<Begin Segment 24>

RP: One last question, Kinge. How do you reflect on your camp experiences, mostly at Topaz? How do you see that experience and how did it shape any part of your life?

KO: Well, I guess I'd just call it a... an interesting experience like everybody in the war's experience, and went through a period that was out of, out of their control, but managed to get through it one way or the other, that's about it. And I guess in my case, it was sort of an interesting real life experience. Because at that time, all I knew was school and that kind of stuff. Beyond that, I guess everybody that gets military, drafted in the military, goes through sort of the same sort of, you might say, experience, that's not controllable and out of whack with everything else. Not quite the real civil life, type of thing. So I guess I can't say much more than that.

RP: Kirk, any additional questions?

KP: I do have one. Go all the way back to the beginning, do you have any idea what your father's family did in Japan, what kind of...

KO: Oh, they were a small village landholder. In fact, from what my father said, I don't know how accurate he is, but my father's family was probably one of the village elders, but they were probably one of the biggest landholding in that little village. Landholding meaning ten, fourteen acres, I think. I think one number I remember was seventeen acres. That was a big farm in those days, and about half of that was apparently a wooded area on a hill. But it was one of the wooded landholders and a village elder. And my father, some of the tales my father told me about the, his grandparents and stuff was sort of amusing. But I don't know if I should repeat that or not. [Laughs] But to phrase it real loosely, I think if my, one of my grandparents way back in the old shogun period, if he wasn't an incompetent revolutionary, I wouldn't be here. [Laughs]

RP: I think we'll end there, Kinge. That's a perfect place to end. Thank you on behalf of myself and Kirk and the National Park Service for sharing amazing and wonderful stories with us this morning.

KO: Okay, I'm glad to have had the opportunity.

RP: Appreciate it.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.