<Begin Segment 15>

KL: You mentioned that he was Catholic and that reminded me, I wanted to ask you about Buddhist community in Minidoka. Did you continue to attend Buddhist church or any, any religious...

IT: Yeah, we had a church. You know, they took all the ministers before we even went to camp, because they were leaders in the community and they were afraid.

KL: What can you tell us about how that worked for your minister?

IT: Our minister was taken. The reason, well, I read about it in our church book, but his middle daughter is my best friend, so, and then I talked to her mother a lot, too, who was the same age as my mother. But they took him, according, I think, well, I knew that they had taken him to, I don't know if it was Crystal City or they moved him to Crystal City, I think they moved him, but they took all these men that were leaders in the community, which were priests and you know. So he was taken right away, away from his family and then, I think the family has seven kids. Anyway. I don't know who did the funeral for my, my grandmother in camp, because they took all the priests. It must've been somebody who knew a little bit more about Buddhism or something, I don't, or maybe they didn't have a regular service. But anyway, they took these guys and then I think he was moved to Crystal City and the first year, I think, the family moved to be with him, or something like that.

KL: What's his name?

IT: Ichikawa.

KL: Yeah, that would make sense.

IT: Something like that happened.

KL: I mean, [inaudible] was arrested and then moved around and then ended up in Crystal City.

IT: Right. He was, he was a head of the Buddhist church then, and before the war I remember he'd tell these stories with expression and all. Sometimes, I think sometimes it would be in Japanese, I don't understand, but it was fun listening to, watching him. They do now have reunions, and my girlfriend says they go sometimes.

KL: For Crystal City?

IT: Yeah.

KL: Did she tell you what it was like to have her father taken, how she felt or what she remembers about it?

IT: Not really, but... No, she never said too much. I asked her mother sometimes, once, when she came down to California to visit, then I talked to her a little bit. But she speaks Japanese and I speak English with a Japanese accent, so she thinks I'm speaking Japanese. It's so funny. She says she loves to talk to me because I speak Japanese. I don't speak Japanese. [Laughs]

KL: Communication's funny.

IT: Yeah, but I put on a little accent. And my mother-in-law was, from Hawaii, was like that, too. She says, "Ooh, your Japanese is getting better," she says in Japanese. And I, I could understand a little bit.

KL: So Reverend Ichikawa never came to Minidoka?

IT: No. I don't remember he coming. I think they kept him down there. And then, I do remember going to school -- well, maybe she wasn't in our class. Well, they took, they sent for the family, I remember. Then I met her again at Bailey-Gatzert. I think that's where they went.

KL: What do you remember about her leaving Minidoka?

IT: I don't remember when she left. And we became real good friends from junior high school, seventh grade.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.