<Begin Segment 24>

KL: I know you guys, did you go to the reunion "Life Interrupted" in Arkansas?

MU: Uh-huh.

KL: Tell us what, tell us what you did there. What was that reunion about? What was it like?

MU: It was, it brought back a lot of memories, some pleasant, some not so pleasant. But my daughter said, she was hesitant about going back, or not going back, going to Arkansas, but it was quite a, had quite an impact on her, and she wrote a wonderful article. I should bring it and let you read it. It helped her understand what the older Japanese Isseis and Niseis had gone through, with the evacuation and all that. It's quite revealing. She said, "I'm sure glad I went." Yeah. I'll let you look at it.

KL: I would like to.

MU: Yeah.

KL: Yeah, her perspective is a unique one, being born in this country after the camp time, and then living so much of her early life in Japan, and now living here in the U.S. and having, having her family background, it's a unique perspective. How many people were at that reunion, and what did, how long did it last?

MU: There were quite a few. I don't remember the exact, but there were, I'm sure there were over a thousand people there.

KL: How long did it last?

MU: About, probably what, three, four days. Three, four days, yeah.

KL: What were, what did you do during those three or four days?

MU: We had speakers, we had... what was his name? Member of the congress from Hawaii.

KL: Daniel Inouye?

MU: Yeah, he was there. We had some colored lady from Arkansas, well-known lady. We had a number of speakers, yeah.

KL: What was that like to hear the colored lady from Arkansas who had, I assume she saw Jerome and Rohwer but was living outside of the camps?

MU: I think I felt that she really understood what the Japanese went through, because we had faced racial discrimination here and she knew all about hers, their, the colored people's discrimination.

KL: You know, there was a teacher who brought his students to Manzanar, and he said that one of the things that he really valued about that visit is that his students, who were mostly Latino, saw that they weren't the only ones, and that he thought that was really valuable for them.

MU: Yeah.

KL: Are there, I have one kind of wrap up question, but are there other things that you, that I should've asked about but didn't, that you want to talk about?

MU: No, I don't think so. But I was hope -- thinking that the government learned what they've had, make us go through, that won't happen ever to other groups of minorities. Because, like California, it was discrimination; it wasn't for safety purposes, because those who were, led the evacuation were anti-Japanese. It was a racial thing.

KL: Mark, do you have questions? [To MU] I think you just answered my question. I was gonna ask you something about what you hope people will take away from your story if they watch this in several years. What, you said it changed you, it changed --

MU: United States is made up of all immigrants and their descendants. It's the only country where we can grow and develop, and among all different races and still be American, U.S. citizens, and help one another. I think this is the only country where that can happen, because it was built on democracy. Yeah, so we're fortunate to be living here.

KL: Well, thank you so much.

MU: You're welcome.

KL: Thank you for sharing all those stories and for always having been willing to sort of write and speak. I appreciate you for that.

MU: You're welcome. [Laughs]

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.