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LG: Have you ever participated in one of the pilgrimages?

TM: Not pilgrimages. I have been... I've done my own pilgrimage, I think, in 2017 when I was home with my sister -- in Seattle with my sisters, I said, "Let's go to Tule Lake." So we drove down and went to Tule Lake and took the tour and at least were able to see where my parents were, and what barracks they were in, because there was a big map, and there's a jail there because it was known as the resisters camp. But at the time that my parents, my family was there, it wasn't the resisters camp because at that point they had, at the end of '43, they had then gone to the labor camp, so they weren't in Tule Lake anymore. But you could see the remnants of the jail, where several of the more violent resisters were placed in, and it was just a very desolate place. I often speak about how going down there was very dry and sort of unforgiving. And there was a butte in the distance, and then if you moved maybe a half a mile away from that butte, you would see Mount Shasta. And, to me, it was kind of a metaphor, like the majesty and the promise of America is there, but not within our grasp. It's heavy, it's not for us be in. And got to see, that's where I got to see that my grandfather's name was in with my parents' name in the barracks. And I could also locate where my maternal grandparents were. Because my mother would say, "Oh, yes, Grandma used to come every day and make the trek because it was a big area where the barracks were, but this was her first grandchild, my brother, so she'd make the trek over to see him and my mother.

LG: How do you feel that the incarceration [inaudible] the generation?

TM: Well, it certainly inhibited the progress of having made it in America. I think it would have been a stronger, higher trajectory, had they not been in camp. And I always think about my grandfather, my maternal grandfather, whenever we went to visit, he always seemed a little quiet and withdrawn. I wonder how much he was depressed by the whole thing. My mother always spoke about him as being, you know, very vocal, et cetera. And when we visited him, he didn't seem to be at all. He loved his garden, so he was always working out there in his garden. But, you know, by the time they got out of camp, you know, he didn't have his laundry anymore, he was depending on his children. So yeah, I think, you know, I'm sure he probably thought, okay -- who knows -- but, "I'm responsible for them being incarcerated."

I think that my parents faced greater discrimination and racism than we did because at the times, people were not enlightened about, you know, America being diverse. It's only within what the last twenty-five years that that's become something that we want to strive for. And unfortunately, it seems like it's going backwards a little bit. You can't hear a lot of things, you can't read books now about diversity, you can't say certain words, et cetera. So you can't learn about it and your history. So in that sense, it's kind of coming back. But for my parents, it delayed their advancement. For me, I think, and my two brothers, we were really the after effects of the war. I think, again, we were facing that, but by ten years later, it was, you know, that wasn't the topic, World War II was not something that my classmates talked about, maybe their parents did. But then by the time we were in high school, then the Vietnam War came, so Asians are Asians in some in some places. So I don't know, I guess it's just the advancement, I guess, or the acceptance of who we are, was delayed. Although I must say, my sister, both my sisters and my younger brother out married, so their children, one of my sister's children do not look Asian at all. The other sisters have some Asian features, and my brother's daughter has Asian, she looks a little Asian. And then my older brother, he has two sons, and he married a Japanese American, and I'm single. So they've basically assimilated. And in fact, I'm the only one in the family that's involved in a civic way, in trying to do something to make it better in terms of how Japanese or Asian Americans are accepted.

LG: Why do you think that is? What drives you to pursue these activities?

TM: I don't know. I think I grew up at a time where there's a lot more activism, I mean, in my generation was Kennedy saying, "It's not what your country will do for you, but what you will do for your country," you know, not the exact quote, and it was right at the time of the Black movement, you know, there was a lot of activism there, and people really understood that until that happens, until people wake up a little bit and see that they get educated about what rights were denied, then it's never going to happen unless you out marry, and it all gets diluted.

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