<Begin Segment 23>

RM: I guess I always just wonder, I always link big changes like redress...

PS: All I do remember is on redress, my mother insisted that my older sister and I collect our money. It was really important to her that we did that.

RM: And did she also...

PS: Oh, yeah, she definitely did.

RM: How did she react when the apology, when Reagan gave that apology and those letters?

PS: I don't think my mother voiced an opinion about that. All I know is that we had to make sure that we got our money, because I think she felt that we were due that. And I said, "Okay," and I did that.

RM: Did she ever say why you were due that? Because doing this oral history, I would say yes, but did she ever voice that?

PS: She said, "Because you were born in the camps." That was all she said to me. "If you were born in the camp, then you were entitled to this money." She wanted us all to get it.

RM: And what about Paul, did he ever say anything to you?

PS: He got his, too.

RM: And did he express anything with the apology?

PS: My stepfather never said anything. All I remember him ever saying, if we said anything bad about our government, he'd get really upset, saying, "You can't say those things." I think he was traumatized about being incarcerated, because he'd even get upset if we said something bad about the President, "You know, they put you way." "What is he talking about?"

RM: How did he feel when you were marching against the Vietnam War?

PS: Oh, I never told him.

RM: You never told him, okay. [Laughs]

PS: He didn't know what I was doing. No, but he would always say we had to be good Americans. But the other thing is he never voted.

RM: Really?

PS: And he would always promise my mom, "Maybe next time."

RM: Do you know why?

PS: Because he couldn't for a long time because...

RM: Oh, because he didn't have citizenship? Yeah.

PS: And then once he got his citizenship, he just never voted. I don't know, he just never would do it. But he wanted all of us to.

RM: It sounds like he was a really interesting man.

PS: He definitely was, he was very loyal. He said that he would have joined the army, but they would have rejected him anyway, he had a broken bone that had never been set, and they said they could fix it but they'd break it again, and he said, "That's okay."

RM: When did Paul pass away?

PS: Oh, let's see. He was born in... my mother was born in '24, so he was born in '22. He was sixty-seven when he died. So that's '89, 1989.

RM: I guess I had another question about Hank, I guess is what he was called, Morikawa. You had expressed, I believe, off camera, that you went to Japan and decided not to try to find him at some point. Did you and your sister ever talk about once you knew that he was your dad, about trying to track him down and about the fact that he never came to find you two, it sounds like?

PS: My older sister never, ever had any interest in finding him. I probably was the only one, and my sister had no interest in even going to Manzanar. She lives far away from us, she lives in Washington State, so we don't see her very often. We aren't very close anymore, we were closer when we were, obviously, young. When she got married and left the house, she always, her husband -- her choice of mates, let's say, always moved her far away from the family.

RM: And she never expressed a desire to try to find your dad?

PS: No.

RM: And what about you?

PS: Well, I thought about it. Even thirty years ago when I went, I was going to go to Japan, which I did. We didn't have enough days, I would have had to have given up my whole trip to go and search. And I thought, "If I haven't met him yet and he hasn't made an attempt to find me, he's not really my father to me." My father is my stepfather, because for most of my life, I never even called him my stepfather. He was always my father. And I thought his family was, they were all my relatives. Because his mother actually was my grandmother to me, because she used to take care of me sometimes. So I would have never known any other family. The only thing I guess I can be thankful for is that he must have had good health on his side because I'm fairly healthy, I'm tall, because he was tall. My mother thinks he was either 5'10" or 5'11". And I probably wouldn't even recognize him if I saw him. I just thought it would be neat to find out if I had other cousins.

RM: Yeah, and you might.

PS: And I guess for health reasons, like if you needed, let's say, some donor thing, it would be nice to know, or what diseases run in your family. But I'm going to just pray that I'm okay. I'll think positive about it.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.