Densho Digital Archive - John Young Interview (denshovh-yjohn-01-0024)

<Begin Segment 24>

KL: I am curious to know what you thought when, in the 1980s, President Reagan issued checks to people who'd been confined in --

JY: Clinton did. I got a letter from Clinton.

KL: Bush. It was an apology letter.

JY: No, no, I got the letter right her.

KL: What did you think of that letter?

JY: It was fifty years too late. That's the whole thing. I think I gave you a letter...

KL: That's okay, maybe we can look at it later. I hadn't seen one from Clinton. So yours came from President Clinton.

JY: Yeah. Clinton sent us a letter. Beverly got twenty thousand, my wife got twenty thousand, I got twenty thousand. I just gave it to the kids. She believed in giving money to the kids, get the house all paid for. In fact, I got thirty-one thousand from my IRA, I gave ten thousand to my great grandchildren for their 529 and all that. She believed in giving the money while we're alive, not holding it 'til we're dead.

KL: It sounds like my grandpa. What did Beverly think when she got that letter or when you guys told her about Manzanar?

JY: Well, she was kind of surprised, but knowing that something would come out of it. She had a good life, we all did. I had a charmed life, I think.

KL: In Los Angeles, when you were in the army, did Kay ever have any experiences that stand out?

JY: As a Japanese?

KL: Yeah.

JY: No, just that Chinese grocery store that I told her earlier, that they made a remark, "Here comes that Japanese girl, or Jap girl." Until she spoke to them in Chinese, then she gained a lot of respect because she knew what the hell they were talking about. No, she didn't have any problems, she didn't have to wear "I'm Chinese" or Japanese. No, she didn't have any trouble. Just because she knew the language.

KL: Yeah, I bet those people were very surprised.

JY: Yeah, they were shocked. That was an old grocery store in Los Angeles.

KL: You mentioned you had one other Chinese American friend who married a Japanese American woman and they never went into any camp.

JY: No, this is a Chinese fellow that married a Japanese, Sue Wong. She just died a couple years ago. She was a friend of my sister's, they used to come over, she and her husband used to come over and play mahjong. In fact, she'd still play mahjong, they'd sit for ten hours.

KL: Were they scared that they would be picked up, or was that hard thing to...

JY: No.

KL: Yeah, that's so unusual, I was curious about that.

JY: No, they weren't afraid at all.