<Begin Segment 11>

RP: Hm. And you're going up against a school, a student body of a thousand kids with a large, a large team. Many, many of those guys had played football before at other high schools before they came to Manzanar. So...

CT: Oh yeah, we weren't, we wanted the win, that's for sure. But we weren't disappointed I don't think. I think we were disappointed we didn't score at all. As far as I could remember, no lingering thoughts about it. Just a game we lost.

RP: Right. You said that you didn't feel the prejudice that other people in the community felt.

CT: I can't say that they did feel the prejudice. I'm just saying I didn't. I didn't have, I wasn't prejudiced at all.

RP: Uh-huh.

CT: But, if it would have got down to war talk or something, I would have been prejudiced. This was kids' game. But if it had got any serious, I would have been prejudiced I know. Because I knew some of the guys that got hurt. But that's in a different... I'm here and they're up there. Different zone. Kids think different, I think. You know, we weren't all of... I was only what, fourteen or fifteen years old. It was just an experience.

RP: And that was your only, that was your only visit to the camp during the time you were in Big Pine. You never went down to Manzanar again, did you?

CT: No, I passed by lots and lots of times though.

RP: Was there any attitude or feeling that changed within you because of the game that you played there?

CT: No, I don't believe so. Not that I can remember. No, I don't think so. I might have been a little bit surprised at the, maybe, I don't even know that, but now I'm surprised thinking back that it was so well accepted by them. We were accepted by them as well as they were accepted by us. It was just a mutual binding. Or maybe not binding but a mutual understanding.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.