<Begin Segment 6>

KL: So I think it was in May of 1943, you all traveled to Manzanar. Do you remember Jack Sergil telling you that he wanted to take a group to Manzanar?

CT: Well, he said we had an opportunity to do that, and so the ones that were, you might say, the more active members of the judo club, which I was one of, he told them in particular, and arranged for ways for us to go to Manzanar which required pulling the A cards and things, C cards for gasoline, since it was rationed at that time. And a bunch up in... actually, our group, John Hamilton had a car, and we, about four of us piled in with him, and he took us up to Manzanar in his car, all of us chipping in on the gas price. And there was rationing, and so we had to use our rations also.

KL: Was it hard to collect enough rations?

CT: To...

KL: To collect enough rations?

CT: Not with the group we were. We were always pretty much the same mind on any of this kind of stuff. And we did take Johnny's sister, Janet, who was, became eventually brown belt, and followed it pretty much, she stuck with it pretty much.

KL: Did he need to make, did Sergil need to make other arrangements? Did he talk about asking permission?

CT: Permission to do what?

KL: To travel to Manzanar to visit?

CT: There was no permission, it was just a matter if you could scrounge up the gas to take you there. Jack's contacts with Mr. Murakmi kept him informed of what he was going on in Manzanar, and between them they arranged for our club to go up and practice with the Japanese Nisei at Manzanar.

KL: And this is Seigo Murakami, who was the judo teacher at Manzanar?

CT: Yes.

KL: Was he Jack Sergil's teacher?

CT: Yes.

KL: So maybe he, maybe it was Seigo Murakami who was talking to the camp director and others to arrange it.

CT: Yes, yeah. And they treated us very normally, same as we treated them. But they were, of course, happy to see there were some Americans that weren't prejudiced against them. And to us it was, there were the Japanese who were nationals from Japan who made a war against us, and then there were these other Japanese people that had lived in the, particularly the Los Angeles area who by presidential edict got moved out for a while, couple of years.

KL: Did any of the students or the teachers talk about their feelings about being at Manzanar during that exhibit?

CT: No.

KL: And it sounds like there weren't really any friendships between the students from Los Angeles and from Manzanar because you wouldn't have met in Los Angeles.

CT: There were friendships, there were other students and other friendships than my own personal group, so I can't speak for them. I can only say that our relations with everybody and their relations with us were normal. We didn't see why because Japan had decided to be warlike, didn't have anything to do with them.

KL: Were there any friendships other than Jack Sergil and Seigo Murakami, any other reunions at that exhibit?

CT: No, not that I ever knew of.

KL: So you were meeting people for the first time.

CT: Yeah.

KL: What do you remember about Murakami-sensei?

CT: Well, no, you see, he had gone to Manzanar, and I did not even meet him until I went to Manzanar, and then he was a very high official, and I was a very low brown belt kind of thing. And so I didn't get to meet him personally.

KL: Do you remember seeing him, did you watch him?

CT: I just remember bigwigs in judo that were segregated from the rest of us. And they were hobnobbing with each other, and we were beneath them. They were happy that we were there, of course.

KL: Did your mom think it was a good idea, this exhibition?

CT: My mom wasn't that way, she didn't worry her head about what I was doing. And I really honestly couldn't tell you what she thought, excepting that it was one of the things I was doing in my life. I guess it was something that wasn't a worrisome thing for her.

KL: She let you come.

CT: Yeah, so she did. And she was busy being a waitress, trying to do her part and keep the family going.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.