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KL: Okay, so this is tape four. We're continuing on, and it's September 10, 2014 with Marion Masada, and I asked you to just fill us in, 'cause you guys eventually found some really good treatment and ways for Charise to have a good life. I wondered if you would fill us in on that, just briefly.

MM: Yeah, she went to a hospital in Palmdale. They had a Christian therapy program, so she went there and got all the help that they could give, and then they transferred her to the Center for Living and Learning for adult mentally ill patients, and she was there for a while, five years, until she started getting worse instead of better. So when we visited her and we noticed she was getting worse, I said, "We're taking you out today. And you stay in the car, and I'm going to get all your things and clean out your room." And then we went to the office and we said, "We're taking her out today. She's not getting better, she's getting worse." So now we took her back to Stockton, and then I said, " Charise, we need to enroll you in the mental health center so that they'll know you're here and not in Palmdale anymore." "Okay." So that gave the director there -- who happened to be Japanese -- he said, "Okay, I'm going to observe her from the back and see if she needs to be admitted." And he went like this [nods], and they got two football player sized black men, and they grabbed her and they put her in the emergency room where they could observe her and see what she could do, see what they could do for her, and she had to comply with whatever they said. And so she called me and she said, "Mom," she's telling me all this, and I said, " Charise," by now I had it up to here, I said, " Charise, until you decide that you want to get well and you're going to cooperate with whatever they tell you, don't call me. Until you decide that, don't call me." That was tough love. And she thought, she said, "I thought about it after you hung up, Mom, and I said, I can't live without my mom. I better do what they tell me." So she made up her mind to, when she makes up her, she does it. And she did everything that was required, she went through that program, she went through the therapy program at the Willow House, Grant House, and then the Rothesay Home where they, they help these students. And they tried different medications, too, and she just started getting better and better and better. And she was with the Rothesay Home for about five years, and they have a program that's connected to the University of the Pacific, all the students there who are going into this kind of social work, I guess, would come and work with these clients. They'd get experience and the Rothesay clients would get help.

So Charise went through that whole program and then she, then we were about ready to retire, so I said, " Charise, why don't you go into an apartment by yourself?" "Oh, I can't do that. I need to live with people." I says, "No, just try it, because we're going to leave Stockton in one year. We're gonna retire, and why don't you do it the one year before we retire. Then if in the night you're frightened or scared to be by yourself, I'll just come right over. I'll be right here in Stockton." "Okay." So we found an apartment and the Rothesay Home, they gave her a, they gave her a bed, they gave her new dishes, they gave her a microwave, brand new microwave, said, "She's graduating to her own apartment." They were thrilled and happy for her, so they wanted to provide everything for her. They were so wonderful. And Charise found she liked it. She loved it. She didn't even call me in the night. Now she's her own boss, she could do what she wants, nobody to tell her. She loved it, and for twenty years now she's been by herself doing it. And each time she gets better and better. You can't imagine what a miracle it is to see somebody who was so out of it -- and I mean out of it, not herself, even her face was not her, it was like somebody else living in there -- and now, you see her face, she's Charise. Everybody loves her. So she's a miracle.

KL: That's remarkable.

MM: And then Alisa moved to her new place, and she's happy. She tells me she's happy. I don't ask her, she says, "Mom, I'm happy."

KL: Do you want to tell us anything about Michal's situation, too?

MM: Yeah, well, I was, we had a church member who had to take care of her handicapped sister because her mother on her deathbed said, "Toyo, please take care of Hacha." I mean, in Japanese the mother said this. And said, "Don't worry, Mom, I will." And because she told her mother on the deathbed she did it, but at the sacrifice of her own life. She got marriage proposals, but she said, "I cannot because I have a sister I have to take care, and no man wants two women." She'd have to bring her sister along, so she knew that and so she never married. And she invited me and told me all this story about the deathbed with of her mother, and she said, "Don't do that to Michal. Whatever you do, don't do that to Michal." And so when I checked it out with Michal, I said, " Michal, I bet you think that when we die you have to take care of Alisa and Charise." And do you know what happened? The tears shot out like that, they just came out like that, and I knew that that was a burden on her heart, that she would have to do that. And I said, "No, we're the parents. You're not the parents, so as parents we're responsible to see that they're taken care of before we die. That's our job as parents. And God has a purpose in your life, and you have to find that purpose yourself, for your life, and go on with your life." And she took off from there, and I told her what Toyo said, and she said felt so grateful that we had this talk. So now she's married and had two sons, and she's very happy. And she became an optometrist, and she, naturally, she helps people who can't pay and she, you know the lady that we visit at the prison? She even made her a pair of glasses, not seeing, just by what the, what the prison hospital said she needed, so she made the glasses for her free. And she takes care of the house where Alisa lives, all those, if they need glasses she examines them, so she's able to do things like that because she went on with her life to become the optometrist she wanted to be. So everything worked out fine, and everybody's where they should be, so we're really grateful... that --

KL: You guys have -- oh, did I interrupt?

MM: No, I said we're just lucky beyond our dreams.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.