<Begin Segment 18>

RP: You mentioned that you have visited all ten camps.

GI: Yes.

RP: And when did this start, and did it become sort of like, I wouldn't call it an obsession, but an impulse to want to go to all the camps.

GI: Go to all of 'em? Yeah. I guess the first one was Gila, and then... oh, and then Poston was so close in Arizona, so we visited that. And then I, we were going to Branson one year, and so we stopped by and saw Jerome and Rohwer. And then one time we were going up to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, so we went to Heart Mountain and Minidoka. And then I had seen Tule Lake quite a few times, 'cause you know, that's going up and down. So Manzanar was one of the few I hadn't seen because we kept saying, well, that's in California, we'll save that. So then we went with Jessica. And then we had to go see Amache 'cause that was the last one. So now they're saying, "Well, you have to go see the Justice camps."

RP: DOJ.

GI: So I said, "Oh my gosh, how many are those?" [Laughs] But years ago, I did go to Santa Fe, New Mexico, because I wanted to know because my father's cousin had been there. And I wanted to, and I couldn't find it. And years later, when I was reading one of the Japanese papers, and I, you know, read about how they were... I sent money to that one. And now they do have some sort of a plaque or something, don't they? It's across the street from some park or someplace. So I might go see that someday.

RP: Quite a battle to get that, too.

GI: I think so.

RP: It sounds so much like what we just heard from Joanne about, "Well, we're going up for a vacation, let's stop in over here."

GI: Yeah. And along the way, I did buy Joanne's book. 'Cause they did a book about the ten camps. And it helped me, I think... well, like when we were up in Wyoming or by Minidoka. It was funny 'cause we were going along in a motor home, and this car passes up. And then they backtracked, they came back, and they said, "Are you looking for the camp?" We said, "Yeah, we are." [Laughs] And she said, "I'll take you there." And she took us there, and she said her parents had homesteaded up there after. And so she felt warmth towards... you know.

RP: Nice to feel that from, have that conveyed.

GI: Yeah. But of all the camps we've gone to, I think I was mostly inspired by Amache.

RP: What way?

GI: You know that.... what's his name? John...

RP: Hopper.

GI: Hopper. What he's been able to do with those kids and everything, I said, "Wow." It was really... so you know, it's not like that in all of them.

RP: Of the ten camps, which one just environmentally has struck you the strongest?

GI: I thought the most desolate was Topaz. It's just this windswept place, you know. And then the, their little marker has been vandalized and all that.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.