<Begin Segment 6>

JA: You got out into Lone Pine from time to time?

MS: Oh, yeah.

JA: What was the feelings, or the variety of feelings that people in town had about this camp?

MS: Well, some of them, of course, worked at the camp, but some of 'em were very negative. And I know --

JA: Tell me, let me have you repeat a piece of my question, since I won't be heard. But just say, "Some of the people in..."

MS: Lone Pine.

JA: Okay, just start off that way.

MS: Okay. Well, some of the people in Lone Pine, of course, worked in the camp, and quite a few of them. In the town, you had some people that were very negative about it, and I know that when they brought the, they bought a hotel in San Francisco and they shipped the furniture. This is basically for the Caucasians, to Lone, we went on this narrow-gauge roadway up to Lone Pine. They, when they found out it was to go to Manzanar, they refused to unload it. So the teachers went down and we unloaded it, and then everybody grabbed whatever furniture they could for their barrack. But many of the people were very sympathetic, and there's always a few rotten apples in a barrel, which ruined it for a lot of other people.

JA: What, in your mind, are the constitutional issues that all this raises that people ought to be aware of?

MS: Well, of course, as Ansel Adams has in his book Born Free and Equal, it's not so. And from a constitutional point of view, we were supposed to be fair, treat people the way they should be treated, and not do what we did, or what the President did.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.