Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Richard M. Murakami Interview
Narrator: Richard M. Murakami
Interviewer: Larisa Proulx
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: November 19, 2014
Densho ID: denshovh-mrichard_2-01-0013

<Begin Segment 13>

LP: What about the hospital? Did you ever get, were you ever ill in camp, or anyone in your family?

RM: No. the only time the hospital was in Jerome when my brother was born, that's the only time.

LP: Did you ever hear... one lady I'm interviewing on Sunday, she went to the hospital and her parents, initially the story sounds like of like... 'cause she was in dance class and played basketball and her parents had her doing something all the time. She's really active, and this one time she had really severe pain in her abdomen, and she went into the hospital, and whoever was looking at her said, oh, she must have appendicitis. And that night she had a performance, and she was pretty popular, I guess, so her dad was like, "Well, can it wait? 'Cause she's supposed to perform tonight." So they actually waited. But the next day they came back, and there was a different doctor, and he said, "She doesn't have appendicitis, she just has the flu," and he was right. And later she found out it was because her dad didn't trust the medical staff initially that were looking at her. Was there any kind of talk like that about anyone, it was like, oh, that person's really inept, or, you know, nothing like that?

RM: Yeah, see, when I was in camp, I don't ever remember anybody needing medical help. Even my uncle who had cancer, I don't remember anything like that. He had cancer.

KL: Just a couple of names, what was your uncle who was in Block 9's name?

RM: Robert, Robert Masao Murakami. And my aunt was Alice. And then they had a son born in Heart Mountain called Michael.

KL: And then your aunt who was the artist, what was her name?

RM: Alice.

KL: That was Alice? Okay. I wondered a little bit about the uncle who was in the Department of Justice camps. Could you tell us more, starting with his name and his wife's name, but also about his journey, what you know, where he was, and when he came to Tule Lake?

RM: His name was Roy Onga.

KL: Could you spell Onga?

RM: O-N-G-A. And his wife's name was Irene. And he was the first in the Justice camp, there's a big controversy about this place now called Tuna Canyon. And from Tuna Canyon, I don't know where he went, but I saw my cousin for the first time, and ever since camp, she was at the pilgrimage this last time. That's the first one she ever went to and that's the first one I went to. She's the person you ought to talk to, she has all the documents, because he saved things, all the documents that he had. And he took a lot of photos, so she's got a real big scrapbook. So if you're interested... but anyway, but they asked me about why they stayed in, they don't know the history of why they stayed there. See, I had two uncles that were picked up, but they stayed in Tule Lake. And after that he came back and he farmed here in northern California. And I don't know how many children they had, because that's one set of cousins I never really got to know.

KL: Did he talk ever about Tuna Canyon?

RM: No. See, because after we came back, I never really saw him that much, because he lived up north and we lived down here. I had another uncle that was picked up, but I don't know where he was. But he was released and then that was the aunt that didn't stay with us, so he ended up, came back and lived in Manzanar.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.