<Begin Segment 17>

LP: What about redress? What about the formal apology and the money and everything?

MW: Yeah, we got that much later, much, much later. My parents were gone by that time, and my two nephews, two that was born in Manzanar, had gotten it. Well, you know, it was a little too late, everything was. But it was at least a compensation to keep you above water, I think. That's what I thought, because they needed help like when we got back, it was really, really rough. Now, you don't have blankets and things, you just had, you had to make sure you had one with you, but you go into a hostel, they don't have (...) blankets, there just wasn't any, they didn't expect that. Well, in the church, you can't expect to have that many things for that many people, and I'm talking about a lot of people. Every square inch was taken up. (...)

LP: When you're... all the things that you remember, your mother storing the jewelry and different things, did your family go back to see?

MW: No, there was a friend of my sister-in-law that was a Caucasian (person). And they would, whatever they could find, I remember a small radio coming back. I guess they were allowed back then, after we were in there for a while. And they went back many times, evidently, to that shed, they couldn't find anything more. So they brought what they could or what they saw. And I don't know where my mother kept the jewelries or anything, because she was gonna give me a ring that I dearly wanted, but she said, "Well, I'll put it here until after we come back," thinking we're gonna come right back, not knowing. And so all of those, everything else that was in there was gone, I don't know all the things she put in there. Because you can only take what you can carry, and that wasn't very much that we could carry.

[Interruption]

LP: So your parents didn't get to see redress, but some of the research that Kristen did, there were some naturalization documents. Do you recall your parents becoming naturalized?

MW: Yes. But my brother took care of that because I was gone by then, I wasn't at home, I had an apartment working at that time. And so I remember, I said, "Mother, whenever they say you can take your citizenship, do that." They tried, but they couldn't, they were not allowed. So they had to put a lot of things in my brother's name, but he was also very young at that time, so they had, I think, even in their friends' children's name, things like that. They had put a lot of things... and I said, "Mother, whenever they're gonna let you take the citizenship, take it." And they did take it when it first came out. So they both had it before they died, so I was happy about that.

LP: What do you think that meant to them besides just the actual getting the citizenship? What was symbolic or what was the specific...

MW: I think they had the satisfaction of finally (accomplishing) what all their children wanted. I have a feeling that's the thought that she had, my mother had. I don't know about my dad, he was awful quiet, he didn't say too much, but I can kind of tell from the way he reacts or the way he says a few words, he was very quiet, he was not an outspoken guy. But the satisfaction of finally... and I know at that time he wished that his nephew was here and he was able to accomplish that part for him, I'm sure. And he was a very good lawyer, but then he studied too hard and he died. At that time, he was married, he had gotten married. I remember my mother going for a wedding, I said, "Whose wedding is it?" So I had to have been awful young or they would have taken me. But I just barely remember that. And I didn't know the situation at that time, that he was trying to adopt his nephew to bring him here, but I found that out later.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.