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KL: So we've mentioned your parents, your grandparents, Ben Kuroki, kind of a discussion about him, the gentleman who was shot whose name was James Wakasa. Were there any other people from your time at Topaz that were either leaders that kind of affected you indirectly, or close friends or any other people that stand out from your time there?

WI: Not so much my time there, but thereafter when we came back, and like a fellow named Fred Hoshiyama got the YMCA rejuvenated and got all of us in the community to attend. And I guess, again, it was a period where we were all so haphazardly coming back. Well, of course, the community was always afraid that we would all go wayward, because before the war, the parental guidance was very strong in our community. But after the war, now, they're all scrambling to try to reestablish themselves working as domestics and doing whatever they can, the kids are running around on the streets of San Francisco just unattended. Some guys like Fred Hoshiyama who reestablished the YMCA program, so we had somewhere to go to to learn sports and be involved in sports is good, and then eventually Boy Scout Troop 12 was formed, or reformed, let's see, 1947. So it was like two years after we came back that now we had structure with Boy Scouts. And then by then, a lot of the clubs according to age group would start forming their own basketball clubs and teams, playing against the other basketball teams. And I was a member of a group called the Barons, the San Francisco Barons. And to this day, we're still in existence. And next year we'll all be going up to San Francisco for our eightieth reunion.

KL: Will you play basketball?

WI: [Laughs] That I doubt. Shig would. Shig is eighty-two, he's a couple year older than me, he still plays basketball every week.

KL: Who is Shig for the tape?

WI: Shig Yabu is my partner in crime. We both grew up postwar San Francisco, and we were close friends. And we were in the Boy Scouts together, and then at the time of the draft, Shig volunteered for the navy and moved down to San Diego. I in the meantime continued my school and came down and went to Chouinard. And throughout the years, every five years, six years or something, we sort of get in touch with each other. But he was running the Boys & Girls Club of San Diego, he was the executive director of that club there. And so he moved up to Camarillo and then they formed the Boys & Girls Club of America there, and he became the director of that.

So anyhow, he always knew I loved drawing, he knew I was in the industry, so he contacted me in 1998, and he says, "I wrote a book," about his pet magpie that he had in Heart Mountain. And he says, "Would you be interested in illustrating it?" And I still had a year to go before I retired, so I said, "Oh, Shig, I'm so busy right now," found excuses to get out of it. But I said, "I'll tell you what, Shig, send me the manuscript and let me look it over," which he did. Then I finally retired, and one day I was in my office and I picked up the manuscript and I read it, I said, "Oh my gosh, this is about his adventure in Heart Mountain, and that's a subject that I would love to tackle." And so I got back to Shig and I says, "Hey, let me see what I can do with this." So I took the manuscript and I illustrated it and the rest is history.

And suddenly I just kind of felt, wow, maybe this is my calling. I should be doing these books reflecting camp stories. So in my retirement now, that's what I'm doing. And Shig is all excited, too, and he wrote the draft for A Boy of Heart Mountain, but we assigned it to a professional writer that I used to work with her Disney Studio. So she took A Boy of Heart Mountain, wonderful story, and made it a chapter book. And so now I'm working on Kimiko, and then I have...

KL: Why don't you tell us a little bit more about that project while we're on that?

WI: Kimiko?

KL: Yeah.

WI: Well, again, when I stood on the hallowed grounds of Topaz, I got sort of inspired. You don't hear too much about Topaz through all of these camp dedications and this and that. But having gone and actually experiencing Topaz after seventy years, it was quite an experience. So one night when I was laying in bed at the hotel in Delta, I started thinking about Topaz and the moving experience I had earlier that day.

KL: And what was that? We heard it but the tape hasn't.

WI: Yeah. Well, my docent, Jane Beckwith, says, "This is where your barrack was, 31 and 12, this is about where the unit was. And then here's C, this is, should be approximately where the front door is," but right now there's nothing there, not even an old foundation. It was just nothing. But that gave me a clear view of the Utah desert with the mountain range far in the distance. And I'm thinking, gee, I remember walking out there in the desert looking for arrowheads and seashells and things. But the adventure that I had, because the wind would come up and the tumbling weeds, and I thought that was really quite a memory that I'm enjoying. Then when that wind hit me, it was unlike any wind hitting me in the face that I have ever experienced. Not San Francisco wind, not Los Angeles wind, not Disneyland wind, it was just uniquely a Topaz experience. And I think that's what gave me the... suddenly I felt so inspired. So I just kind of stood there for the longest time with my memory just... and again, behind me were people taking pictures and people yakking and talking about camp, but I was kind of in a world of my own, just sort of experiencing this. And so I guess that night I thought, "I'm going to write a book about Topaz," or at least have Topaz as the central camp. So I wrote up a story, came home, put it down on paper. Well, I should have started well into it by now, but too much distractions.

KL: There's life, you know. [Laughs]

WI: It's not autobiographical, but I used certain things that was my own personal experience. And so hopefully the book will appeal to young girls. Hello Maggie! is, it could be boy or girl because it's basically a bird. Boy of Heart Mountain was this boy of Heart Mountain. So I remember the museum, JANM would call and ask, "Is this book good for girls to read, too?" because it says "boy." And I said, "Well, I think when you get into it, it's sort of bisexual." [Laughs]

KL: It works for anybody. [Laughs]

WI: But I think hopefully Kimiko will be our next answer.

KL: Yeah, I'm excited that you're working on it.

WI: Well, thank you, yes.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.