Densho Digital Archive - George Maeda Interview (denshovh-mgeorge

<Begin Segment 16>

KL: What am I leaving out about Manzanar? Do you remembering the uprising, the so-called "riot"?

GM: I heard about it, and one of my relatives was one of the people who was shot.

KL: The Itos?

GM: No, it was my father's side. I won't mention his name. He's passed on. But yeah, there was an uprising. I didn't put much thought in it, but I remember when it happened.

KL: What was your dad's reaction?

GM: He didn't talk about it. My dad kept a lot of things to himself; he wasn't an easy person to understand. He did explain why -- I don't remember what he said -- but why he answered what he did, and that we were going to stay in Manzanar. I didn't even know, I told you he was an entrepreneur, he owned a pool hall. So if I could just branch off from this for a second and tell you a little story about when I was going to high school. This was after the war ended.

KL: Is this when you were in the pool hall?

GM: I was in the pool hall and he was walking down the sidewalk in Azusa and he peeked in, and here I was with my friends shooting pool. So he walked in and I just froze. Like I told you, I don't know whether I feared him or respected him, but I went to put the stick back and he says, "Go ahead and play, don't stop." [Laughs] And my friends kept egging him on, saying, "Come on, Mr. Maeda, let's play. Come on, let's play, let's play, let's play." Finally he grabbed the pool stick and he cued it, boom, boom, like this. I thought, "What's going on? He knows how to play pool." And we went home that day and he called me into his bedroom and he said, "I've never been proud of this, but in one of the businesses I was, I owned a pool hall, and I used to shoot pool or whatever for money to maintain the pool hall." [Laughs] But he said, "I was never proud of it."

KL: He still had his skills though, huh?

GM: Well, you can tell a pool player when he's shot pool before. He wasn't an amateur, I mean, when he shot I thought, "What's going on?" But that's why I remembered the incident so well.

KL: And that's how you knew he ran a pool hall?

GM: Well, he told me.

KL: Yeah, I didn't realize that. After the riot, there were people who were taken out of Manzanar into Death Valley and then also to Moab and Leupp. Did you have any experience with that?

GM: No. I don't think my relative, he was in Manzanar, he never left. I know he was shot, I mean, he was shot in the leg.

KL: And you didn't witness the riot.

GM: No, no, it was just one of those things I heard about.

KL: What do you remember about Take's graduation from high school?

GM: Not much.

KL: Or your other sister Shizuko's either? I guess she graduated there.

GM: I don't even remember her graduating, and I barely remember Take graduating. I never attended, I don't even know if she wore a cap and gown or not. She must have. That's right, because the first year we were out, we stayed with my aunt, and she was in junior college then. So she had to have been graduated in Manzanar. They were good schools, I mean, we learned, we weren't held back.

KL: Any other teachers stand out or instances in school?

GM: Yes. I don't remember her name, but she was not handicapped, but she had a severe humpback. Not mean, but you learned when you were in her class. I don't remember her name, but everybody knew her. And again, they weren't sure if they respected her or feared her, but when you were in her class, you learned. And the school system there was pretty strict. Because when I got out and I went in the eighth grade, I never felt that I was behind. I always felt I was a little ahead of the class. So I think half of the instructors were of Japanese descent, the other half were either volunteers or paid. Which I really, in later years, admired them for doing what they did.