Densho Digital Archive
Oregon Nikkei Endowment Collection
Title: George Nakata Interview
Narrator: George Nakata
Interviewer: Masako Hinatsu
Location: Portland, Oregon
Date: August 23, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-ngeorge_2-01-0025

<Begin Segment 25>

MH: Did you go to church in camp?

GN: There were a number of churches there, the Shinto, the Buddhist, the Methodist. The Buddhist temple I went with because some of my friends went there. And because of my Christian or Catholic background up to that point, it was I found quite interesting, the eight fold paths of truth, a Buddha sitting under the bodhi tree and learning about some of their prayers, and when one passes on, getting a Buddhist name. And not to be a master of Buddhism but even as a child, going through some Buddhist classes and at least retaining some principles of the Buddhism tradition was very new to me. So there were Christians, Methodist services. There were konkosan, the Shinto services. There were a variety of churches. But as a family, we did not go every Sunday to church. We went if there might be a wedding. We went if there might be a funeral. And again, there might be a Shinto wedding or there might be a Christian in the Christian tradition wedding. They were never fancy. They couldn't be. The facilities weren't there. The amenities weren't there, but they happened. There were funerals that we attended. And again, I think the younger people like myself, we got introduced to what a pillow service is, what a wake service is, what a funeral is, in the Buddhism tradition, seven-day service, fourteen-day service, all the way to forty-nine-day service for seven straight weeks particularly if it's a relative or a close friend. A lot of I think Japanese cultures wrapped up in language, food, religion, and the opportunity to live in a Japanese or Japanese American community in Minidoka gave the young children exposure not technically to a religion but if you will to part of the culture. So we got acquainted with Buddhist bishops, with priests. We got, without even knowing it, I think we had education and religion just by direct or indirect participation with friends.

MH: Do you remember anything about the famous garden in camp? Do you recall that at all?

GN: No. The only garden that I recall were the actual vegetable producing gardens. My father used to have a great deal of interest in ikebana. He of course after the war had two hundred bonsai plants of his own. He had his own garden, Japanese garden. If you look in my backyard right now, it's pretty much a Japanese garden. So we had inherited this. So I know my father went throughout the camp and looked at, at first, there were no gardens, but after a year or two and I don't know how they did it because we had no forging of concrete of monuments or anything, but how they did it with stone and simulated dry streams, and my father would describe this sometime to us, but I personally never had the opportunity to see those gardens. I certainly would have liked to given an opportunity to maybe enhance our own garden here.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.