<Begin Segment 5>

RP: What were your impressions of... you spend a little time at Manzanar High School, you eventually graduated there. You had came from this education, this probably very quality education at Sacred Heart, and then you went into a barrack high school.

MI: Yeah.

RP: You mentioned to me, we talked a while back, that you were very bored.

MI: Oh, yeah. Still challenge... we were way ahead at Sacred Heart. Even Maryknoll, too, we were way ahead. That was even, not even going to camp. If you had gone to any of the parochial schools you were way ahead of the public schools. It just seems like that's the way it is with private schools. I don't know how it is today, but the English class, even the books... we had to read a book every single week. A book report was every single week. Homework was two and a half hours every single night. And then you go to Manzanar and you go, "Whoo, no homework." No this, no that. You know, it was like freedom in another way.

RP: So besides writing these, like you said your girlfriend and you were writing this drama, this play and you decided to write this letter to General DeWitt, how did you stimulate your intellect and your, keep your mind active? If...

MI: That's why we wrote that murder mystery.

RP: You said you never finished it, though.

MI: Yeah, we couldn't figure out how to...

RP: So did you...

MI: Well see it's against our principle of killing somebody for one thing, you know. And a murder mystery there's always somebody that gets killed. Then we couldn't figure out how the heck to end this darn story.

RP: So you wrote General DeWitt into the play?

MI: Oh, I wish I could have. And a little bit more, too. [Laughs]

RP: Well you mentioned all this reading you had to do. Did you continue to read voraciously?

MI: Yeah, I'm very much like my father. My father was a reader. Yeah, I am a reader. I'm always interested in documentaries, I'm always interested in history, and I'm always interested in hearing not just the frontal side. You know, that there's got to be something in the background. And that fascinates me. And I think that's the, might have been the reason why I got this job or I was asked to take that job with the WRA. Because it was in the reports office, meaning there was several criterias in reporting something, what, when, and where, and how. And you had to follow that. And if you didn't get those four things, that was not a story.

RP: Were there any teachers that made an impression on you during your time in the camp?

MI: Yeah. There's a couple of 'em. I'm not sure on the academic level. I think they were all good teachers. But for the sacrifice that they made to come and teach us, and for the work that they displayed where there was so much anti, you know, feeling. There was this Janet Goldberg, Helen Ealy, and what was his name, our music director. He became...

RP: Frizzell?

MI: Huh?

RP: Frizzell?

MI: Yeah, Louis Frizzell. And Mr. Greenlee. Mr. Greenlee was blind and a very quiet person and you know what? Several times I heard that Manzanar people, students, former students, would see him downtown, and they would all stop to talk to him. So that's sort of like orei, you know, thank you for all that he did. So those are the teachers that the names stands out for me.

RP: Predominately for their, their contributions.

MI: Yeah, 'cause there, there were some that were like, taught shorthand and typing and stuff. Didn't make much of an impression. Not that they were bad or anything, but you just know. These were, these were the ones that really for me was outstanding.

RP: They moved you to, stimulated your mind a little bit? What did they, what did they actually do for you? What, why do you remember them?

MI: They didn't basically stimulate my mind, I think because I was already a little bit above that, you know, with the, the parochial school education I got. But they never put you down. They never said that I was, like we were like second-class students. You know, or you gotta do this, you know. Yeah, I think that's probably what it was. They always encouraged you in whatever you did so I appreciate that. 'Cause I'm sure that there were other kids that were not in the category I was or my brothers or my sisters were. You know. There was like a couple of other girls from Sacred Heart there, too, in the camp. Yeah.

RP: You worked on the high school yearbook?

MI: Yeah.

RP: What did you do? What was your contribution to the yearbook?

MI: Well, you know what? It's a funny thing. It's... you talk about democracy, this was a dictatorship. He says, "Okay, now you're gonna be in charge of the money and the management. You're gonna do this, you're gonna..." So no... but you know, it was lucky because he put me in charge of the business management.

RP: Who was he?

MI: Yosh Nakashima.

RP: He was the advisor?

MI: Well, he was... no. We were a clique, like in the high school group. And we were the movers. And so one would be this and one would be that. And it wasn't like you had to be, you know. Sort of a democracy, I think. But then there were certain people asked to do this and do that. So I was asked to raise money. And I went, "How in the world do you raise money in a camp?" you know. And so the first thing I thought of was, I says, "Gee, if you look at the yearbooks they all sell space for advertisement. Well, who's gonna advertise in camp?" So I went to a, I wrote a letter to the editor of Sharp Font Press, and, is it Lone Pine?

RP: Bishop, Lone Pine.

MI: And I said that I... you know, this is where you're so naive you know, you're young, you're not thinking anything else. "I am the business manager and would you like to buy a space in a yearbook?" And lo and behold, I got all of these things, spaces and the money came in. And then after the book was published, he offered me a job. [Laughs] I thought that was funny.

RP: You could have stayed in the Owens Valley.

MI: I think I should have. 'Cause I love it up there, you know. The desert grows on you.

RP: It does.

MI: Oh yeah, but still at that age I was dying to get out of there, too.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.