<Begin Segment 24>

RP: Have you been back to Poston since you left?

MS: No, I haven't, but my daughter has been there. I think she, yeah, I think she's the only one in the family's been back there. She said there's a, she took a picture of this plaque of my husband there, and the plaque, it said Poston monument or something. I don't know why he, they got him on... she took a picture of it. She showed, brought it back with her. She wrote this book about, so she gave book reading in Arizona at some of the grammer schools. Somebody heard about her. She went to several schools and told 'em, to talk about Poston and the book she wrote, and so she visited Poston 'cause it wasn't too far from, she was in Phoenix area, so that's when she saw that plaque. And before there was, but I heard there's the highway that goes practically by the place to go into Blythe or Phoenix. I think there's a new highway. And I've talked to a couple people that have been by, but I've never, my husband didn't care to go back and we never did go back to Poston. They have reunions and all that, but we haven't been. We were asked to serve on the Poston Committee. They have that committee, you know Mary Higashi? She's not, we know each other and she, they wanted us to work with that committee, but we just didn't want to be bothered. We were too old, too busy. It takes a lot of time, going to all the meetings and all, and we felt we didn't want to get involved. Mary Higashi, I've known, I knew her husband when he was a little boy, so I've known, she, we correspond to each other. She writes to me and... she's the one in that last tape, DVD, I have it here. Do you have that one?

RP: Passing Poston?

MS: Uh-huh, she's the one that narrates in that. Is that Mary? I'm sure it is. And so...

RP: How did your daughter get interested in --

MS: Huh?

RP: How did your daughter get interested in the camp story?

MS: Well she, Marlene was only two years old when we left, so she doesn't know anything about Poston. That's why she wants to, she's researching and trying to write up different things, 'cause she was two years -- my son was almost five, so he remembers vaguely.

RP: Does he have an interest at all?

MS: Yeah, well, like I, he taught science in high school for a while and he knew a history teacher and there's nothing in the history books -- and this was several years ago -- so he was asked to lecture at the high school, Anaheim High, so he gathered all this material, like he had the clippings of the trial and all, so he gave a, the history teacher asked him to talk to his class. So he taught high school for several years and then he got a job teaching at the Cleveland Chiropractic College in L.A., but that's why he got interested, he was interested in athletic injuries and all that, and that chiropractor helps a lot, so that's why he went into it. And he went pre med, but he got waylaid 'cause he was interested in athletics and he taught, he was the assistant coach at, towards El Segundo High and he, Anaheim High School. The principal knew him and he asked my son to help coach football, so that's what he did, then he taught sciences at the same time, so that's why, he taught for about ten years, I think, in high school, then he decided to go into chiropractic after he taught, college. So that's why he got involved in that.

RP: Did either of your --

MS: He did, he did okay. He had a lot of, he knew a lot of coaches in his area, so they would send their kids over for treatment, 'cause they would hurt their arm or whatever, so he had a very good practice. He did quite well.

RP: Did your parents or your husband's parents ever become citizens when the laws changed?

MS: My, my husband's parents both got their citizenship in, was it early '50s or something? Yeah, they, they got... but my father, he was so Americanized and he read English. He read, he took the Times paper and he went to the library and read a lot and all that, and so he was well acquainted and he read a lot, and he said when he could use the citizenship -- he didn't have it, he was about eighty -- he said, "I don't want it now," he said. He said when he wanted it, couldn't use it, so he used my name 'cause I was citizen, for some things that had to be, you know, but he never could, so he was real up, kinda something back of the mind. He said, "I don't want my citizenship now." He said when he wanted it he couldn't have it, so he said, he was too old to anything with it anyway, but his parents, my husband's parents both got their citizenship, naturalized.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.