<Begin Segment 22>

KL: I wondered if you, this is kind of later, as your children grew up, did they ever ask you about Manzanar or did you talk --

MN: No, we didn't, we're not the only family... everybody said the parents don't want to talk about it. Yeah, I didn't want to talk about it. All my friends say that their parents didn't want to talk about it either.

KL: Did your children ask you, or were they pretty quiet too?

MN: My son was very anxious, but my daughter, she didn't ask so much. But my son was really against what the American government did.

KL: How did he learn about Manzanar?

MN: Well, I guess he would talk to other people or read a book or something, because he was really helpful when we got the money from government. He did a lot of work, flew to Washington, D.C. and talked to people.

KL: Yeah, I would like to hear more about that. You said he was involved in redress?

MN: Yes, redress. He was very involved in redress.

KL: What was his role with it?

MN: Pardon me?

KL: What did he do for redress?

MN: Well going to Washington, D.C. to talk with President Reagan and all the congressmen, talk about it. And I have a, I'll show you a scrapbook.

KL: Hold on, hold on, we'll unhook you. Or actually, we'll look at it later.

MN: Scrapbook of all he did.

KL: Oh, I would love to see that. Did he tell you how the President responded, or people in Congress, what it was like to...

MN: Yeah, I guess they were nice, very fair.

KL: What did you think about his involvement and about the redress movement?

MN: I was very proud of my son. I always, always say it, but he's not the only one did it. There was other people got together.

KL: Did you think they would be successful, or were you surprised?

MN: Well, not, he's not so successful, but I'm very proud of him. He majored in, he graduated Berkeley and after graduation he came back to, at USC for the business administration, so he got master's. And he started UCLA for PhD, but when he was in UCLA he had a chance to go to Japan to practice, I mean learn Japanese. Japan Airlines, used to come back and forth... anyway, airplane fee, and Japanese Citizens League furnished the tuition. So he stayed there at the, called Sophia University in Tokyo. So he went to study there.

KL: What about your daughter? What is her work?

MN: She's not as active as my son, but my daughter went to UCLA and took sociology, so she was a social worker for thirty-eight years before she retired.

KL: Was, did she ask about the camps, or has she read about Manzanar too? Was she interested?

MN: Yeah, a little. Not too much. She was not even four years old when we came out. But not as much as my son. My son was really helpful, wanted to help everybody.

KL: How did it feel when you received the presidential apology?

MN: I felt good.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.