<Begin Segment 20>

RP: Later on, in 1988, this redress movement developed, and you had a part in that?

TK: Oh, yeah, we all did, JACL. See, like Tsukamoto, if you've heard of Mary Tsukamoto, oh, man. When she said "jump," we used to jump. [Laughs] Oh, yeah. She used to have to write letters and have all these meetings. She got us going. Actually, she's one of my relatives' wife. Like Carol, when you see Carol, ask her about Mrs. Sasaki.

RP: What were your, what were your feelings about receiving an apology from the government and the reparations?

TK: Well, to me, too bad they didn't give it to everybody, not just the live ones. They should have given it to everybody that went to camp, they should have given it to them. Either that or given us $50,000. We wanted $50,000 from the beginning, at first. But they said, "No, that's a little too much. They won't give it to us." I think somehow they knocked it down or whatever to $20,000. Yeah, at first, they said $50,000. But after that, they... I said, "Well, too bad my folks didn't get it."

RP: So just to wrap up our interview, can you tell us how your camp experiences -- and of course you weren't there very long -- but how did your camp experiences shape your life to come?

TK: It shouldn't happen to anybody. It shouldn't have happened to anybody. Well, with this war in Iraq, I could just see all those guys are scared. It could happen to them. They would grab everybody and put 'em in. But I think what happened, if war with Japan broke out now, I don't think we'd be put in camp, 'cause there's too many Japanese. Not just 100,000. Too many Japanese married to other nationalities, right? And you can't put everybody in camp. 'Cause at that time, even husbands and whatchacall, some of 'em, they came. We used to see Caucasian guys in camp, but they left early. They didn't stay too long. So yeah, if that thing happened now, you're talking, what, million, two million? I don't think they could do it. At that time, only 120,000, and all the politicians in California, oh, man. Especially Earl Warren, oh, man. He was bad. Lot of people don't know it. He was attorney general. He should have backed us up, but no. He was one of the first ones to... his son was all right. His son, I think, apologized, but not Earl. He never did. In fact, some of those guys that was in the JACL from Sacramento, they got called in. And then all those guys, they tried to say something, said, "You guys shut up." They were so mad, they wouldn't even let us talk.

RP: Tommy, on behalf of Kirk and myself and the National Park Service, thank you so much for a great interview.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.