Densho Digital Archive - Mary Jean Spallino Interview (denshovh-smary

<Begin Segment 24>

RM: Could you tell us about the group that you're still part of? You were telling us you go to a group.

MS: Japanese group.

RM: Yes, what is that?

MS: I don't know many of them. See, because this Barbara Otaki that I mentioned, she's the one who -- she's the one in Japan now -- mentioned it to me. But the first time she said, "Would you like to go?" [Phone rings] Let it go. She said, "Would you like to go?" I said, "Sure. I don't know any of them, but I'd be happy to go with you and with Bill and Miki." Incidentally, Bill was the chairman, we have a council here, the people elected, Bill was the chairman for the whole complex, the chairmanship is for two years, for two years ago. So he's well-liked and well-known. But anyway, Barbara said, "Would you like to go to a luncheon?" I said, "I don't know any of 'em, but I'd be happy to go." So I just go with them. In fact, I had a phone call the other day reminding me of one, it's gonna be next Wednesday. We go on Wednesday. The last one we went to, we went down to, it's a golf course in Newport Beach. We just go and they don't have a meeting, they don't discuss anything like that, it's just a get-together. And I don't know any of them really, other than those three, but I go because I want to go.

RM: Do they know that you were a teacher in Manzanar?

MS: Yes, they do.

RM: And what do people think about that?

MS: Oh, they think it's great. [Laughs] Why not?

RM: Yeah. That brings me back, you mentioned that you went to the reunion at...

MS: The Otani Hotel.

RM: Yeah, the Otani Hotel.

MS: It was the New Otani, and I think it was a brand new hotel downtown. And there were some of the former teachers there. I think it's the pictures that I... I think Louis was there, I don't remember. I remember seeing Mr. Hooper there, and there were a lot of people I saw but there's so many people milling about. And, of course, my husband didn't know any of those, you know. But anyway, it was a nice experience, and there was that picture in there, that they took a picture of everybody. But that was a very nice meeting. There were a lot of people that were... I didn't think there were a lot of teachers there at all.

RM: What was it like to see your former students again?

[Interruption]

MS: At that meeting downtown, one of my students -- and I don't remember his name -- and one of my students came up to me and he handed me... we spoke. And he handed me this package, I was going to show you, it's a sweet little bracelet. And I thought that was so thoughtful of him, and I often wear it. It's a little thin... it just fits on the wrist. But I thought that was so thoughtful after all those years. Because that had to be, what, twenty-five years, twenty years, something like that.

RM: I was so impressed, I'll just tell the camera, that you had donated your yearbook, it was the class of 1944 yearbook from Manzanar, and I was glancing through it before this oral history, so many students had written such kind words in it.

MS: Yeah, but people always do. No, you know that. Whenever you're writing in somebody's... when you were young, writing. I mean, you meant it, but you never say anything bad in a yearbook, you know. I don't think they thought equally of all of their teachers, unless the person was a real ogre. I think it's just natural that if you write in somebody's yearbook, it's gonna be complimentary, don't you? I wouldn't read too much into all of that. [Laughs]

RM: Okay. Well, it looks like we have about ten minutes left on this tape, so I want to ask Kristen if she has any questions, otherwise I'll just ask you one final question. What do you think?

KL: I have two, hopefully one of them's not the same as your final question.

RM: Go ahead, yeah.

KL: So my first one is, you mentioned that your husband Al was a World War II veteran from the Pacific Theater. What did he think of... where did he grow up?

MS: He? Very interesting, Monterey. Obviously his name is Italian, his father had come from Sicily, and Monterey was established by a Italian fisherman. And so Al grew up there, and he was attending the University of California at Berkeley when the war broke out. He was two years older than I when the war broke out. And he was drafted and sent to Hawaii and then to New Guinea. So in New Guinea, it's kind of funny, he didn't see a lot of fighting or action unfortunately. But in New Guinea, apparently the American forces were here, and the Japanese were here, but there was a lot in between that you couldn't get through, fortunately. I don't know enough about New Guinea to know. But five years of his life.

KL: Did he have friends from Monterey who left the West Coast and were sent into the camps?

MS: Japanese? I don't think there were any Japanese in Monterey.

KL: What did he think of Manzanar, of your teaching there and --

MS: Oh, it was fine with him. If he had known me when I was at Manzanar, the feeling may have been a little different. But, you know, with time passing and with understanding, and knowing that the people in Manzanar had nothing to do with the Japanese who bombed us, so there was never any feeling on his part of... because he wasn't that kind of a man anyway, you know.

KL: Sometimes people even now, but especially then didn't see the difference.

MS: Yeah, they can't differentiate between the enemy and the other. No, both men were very understanding and supportive of what I had done. And they learned from it, you know. If you don't have people telling you, why, you don't understand, or think, realize these people had nothing to do with what the Imperial regime in Japan did.