<Begin Segment 25>

RP: Yo, looking back on your camp experience, reflecting on it, how you, how do you see it?

YW: Unnecessary. First of all, they broke the law. The government broke its own rules. My father was a legal resident of this country. My mother was a citizen of this country. She was born and raised here, except for the time she went to Japan. Her kids were all born and raised here. We're all citizens or legal residents. Those rights were not accorded to us during World War II. No trial. We just looked like the enemies and they didn't like it, so they put us in jail. It's not fair. It's not right. They finally admitted they goofed, right? They paid reparations. Not enough. Doesn't cover the damage they do to, what they did to my dad, right? He could never recover from that loss. I think a better settlement, rather than the twenty, twenty thousand dollars, in hindsight, I think a better thing for them to do was give these guys the right to not pay taxes for twenty years. So each to his own, right? You make a lot of money, you get to save a lot of money. You make a little money, you save a little money. But don't tax us for twenty years, I think, would've been a better settlement. We got nothing, really. Twenty thousand today's dollars is peanuts. And he didn't lose peanuts; he lost a lot. I don't know whether that was ever negotiated as part of the deal, but that should've been a better deal, I think. Don't pay income tax for twenty years.

RP: Now, you mentioned also that you, you've shared your story with your granddaughter's grammar school classes?

YW: I have a granddaughter who's about thirteen years old, eighth grade, and her English -- was it English teacher? -- English teacher was just asking a generalized question, "Anybody here have grandparents that were incarcerated?" Up went her hand. She says, "I want to talk to you after class." She says, "You think your grandfather would be willing to come in and talk to us about his experience?" She said, "I'll ask." So she came and asked me. I said, "What does he want to hear and when does he want me to talk?" We got that all straightened out and one day we spent an hour and a half or so in a big room where he had, must've had a hundred kids in there. And the kids were listening to our story and then they were allowed to ask questions and we had an exchange, and I don't know how it impacted them, but that's what I did. Yeah.

RP: Well, I certainly hope you do more of that. This is, this is part of that.

YW: Well, I think a lot of people don't understand what happened to us. They don't even believe it. In fact, I can tell you a story about that. We were in Washington, D.C. at the history museum there, as part of the -- [to wife] what's, what's that museum we went to see?

Off camera: Smithsonian.

YW: Oh, Smithsonian. You got a whole bunch of different museums there and we walked into one of 'em, and one of 'em had, the history museum, in the doorway they had a display that said, "This week we're gonna show literature and exhibits from the Japanese incarceration during World War II." And so I was reading this sign, I said, hey, I better go see what they're talkin' about here. So we were reading this thing and the lady behind me, Caucasian lady lookin' at the sign, she says, "I don't believe that happened." See, this is the problem we have in this country. "I don't believe it happened." I looked back and I said, "Excuse me, lady, you're lookin' at one of the inmates." I said, "I wasn't tried, I wasn't accused. I was just accused of looking like the enemy." And I agreed all of that. I said, "I looked like the enemy, but that was the only reason I was in jail." I said, "Can you believe that? It happened. Trust me, it did. Go listen, go read that exhibit and find out for yourself." I said, "This country has done something horrible to some of its people." I hope she went and looked at the exhibit and taken it seriously. So she didn't believe it. A lot of people said, "I don't believe it." Said, "They wouldn't, the country wouldn't do that." I said, "You wanna bet?" I said, "Tell you what. I want to take you to a museum. You got time this Saturday?" So I've done that to people, taken them to the Japanese American National Museum. There's a section on it. I said, "I don't mean to do this to chastise you personally. I'm just doing this to educate you. I'll do you one better. I'll even buy you lunch." [Laughs]

RP: The people that acknowledge that these camps existed sometimes don't want to acknowledge the fact that there were actually two camps in Arkansas, you know, so far across the country.

YW: Oh. Actually there was ten of us.

RP: Ten camps, but you know, Rohwer and Jerome kind of seem to be lost in the shuffle.

YW: Yeah. Well, they don't, most of 'em don't even know there's two in California. "Tule Lake? Where's Tule Lake?" Right? They hear Manzanar 'cause they go fishing up that way, but "Tule Lake? What's Tule Lake?" I says, "I've never been there either, but it's in northern end of California." I think my uncle was incarcerated there for a while.

RP: Oh, really?

YW: Yeah. Just by accident. He ended up there, not because he wanted to be there, but -- some people went there 'cause they wanted to be there -- but he was there.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.