Densho Digital Archive - Marion I. Masada Interview (denshovh-mmarion-01-0017)

<Begin Segment 17>

KL: So there's a question in the book that I'll just ask this way, did you or your family experience major life changes in camp, births, marriages, deaths?

MM: Well, I was invited, my sister's friend invited both of us overnight to her barrack, and in the night her father molested me, and I was so traumatized that I just, I couldn't scream. Nothing would come out of my mouth. I wish I could've, then something could've been done. Maybe he molested other kids. When I think about it, I was just a kid, I was just ten, and so I didn't tell my mother.

KL: Where did they live?

MM: Well, I'd rather not say.

KL: I mean, were they close --

MM: Because then, then people who hear, see or hear my story, then they'll know who it is.

KL: Were they, was he somebody that you saw frequently in daily living after that?

MM: Well, I did see him, yeah. I mean, you can't help it, you know? You go to the same dining room and you're walking around.

KL: Was his treatment from other, do you think other people had a sense that this happened?

MM: Oh no, no, I don't think so. I really wished I could've screamed. It would've put a stop to it. But I couldn't. I mean, I was [freezes] like that. I couldn't, nothing would come out.

KL: How did you become able to talk about it?

MM: Well, this was years later, and in our church in Stockton we decided to have a day of remembrance, the Day of Remembrance, the day the President Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066, which is February 19. That's the Day of Remembrance that we all celebrate, or remember ever year. And so it was on one of the, I think one of the first ones that we held in our church, Calvary Church Stockton, and then we started to share our stories, I think, afterwards, and I said, I just came out and I said, "I was molested in camp." And I remember this because after I said this one of the young, one of the men in the sanctuary ran out of the room crying. He just let out a little, a little scream, I guess, and tears came out of his eyes and he just ran out of the sanctuary. That's what I remember, after I shared it with the congregation. And then from then on I started to share it because I felt it was important, and the more I shared it the less it was inside me, and it was out -- it's like spitting out something that's bothering you, phlegm or something like that, something that was not good. The more I told it the more powerful I got, and I felt strong and, and it was many years later, and I went to the Tule Lake pilgrimage and I said, "You know what? I don't see his face anymore." I used to see it, you know. When I thought about it, I used to see his face. And then I... get it out of my mind, or picture. And so I says, gee, after telling it so long now, it's no longer a memory, and I thought, gee, how powerful that is, to be able to tell, and it's my own thinking, how powerful that is, how important it is for those of us who experience traumatic things in camp, to tell it.

And I began to share it at Tule Lake. I happened to be sitting next to a very quiet lady, she was all by herself so I sat next to her, and we started talking, and then I started to share with her. And she says, "You know what? The same thing happened to me, and my father and mother said 'Don't tell anybody because you'll never be able to get married if you don't'," and things like that, because people know. It was a burden on her all those years, but she was able to share it with me, and I says, oh my goodness. I don't know, I was just led to share it with her, and she was relieved, so relieved. That's the only word I could say, not happy but relieved, that somebody else faced the same thing. Because there were a lot of girls who were molested in camp, but nobody talks about it. It's a, it's a, in Japanese we say haji, haji is shame. We don't talk about shameful things. Stupid, you know? Shameful things cause pain, and it's not good.