<Begin Segment 15>

KL: There's another man named Joseph Kurihara, who was friends with Harry Ueno, who was a leader and a speaker in Manzanar. Did you know Mr. Kurihara?

MN: I heard his name, yeah, but I don't know. They were, we weren't friends or anything.

KL: They were both, Kurihara and Ueno were very involved in an uprising in December of 1942, the Manzanar riot, a lot of people call it.

MN: Yeah.

KL: What are your memories of the Manzanar riot?

MN: I know two people died, killed, was killed by a soldier. But I remember everybody... nothing happened in the daytime. When it gets dark everybody gets together and start yelling, and started the riot. We were afraid, so we just stayed home. But Mr. Ueno, he was the one, kind of head of those things.

KL: Yeah, he was very involved in that. Do you remember -- after, right after the Manzanar riot there were people who left Manzanar for Death Valley and other people who were put in jail in Independence and Lone Pine -- do you, did you have friends who were in either of those groups, or knew people?

MN: No, I don't. Not too many.

KL: What was it like in the days right after the riot?

MN: It was quiet. It was sad people died, two people died. But they, then they were not Block 22. One lived in next block, 21, Block 21. But it was very quiet. Only one night there was a lot of stone throwing and screaming, but only one night.

KL: What did you, what made you afraid? You said you were scared so you stayed inside.

MN: I guess it's a kind of riot, so scary.

KL: You and your husband both were Kibei.

MN: Yes.

KL: Did you, what was it like being Kibei in Manzanar? Sometimes --

MN: Well, first you have to learn English. Nisei, born... my sister-in-law, they didn't go to Japan, so they were Nisei, spoke English and everything. But we had to learn Japanese, I mean English.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.