<Begin Segment 28>

KL: You guys have made visits to many, not only Poston but some of the other confinement sites, and I wonder, we'll start with Poston, if you could tell us about your trips back there and what they're like.

MM: What they were like?

KL: Uh-huh.

MM: Well, when we went to Poston, we were surprised at the memorial that they built there, that the hot sun was obliterating all the, the, whatever was written, or pictures. The hot sun just obliterated it. You cannot see what, the names or the pictures, so it has to be done over. We were sick, sick...

KL: Were you involved in the memorial? No.

MM: No.

KL: Not in replacing it.

MM: But we were involved in giving money, but as far as being on the committee or something like that, we worked on the Fresno memorial, the two memorials here. We gave our time and energy for that.

KL: In what sense? What was your involvement?

MM: Well, we had to decide what kind of, what kind of memorial we wanted. We wanted pictures with a story, so we called it a storyboard, pictures with the words that describe what is in there.

[Interruption]

MM: -- were there, a Native American young lady stopped to see, and we said, "Oh, are you familiar with the Japanese Americans being incarcerated here?" And she said, "Yes, my mother used to live right across the street from the Poston camp, and she remembers that when you all left, you left all the dishes behind and everything." And that's what she told us.

KL: Have you been part of ever, like, a programmed reunion where there's a group and you have an itinerary and stuff at Poston?

MM: We went in October of, I think about two years ago.

KL: What was that like?

MM: It was wonderful, because we sat... let's see how did that go?

[Interruption]

KL: So we're back, and you were talking about the visit to Poston and --

MM: Poston and that was, that was, yeah, then we went to Topaz and we met with Jane Beckwith, and she took us there and she described where everything was. By the map on the ground, you could tell this was so-and-so, and certain parts were marked, so that was wonderful to be able to see that. And so far in the boondocks, that was about the loneliest spot you could ever find, and that's all I remember about that one. And Rohwer and Poston, I mean Rohwer and, and...

KL: Jerome.

MM: Jerome. We went there, and all we saw was a smokestack, and we met with Mr., Mr. (Ellington), what was his last name? It started with an E... I forgot his name, but I think he said that the barracks were not worth saving, so they built a big hole and they shoved all those rickety old barracks in the ground and just covered it all up.

KL: Was he part of the chamber of commerce, this man, or a Japanese American guy?

MM: No, no, he was a Caucasian man, and his father -- or was it him? I think it was more or less his father, bought a lot of the land, and I think they raise cotton now and rice. I think when he came, he came to Fresno and he brought packages of the rice that they raised and, for everybody. Yeah, he brought rice. I don't know how many hundreds he brought, but we got one. So that, I remember that. And we met Rosalie Gould. Because we were able to go to the, what was the name of the...

KL: The "Life Interrupted?"

MM: "Life Interrupted," yeah, it was wonderful.

KL: What made it so wonderful?

MM: Well, Daniel Inouye came and spoke, and his talk at the end, he said, "You know, America is a young democracy and we make mistakes. We're not perfect. So we're still learning, and so that's the American way. We're still learning." So I thought, well, that's pretty good.

KL: What sticks out about Rosalie Gould. She's a big figure in the preservation story.

MM: Yeah, she was entrusted with Jamison... what was her first name? (Mabel) Jamison, she was the art teacher, and her students drew such spectacular pictures of life in camp and their dreams, and we saw some of those pictures. They were just wonderful. Some of them were made into cards, and they sold at the conference. And she said that Jamison entrusted her with the pictures, all these pictures, and they were such treasures that she wasn't just gonna let anybody have it, but she was looking for, so she asked the people of McGehee to open up a museum so she could put it in there. And they said, "Oh no, we don't want to do that." So they didn't want to do it, so she asked the Butler, I guess the Butler Museum at a university.

KL: That sounds right. I'm not positive, but it sounds right.

MM: And now the McGehee people, "Oh, we want to make a museum. Can we have..." She adamantly said no, and she stuck to her guns. "You didn't want it when I wanted to give it to you, and now you want it? No, you don't get it." So that's how strong she was, and I thought, wow, that's some lady.

KL: What about Jane Beckwith, what sticks with you from your interaction with her? She's important in the --

MM: Her commitment to making this museum, what happened in Utah, she had a commitment and really, when the people themselves don't even have that kind of commitment. And she had the commitment, and boy, I was really impressed by her, that's what I remember. She said, "We got to do it." And she raised money, I think she raised the money to buy the land, and now they want to do something with it. But she's got to have money. She ought to get some from the Park Service.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.