<Begin Segment 1>

[Ed. note: the beginning of this interview is missing due to technical difficulties.]

(JA: This film is going to be shown at Manzanar and the audience is going to be people who are coming through there with families, with kids, all ages, largely people who don't know much about what Manzanar was. And I'm just curious, so just imagine that I'm one of those people as we talk, and I'm just curious as to why you think I as a tourist coming through there should know about Manzanar.

GI: Well, I think that Manzanar was a place, a camp. I don't, I feel strongly about anybody calling it a concentration camp because the common word "concentration camp" refers back to what happened back in Germany.

JA: Right.

GI: And I don't want, I don't want the American people to take that, take that same attitude against the, the Nazis had in Germany against these Japanese Americans. The Japanese Americans didn't have any choice. I think it was all a, it was just a political move on political people to move all the Japanese Americans out of California, which I don't blame them because we looked like the enemy anyway. We always did. Until we went , we, they were all interned in Manzanar. I felt safe in Manzanar, and in fact I, I'm not bitter about it. I felt that it, it was another adventure for me because I'd never been out of California when I was a child, and I, I never looked back. Once we got on a bus and on the way, I really didn't see anybody on the bus crying or shedding tears. I think they all couldn't... they, they were just like me, they couldn't figure out what was really happening to us. And once we got to camp, I remember that the first thing we had to do was get in line. We all had tags, all the families and all the individuals had tags on their shirt or jacket giving us, we all had numbers, and we had to line up according to numbers in camp, and then we were given a shot. I for-, I can't even remember what kind of shots we were given but we were given a number of shots before we, we were finally destined to go to our barracks.)

[Interruption]

JA: You started to say before you cautioned me that you didn't see Manzanar as a concentration camp, you started to tell me why it was important, though, and what it, what it was. What would you say Manzanar was to somebody who doesn't know anything about it?

GI: Well, I just think it was, it was just a holding camp until the government knew what, what they were going to do with us. The reason I say it was not a concentration camp because we were free to roam and we were, we were, I think we were treated as well as any, anybody can be treated that was going into a place called Manzanar camp, and that's why I don't, I don't feel bitter about it.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.