Densho Digital Archive - Alley Watada Interview (denshovh-walley-01-0014)

<Begin Segment 14>

RP: One other thing we wanted to talk about your father about was his, his involvement with, with the Buddhist church. And he, he did something very interesting during the year, you told me that he would, he would take ministers to, to rural areas in Wyoming, Nebraska, can you elaborate on that a little bit?

AW: Yes, sure. The ministers here in the temple had -- called the Tri-state Buddhist Temple -- the survival of the temple depended upon, through donations from everyone. And one of the thing that the ministers did was, in those days, would go out and covered three states in those days. Covered Colorado and Nebraska and Wyoming. And now it covers seven states. But the ministers would go out and meet the people of Japanese ancestry on all these locations. And so my father would spend, I know, two weeks every winter in taking him, taking one of the ministers out to visit with all the people there and asking for donations.

RP: You also mentioned that he never really actually participated in, you know, being Buddhist. He never really understood the philosophy or religion, but rather promoted it.

AW: That's right. He, well, more in term of supporting the organization for the benefit of family and the community. And I think that, in terms of really understanding the Buddhist religion, he was not in depth on it. And I say that because when I, in his latter years, I asked him about some of the philosophy that was being, that I came across in the Buddhist religion. I would ask him about that and he said that although he was active in the Buddhist temple, that he was, really did not doctrine, the Buddhist doctrine. So I thought this was interesting for a person who gave up a lot of hours in helping the Buddhist temple, his understanding doctrine was limited. And so... but I think it goes back to his philosophy of helping the society and it's not so much understanding but to make sure that it's helpful to the community.