Ansel Adams, lived at Manzanar, she's agreed to let me come in person and conduct an interview with her. I went home and called my parents, so it's been great for me to get to do these interviews with you, and I know the National Park Service really appreciates your spending the time and sharing your story.

JO: I should have told you the names of the two girls that I knew in camp.

KL: Go for it.

JO: Her name was... the lady that moved to Salt Lake City, her name was Alice Aramaki, and she married and her last name is Endo now. Alice Aramaki Endo, and she lives in Birmingham, Alabama.

KL: Oh, really?

JO: Yeah, and I contact her every year at Christmastime. And the other lady is Kazuko Akahoshi Watanabe, and she lives in Monterey Park. I think Monterey Park, yeah. But she stayed until the end of camp, where Alice left with her family to go to Utah.

KL: And they were contemporaries of yours?

JO: Yeah, they were my friends that I played with. We played pinochle together, I learned how to play pinochle, and played whatever, whatever other games, outdoor games, paper dolls, did a lot of paper dolls.

KL: Did you make your own?

JO: Yes, made our own costumes. Now, dolls we got, like I got Brenda Star and some other doll, cardboard dolls, and then we made them clothes out of paper and crayons.

KL: And you're still in touch?

JO: Yeah. Actually, I've been in touch with Alice all along, but Kazuko I met at a reunion, a Manzanar reunion in '95, I think it was. I went with my parents, and my sister and I went. I don't remember when the reunion was, it was at... oh, Bonaventure. it was at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown L.A. And I went looking through the directory, and I said, "Oh, I wonder if somebody I know... because I didn't know anybody. And then I found her name, and so I said, "Oh, she's here." [Laughs] So, and then, that was the first time we got in touch with each other.

KL: And she was back in California, too.

JO: Yeah, she's been here all along. But we don't go to the Manzanar school reunions because it used to be high school reunions. Although she was two years older than me.

KL: Yeah, now they've even dropped the school part, it's just Manzanar reunion. Well, good, yeah, I'm glad you thought of those. Birmingham is... Alice has seen some travel, California to Manzanar to Salt Lake City and ending up in Alabama.

JO: Yeah, she married a traveling salesman, I guess, and ended up in Birmingham, and then got left there. So she just made her life there. She goes to Japan often because her daughter lives in Japan, but she has two sons who live in the southern part of the United States, North Carolina or someplace, South Carolina.

KL: People's lives are kind of amazing.

JO: That's it.

KL: That's it, are you sure?

JO: Yeah. Well, I thought, gosh, I have to include them, because they were my friends for two years, a little over two years, actually. And the other girls I met I don't even remember. I mean, I had girls in my class, and I don't remember any of them. Isn't that awful?

KL: You were young, and some people stand out.

JO: Yeah, it was just my friends from Block 12.

KL: Well, thank you, Joyce.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.