Densho Digital Archive - George Uchida - Leo Uchida Interview (denshovh-ugeorge

<Begin Segment 27>

GU: [Holding photograph] Yeah. I wanted to show you this picture. This is a picture that a good friend of my father, a photographer, took. You know the old fashioned camera where it spans the group, a large group? And that's how this picture was taken. And my father had the photographer make several copies, the same thing, and he gave it to different friends. And this was one of 'em, that got I back from this, close family friend, the Miyaokas, Ben that I'm telling, I mentioned. One of the Florin, at one of the Florin reunions, they brought this and gave it back to us. And since then, my wife had it framed in this frame. I don't know if you remember other families having this picture.

LU: The one I have might be the same one, I don't know.

GU: No, it is exactly the same thing. Father had several made from the same negative. What's significant about this is this is in the Smithsonian museum, in the Museum of Natural History. You know, they had that exhibit called "We the People," which opened in 1988, I think. And the first set of exhibits in that exhibit was a town called Florin. And Mary Tsukamoto was heavily responsible for that, and she was able to include this picture in that exhibit. So I heard that they were gonna make that a permanent exhibit, but I don't know. I haven't been there since -- I went there in 1999, and I haven't been back there since. But the odd thing about it, that picture, the title of this picture in that exhibit does not have our name in it. It has another, the Tsukamoto family.

KP: So they're taking credit for your father?

GU: I guess so. I don't know if they have changed it since then or not. I know for several years, they haven't changed it, no matter how many times we have, somebody in the family had talked to somebody there. And for some reason, they would not change it. And you know what the last comment was, why they couldn't change it? They were waiting for budget to make changes, because this is not the only thing that needed to be changed.

KP: Actually, we understand that quite well at the Park, run into the same thing.

GU: But when you have something like that, can't somebody on their lunch go to the computer and print out a name and put it in place of it?

RP: I'll even give 'em a Sharpie.

GU: Yeah.

RP: Yeah. That's not -- but then they have the rules and regulations.