<Begin Segment 9>

TI: How about things like churches? Did your family attend a church in Scottsbluff?

AM: Well, most of the community at that time were Christian because of Reverend Kano, he was a Christian minister. And the Buddhists, all the, lot of these, I guess a lot of these people from Japan were, were all Buddhist at one time. But when they came to this country, why, the influence was Christianity. And most, as far as I remember, it was Episcopalian, and I myself was baptized as an Episcopalian. And I think as some of the older ones grew up, and after the war, there wasn't, I think the Christianity kind of lost its hold because of the war. And as I remember, lot of the older, older people reverted back to Buddhism even though they didn't know anything about Buddhism, but their families were. So the reverend here at the Tri-State Buddhist Temple, they expanded their territory to include Western Nebraska, and I guess they go to Wyoming. I imagine they, they include parts of New Mexico, too.

TI: So I'm not quite sure I understood that. So you said during the war, people kind of left Christianity to be more Buddhist, is that what you just said? I wasn't quite sure. When you said the Buddhists were able to expand, that was because people kind of, during the war, left Christianity?

AM: No. I think the people that were pretty much in charge of the Christianity in Western Nebraska, Reverend Kano, he was interned, I think, or somehow he was taken, interrogated because he had, he was an influence with the Japanese people. And I think at that time, the hold, toehold came apart because there was no one there to take his place.

TI: Okay, so what happened was, essentially, the leadership of the Christians...

AM: Yeah, I think it just deteriorated because of that.

TI: ...was gone, and so people, because there was nothing there, the Buddhist, sort of, influence got larger.

AM: Yeah, I think they just, you know, there was no one there to expand on the leadership, and it just kind of eventually, just kind of fell apart.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.