<Begin Segment 16>

RP: Mary, were you involved at all with the effort on the part of Japanese Americans to get an apology and a redress from the government?

MS: No, I wasn't. I wasn't involved.

RP: But you were aware of that effort?

MS: Yeah, I was.

RP: And what was your opinion of that process?

MS: Well, they finally gave twenty thousand dollars, didn't they, to everybody that was alive. And well, some of 'em didn't need it, so some of 'em just gave it to us, some of 'em gave it to the church, a couple.

RP: Oh, they did? That leads me to another question. Were there a number of Japanese Americans who came out of the camp that stayed at your hostel who eventually converted or...

MS: Became Brethren?

RP: ...became members of the Brethren?

MS: Just a few, not many.

RP: A few?

MS: We had this one... oh, what was his name? He was a, I think it was Togasaki, they lived in Berkeley. He had a bunch of sisters that were doctors. But this man, he was on our board in our church, too. He joined our church, and his family. I'm trying to remember some more.

RP: How much representation do you have in the church now in terms of Asian groups?

MS: Not many.

RP: Not very many?

MS: No, not many. We have a few, though. There's a Barbara Date, her mother's a, I think maybe in this Portland church. And no, there's not many. We're trying to have a, they have an intercultural thing. We have some Mexicans or Hispanics in L.A., and we're trying to have more, you know, different groups like that, but it's hard to do. We're pretty much... like right here, we have one black couple, they come to our church. But they're just as "white" as the rest of us, I mean, they act like the rest of us. And then we have another black woman who was Methodist, and she got together with a white man. But it's not much, not much mix.

RP: Ethnically.

MS: It's very, it's very hard to do.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.