<Begin Segment 23>

KL: And you said you've been back to visit Manzanar before. What was that like?

MN: Well, nothing there, just, all the barracks are gone, everything's gone. Only thing left is the monument, and just a little house. But it was, brings back memory.

KL: Who did you go with?

MN: Bunch of people chartered a bus.

KL: Did you go with the church?

MN: No, I didn't go with the church, but a bunch of friends.

KL: All people who had been in Manzanar?

MN: Yes.

KL: Did you learn from each other? Did you hear things you didn't know?

MN: Yeah, most, a lot of people. Not everybody, but we used to live there together. They still have, once a year they have, they go busload. I don't know how many buses.

KL: For the pilgrimage?

MN: Yes, pilgrimage.

KL: So were you there during a pilgrimage?

MN: Uh-huh.

KL: I see. What year was it, do you recall?

MN: Huh?

KL: Do you recall what year you went? When you were there, was it 1990 or 2004 or...

MN: Yeah, a little after 2000, I guess. I went there about two, three times since I came out. Not lately, but my leg's no good.

KL: If someone is watching this who has never been to a Manzanar pilgrimage, what is it like? What happens at the pilgrimage and what is it like?

MN: It's interesting. Everybody gets together and they circle around the monument thing, then those, how do you call, the tanko bushi, they line up and they do the, like a folk dance. They all have a good time.

KL: What is the significance of that dance, of the tanko bushi?

MN: Tanko bushi. Well, the tanko is a coal mine, coal mine song. Coal miners used to sing that kind of song, I guess. It makes you happy. They do that on Nisei Week and every chance they get they do that. My son always loved it, like this. [Laughs]

KL: Yeah. I like that too. I've been three, to three Manzanar pilgrimages, I guess, and every time they do tanko bushi.

MN: Every time they, yeah, like that. Yeah, my son is better than me.

KL: Why do people like it so much? Why that --

MN: I guess it makes you happy, and togetherness.

KL: So how do you think that your experiences in Manzanar affected your later life? Do you think they affected your...

MN: Well, not too much. But I made of a lot of friends there, made a lot of friends. And the reason I became a Christian, my friend I met at Manzanar, she asked, she told us to come to church. Every occasion, she'd say, "We're having bazaar, you want to come?" So I used to go and... so believe it or not, she had twenty-five people baptized. She was, she and her husband were so good. After they became Christian, they were so thankful and they wanted to share their happiness.

KL: What was their name?

MN: Husband's name is Wataru Shimizu. They called, I guess American people called Willie, Willie Shimizu. Wife named Koto Shimizu. They were my neighbors in camp, Manzanar.

KL: And he was a minister?

MN: No, he was a businessman before he went to camp. After he came out the camp there's no business there, so he became a gardener like everybody else did. But he wasn't Christian back then. His wife became Christian first, then she made him Christian and he was so thankful for it later, so he did a lot of work to bring people to church.

KL: What is his wife's name?

MN: Koto.

KL: Koto, okay. Like the instrument?

MN: Yeah, like the same, same writing too.

KL: Okay. Yeah, sorry, I thought you were saying she played the koto. I didn't realize --

MN: [Laughs] Her name is Koto.

KL: And the church that they invited you to, is that the West Los Angeles United Methodist Church?

MN: Yes.

KL: Tell us a little bit about that church and its history.

MN: I don't know, before the war they used to, just a little, started out as somebody's house, by a few men. And pretty soon it became a church. But right now they have a beautiful church, built a few years back. They built a brand new one.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.