Densho Digital Archive - Kenji Ogawa Interview (denshovh-okenji

<Begin Segment 22>

RM: Kenji, I'm curious, what do you think about Manzanar National Historic Site, the fact that Manzanar, where you were born, is now part of the National Park Service? What do you think about that?

KO: That's very nice, it should keep going. Young generation... see, young ones not that interested. You have to teach it more.

RM: What do you think we should tell people about Manzanar?

KO: Teach more of the story, tell the young ones, so they know more.

KL: Why is it important that they know about Manzanar?

KO: So history go on, our generation, they stop. Even my kids, they don't know, they don't talk about camp. Now they get older, they're interested. The parents, they have to teach those young generations. Otherwise, they don't know.

KL: I meant to ask you earlier, I know your kids are interested, or at least I know your daughter's interested in Manzanar. What do your kids think when you tell them about Manzanar and Tule Lake?

KO: I guess they're more interested, huh?

Off camera: I think it's hard for them to picture it, how much our...

KO: My parents, grandpa went through. They lost a lot, everything.

Off camera: When my son was in grammar school, sixth or (...) fifth grade, he had to do a project, and so we went up to Manzanar and we took pictures and everything, and then he made out of toothpicks, the camp site.

KO: School project.

Off camera: And then he made barbed wires, like this size, made barbed wires around it, made little barracks and everything, saw pictures of how it was lined up, and we did that, and then he made the guard towers and everything out of popsicle sticks and toothpicks and whatever, got sand and everything like that, to show what it looked like when they first went into camp, and he wrote a report on it. And his teacher kept his project so she could show the other kids that she gets about Manzanar, because she didn't know anything about it either. And we went to Japanese town and we got books on Manzanar and then he took it in for the teacher to read and everything. So it's been a good twenty-something years, and she still has it.

KL: Was the teacher surprised when he did that, did she know?

KO: I guess a lot of teachers don't know too much either.

KL: What was your kids' emotional reaction to hearing that you were born in a confinement camp?

KO: They said the family's...

Off camera: Yeah, we didn't know that until we got older.

[Interruption]

Off camera: [Inaudible] Even the Kunitomi family, they're real active.

KO: Yeah, whole family. The father still alive?

KL: The father? Sue Kunitomi's father? No.

KO: Oh, passed away.

KL: Well, there's an uncle of Sue's named Jack, who's very elderly, and he comes to the pilgrimages and he's still alive. He came this year, I didn't see him, but he was there, I heard.

KO: How about the son?

KL: Jack's son Daryl? Daryl's fine.

KO: This year is more like new people.

KL: Yeah, Daryl's not on the Manzanar Committee anymore, but he's still, he's fine, he comes to visit, I've seen him in the last year.

KO: How about that Hispanic-Japanese mix?

KL: The guy who came to Manzanar? Ralph Lazo?

KO: Yeah.

KL: Ralph's daughter has been to visit, I think. I'm not sure. Do you know anything about...

RM: Well, you might meet him, because Ralph's daughter married Bo Sakaguchi's son.

KO: Oh, you're kidding.

RM: That's my understanding.

KO: [Laughs] You're kidding.

Off camera: My daughter's boyfriend is Hispanic, so it's the first time for him to go up there, and he was going around reading everything in sight.

KO: I tell him, "You go Japanese, you got to see this."

KL: Yeah, what did he think? What was his reaction to that trip.

KO: He thinks it's very interesting, he likes it.

KL: I wondered about you guys because that film that we showed on Sunday, Dr. Ina's film, From a Silk Cocoon, about her parents, I just, that's a pretty intense film. And since your family was in Tule Lake, too, and your parents --

KO: I'd like to meet her.

KL: I hope she'll come back. She would like to come back at a calmer time, and we've talked about maybe showing that film again and having her come and answer questions.

KO: (...).

KL: Yeah, I think you would really... I think you would really appreciate going to Tule Lake on a Tule Lake pilgrimage. She is very involved in that, and so are some other very knowledgeable people whose families were in Tule Lake, and they're very committed. The Tule Lake pilgrimages started just after Manzanar pilgrimages started in 1970. They're a whole weekend long, there are seminars, there are films, there are discussions. It's really good. So maybe, they fill up very fast, they're very popular, and they want to keep it... they don't want it to get too big because they want people to be able to talk and know each other and stuff. But you could look up the Tule Lake Committee and see about the pilgrimage, see when you can try to register and maybe try to go. That'd be neat, to go to Tule Lake at a pilgrimage.

KO: I want to go.

KL: And you could maybe meet Dr. Ina and talk to her more. I'm glad we're talking about Tule Lake because one last question I did think of is Tule Lake has a reputation, and it sometimes, it was a real divide. Sometimes people, if they find out someone was in Tule Lake, they react badly to them, and sometimes people from Tule Lake react badly to others, and sometimes people... I wondered if you ever have people who react to you when you say you were in Tule Lake or your parents were in Tule Lake. Does that ever come up, and what are people's reactions when they hear you were at Tule Lake?

KO: I don't know. When I was grow up, I never talked about camp, so I never meet somebody react different way.

KL: So it wasn't really...

KO: No. A lot of people think I'm from Japan. I never talk about, I was born in camp. So I when I grew up here, then late in the year, people say, "Oh, you're the first baby."

KL: Well, thank you very much for talking to us and for sharing this story with our visitors and researchers. I'm really glad we got to do this.

KO: Thank you.