<Begin Segment 17>

RP: We're at the community center here. When did you get involved with this facility?

TH: It was because I guess I was still a single man when I joined the community. I went fishing, a farm group of guys got invited to go fishing from a fertilizer company, so I got to know all these farmers. And these farmers were part of this Japanese community, they were the leaders. They didn't object for me to being with them so I stuck around. I got a lot of good points on how to farm and stuff like this. As their turn finished leading the community, my kids were starting to grow, and I wanted to take my turn too. I threw in my sort of hat and I bellyached about some issues and I got elected to become the leader. Some of my ideas worked. That's okay, everybody gets his turn if he wants to here.

RP: We talked about this partial, I guess you could call it partial redress that you received a few years after the war, the 3,000 dollar payment. About twenty years after that, this larger redress and reparations effort was underway, spearheaded by the Japanese American community. Did you have any involvement, did you attend hearings?

TH: My wife and I went to Los Angeles and I think it was some of the county court buildings or it was a pretty big auditorium anyway, and they had these government people listening on and they were taking notes and stuff on what was being said. I told you earlier that if I had to, I would try to testify in my own behalf, but there were older people that had lost monetary possessions and stuff before the war. It could have been in real estate also. They were the big losers and here I hadn't lost anything. It was my parents that lost. I was interested in getting it and after I received it, I was sort of elated that finally some justice was done but when you think about it, it comes out to like 2,000 dollars prior to December 7th, might have been 2,000 that came out to be 20,000, the total amount was 20,000 dollar redress. In prewar or right after World War II when we got kicked out of here, it was like equivalent to 2,000.

RP: Have you been back to Heart Mountain to visit the place you lived for three years?

TH: Uh-huh. I wrote in that... it was a side trip that I took my kids to Yellowstone, we met another family that was a member of this community, and we met in the west part of Yellowstone. That time there, we left our camp and left our tents and stuff, but we took a one day trip to Heart Mountain. It took most of the day, by the time we came back it was dark. It wasn't like I left to come home, it was just a, oh, is this how it turned out. Is this where it was? It was not a elation, it was just a remembrance that wasn't too happy. I found the hole where the gymnasium was, and the only thing left was the cellar, or where the heating mechanism was. The vault was still there but outside of that, most of the camp area was all under cultivation.

RP: How did your kids respond to that visit?

TH: They were, they didn't know anything about what happened and they were still too young to realize. When we went back in '67, my eldest would be thirteen and then I have a twelve year old son, eleven year son. The two younger ones were sort of young yet, the fourth kid would have been seven years old. They didn't feel anything. They haven't gone to any of the reunions but maybe the next time, I'll invite them all to attend the reunion.

RP: One other question, the closer is, how do you reflect on your camp experience? Did it impact your life at all, shape your life at all?

TH: It's not a pleasant subject to talk about. It doesn't make me real happy or anything so I try not to because it's a tear jerker, even today. But I have this barn that you gotta go see, there's a member of this barn, his sister lives in Powell, Wyoming, which is about in between, it's east of the camp site. He knows about this camp site and stuff and he knows about the restoration of a couple barracks in the visitor center and stuff like this. And so he's sort of interested because he goes by there when he flies out of Cody, Wyoming and stuff like this. I should have brought it here but I have a pencil sketch that one of the camp members, I forget how old but, he drew a picture of Heart Mountain, the mountain and it's pencil and it's framed and I just got it a week or so ago. He said he took seventy two hours to sketch, to finish. It's titled, "Beyond the Horizon," and you should take a look at it because it has this picture of Heart Mountain but there is a horizon, he's sketched in the horizon also. And that has a lot of meaning to me, "Beyond the Horizon."

RP: Thank you, Ted.

TH: It's not a pleasant memory.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.