<Begin Segment 25>

RP: Were they around for the, in 1988 when the apology letter and the check for twenty thousand dollars was issued...

MS: Yeah, I got it, but I'm, I don't think they did. No, I think they were gone. So each one of us got twenty, all my kids, 'cause they were, like I was surprised. I thought, 'cause my daughter was only two years old, but I told her to look into it and she got it 'cause she was born in Poston. But then, twenty thousand, I couldn't even buy a drug store any, being, losing all that business those years and all that, that twenty thousand dollars didn't mean anything when we got it. But it was a nice apology. You've seen the apology? We each got a copy of that, so it can't ever happen again. But they did restrain Germans during the war, didn't they, World War I? And back, they brought 'em over, back East they had a concentration camp and they brought some German people. I remember vaguely about that. So it can't ever happen again. But after all, the war was how many thousand miles away? What could we do? And then never actually had any sabotage or any kind of spying they could pin down, have they ever? They thought we... you think people living here would do that, the Japanese people? They lived here and they more or less, you know how Hispanic people, you know they, to this day, most of 'em can't even speak English, but the Japanese people ambitious. They all sent their kids to school and they tried to be Americanized as much they could, so you think any of 'em would be a spy? They didn't understand the Japanese people. They were scared to death. We didn't have anything to do with it, but we were blamed for it, right? We had nothing to do with it, but it was different story during the war, the, everybody got hysterical. They didn't know what they were thinking.

RP: Were you ever angry or bitter at what, how the government had treated you and your, your family?

MS: Oh, in a way. It was, it was hard, like going to camp. It was very difficult, took everything away and all that, but after a bit we met friends and we made the best of it. Things got better.

RP: Was there any, do you remember a very humorous event or experience at Poston, something that was humorous?

MS: I don't know, I was just at home all the time raising the kids, so I didn't get too involved in very many things. Yeah, 'cause a lot of the women, older ones, didn't work. The younger ones went, nurses and all, they worked in the hospital there and teachers taught and everybody who'd had a profession did something. They could, we had cooks and dishwashers and whatever their, they made use of what they could do, so they kept busy. But some of us women had children never worked. It was...

RP: But you'd been to college and you said you read a lot, did you long for intellectual stimulation in the camp?

MS: Oh, college...

RP: Did you look, were you, did you... I'll just change the question.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.