<Begin Segment 26>

KP: Can I ask a question? This is way out in left field, but there was a gentleman there by the name of Kawamoto who was in camp and he --

MS: Yamamoto?

KP: Kawamoto. Kawamoto, K-A-W. Kawamoto, and he had a Hispanic wife. Do you remember anything about that all? There was a problem and I think...

MS: Yeah, I don't remember that name. I don't recall. Yeah, there was a problem that had Caucasian wives that they couldn't get, take 'em in there and there was a problem. I remember vaguely, but I don't know anybody personally. I can't remember.

KP: It was something about, your husband might have dealt with it.

MS: Yeah, he might've known the name, but I don't remember. I really didn't get out too much because I stayed in my room and was raising the two kids 'cause my son was five, almost five and my daughter's two, so I had the two kids, so I really didn't get too involved in different things. I just kept busy. We'd sit around and talk with other mothers, comparing notes about kids. [Laughs] But it's really, you could talk about it now, but it was real hard at the time. My husband felt real bitter, though, I think, way we were treated. In a way, he had to go, he never really, he couldn't forget it. He was always bitter about different things that happened. More than I.

RP: Did you, did you go to the trial?

MS: No, I, I didn't go. Well, we weren't allowed to go, 'cause they had to go by army escort. They, yeah, we weren't allowed to go.

RP: It was in, it was in the Los Angeles papers.

MS: Uh-huh.

RP: L.A. Times.

MS: I have a, I think my son made some slides with papers getting so old and brown, it's been so long, but my daughter still has it and I don't want to let go of it, so if she could bring it down, if... but you're going back, so...

RP: Well, I can give her a call, see if we can...

MS: She'll be here Saturday. She's gonna stay here for, visit me, bring my granddaughter. She has a granddaughter that... coming down for sort of a reunion on Saturday, so if you're here she could bring it down. I've often wished I had it here, but she was writing all this, so I thought, well, she might as well take the whole thing, so I gave her the whole, the whole big suitcase full of all kinds of material. And that's still in that suitcase.

RP: Do you have any, based on the experience that you went through in going to camp and being, like you, in your words, classified as an enemy alien, do you have any advice for young people, in terms of your experience?

MS: Oh, I really don't. It's... well, it was difficult. We couldn't understand it in the first place, like why they did that to us, 'cause we, we felt we didn't have anything to do with the war and we were citizens. It was very hard to accept that we were put in camp. I was real, but what could you do? So I think Roosevelt decided he made a mistake by not really thinking about it, don't you think? Spur of the moment, he signed it and then, and he didn't have any authority to do it. He didn't have any backing, actually, when he came -- Reagan started that, Reagan started that... then I think the son is the one that signed it. Or what's the, the first president signed that apology? I think it was, wasn't it? The father.

RP: It was the father that sent the checks out.

MS: I have that, father signed, and then for my birthday my friend sent in my, to get a birthday card from Laura, they always sign everything just Bush, but Laura Bush signed it. Have you seen one of those? So I got one of those, so I said I'm, second one came and you got two, two Bushes. [Laughs] I'm a Republican, so I'm real proud of it. I got two Bush signatures.

RP: You have any other questions, Kirk?

KP: No, I think we're good.

RP: Misako, thank you so much for your stories and...

MS: Oh, I'm not a very good talker, so --

RP: You did fine. Yeah.

MS: I'm, when you get old, my memory's bad.

RP: A hundred years old.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.