Densho Digital Archive - Masako Murakami Interview (denshovh-mmasako-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

LP: What about... I'm not sure, because of so much research we still need to do with the jail and stockade, what do you recall about those areas, if anything, or what are some of the people maybe that were affected by those areas of the camp?

MM: You know, I didn't know anything about it until I took that pilgrimage. Or we went to Tule Lake, and we were given a tour by one of the rangers there, an excellent tour, and that was before the pilgrimage. And we were coming back from the conference, a museum conference in Seattle, and I had no idea that existed. But when you think back, you think, "Oh, so and so's brother disappeared all of a sudden." And we never knew where he went, and he could have been in jail, and he could have been sent out of camp, which I think probably happened. I've never asked, but I think those of us who were much younger never asked questions, and were never told anything. But I'm pretty sure those were things happened. There must have been a lot of protesting, a lot of very strong-willed people, and probably were right that they protested. But they were few, and I'm sure they were reprimanded strongly.

LP: When you were at the pilgrimage, there were so many different things people could do, but one of them was to go through the jail, and it sounds like you had visited earlier?

MM: We had visited before, so we did go to that area. There were quite a few, some people who said their relatives were in the jail, it kind of hit you right in the face.

LP: I was going to ask what it was like to go through that space. Did you, when you were in there, see the writing?

MM: Yeah. Now, normally, I would think if people were all jammed in there, the walls would be covered with writing, but it wasn't. Just a few people wrote. I think there was only one thing in Japanese and one in English. And that, to me, was striking that a normal group of people like that would be writing all over the walls, but because of the ethnic, the Japanese, they didn't want to deface the property, I think. That's my feeling, I thought that was interesting.

LP: There's some writing in there that was translated that I got reviewed again, and this one piece of writing is the only one that has the person's full name, the prefecture of Japan that their family was from, and their birthdate. So I was able to get their evacuee case file from the National Archives in Maryland, I found their son, and they contacted their son and he had no idea.

MM: He had no idea.

LP: Unfortunately, this person passed away in the '70, or actually murdered in their family bakery in Hawaii. But this person said, "When my dad was alive, he used to get together with his Topaz friends. I didn't know what that meant until, oh, Topaz." So I just asked because of the jail, because to me, the power of places, even though the bars aren't really there, the lighting is whatever, I still go in there and it's really eerie to me, there's still presence there.

MM: They were just jammed in there. I mean, it made for a few, ten, twenty people, and they had hundreds of people in there. It was just amazing. The stories are really...

LP: Something that I brought up with Richard was the artwork from within Tule. Do you recall anyone making anything with shells or arrow heads?

MM: Arrow heads, shells, I remember a lot of carvings. I think a lot of people made canes, lots of people made canes out of the iron wood. And I think my mother used to use a cane that was from camp. I think my sister has it. I think Richard has some, too. Beautifully made. My first husband's father was in Topaz, and he made a sword, a short one, from the bed frame, and I'm sure, pounded it, heated it, and my son has it. And it's a beautiful piece; I've never heard of anybody making anything like that.

LP: Yesterday, the person that I interviewed had one, too. He's very into theater and plays and things like that, and there was a play that he and one other person used to go around and perform, and that was part of his costume, and it was a sword and it had the... what was the thing that it goes into?

MM: Oh, yeah.

LP: But anyways, yeah, the bed.

MM: They made it in camp?

LP: Yeah.

MM: Wow. I mean, there must have been a lot of people who did that, but that's the only person, I mean, the only one I know of, and I thought, "Wow, that's amazing, you had to have a lot of patience. Every night they're out there probably pounding away. My grandmother was in Heart Mountain, and she used to send me pictures, I don't know, I guess people had cameras. And she used to play the shamisen, and they used to perform in camp. There were a lot of pictures of her on the stage in camp. So I know there are people here trying to recreate all that. So I'm trying to find a picture, but not easy.

LP: What was your communication like with her? You mentioned earlier that she would send you stuff?

MM: Yeah, it must have been all to my mother, but she would send me carvings from Heart Mountain, and pins which I've all given to the museum. I mean, their life was different than ours, because it was not so... although in their case, because they had to, because she was from Japan, she didn't speak any English, so she probably lost herself in the arts performance and all that. But I mean, I think she had a good life in Heart Mountain, because all her friends were there. We had a lot of performances at Tule Lake, too, but since I wasn't part of it, I just went to watch.