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RB: And do you know much about your parents' life before you were born? Do you know how they met?

MA: Yes, I do. I know that my mother was thirteen when she arrived in Poston with her family and my father was sixteen. He had just graduated high school, but he sensed that something ill was going to be happening soon with the United States and Japan, and so he graduated early trying to ensure that at least he has a high school degree. And so when both sets of families ended up in Poston, they spent three and a half years. And then upon release, my mother saw my father on the train, which, this train was going to Seabrook, New Jersey, and that's where I was born. But she noticed this, she says, in her words, a "good looking man" that she said she'd like to get to know. So I guess that came to fruition.

RB: So what was the age difference then between...

MA: Three years.

RB: Did your parents talk much about their camp experience?

MA: My parents did not speak about their life in camp, and I was really oblivious to the experience. I know that during family gatherings when my uncles and aunts, i.e. my mother's siblings, were over, we'd be talking and they'd be sort of laughing, and they would make a reference to, "Oh, I remember this. Don't you remember, we used to do that in camp?" They just threw the word "camp" out fairly regularly, and I never knew the context of that until much, much later. But it was only in, I guess, high school, maybe sophomore or junior year where I was doing a project. And I was, the topic was the incarceration of Japanese Americans in these camps during the war, which I thought was really incredulous that this would happen in the United States. And so as I did some research, I was writing, and as I came across more information, I just could not believe that this was really true. So I just bounced some of the topics to my mother, and I said, "Hey, did you know about these Japanese Americans that were incarcerated during World War II?" and she goes, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Well, yeah, it happened in the United States, I can't believe it." And she goes, "Yeah, we were there." And so it was not until that moment that I realized what they had gone through, and then I started, because of my questioning, I started to get more interested, and then I started to ask my parents about their history and their story, but they never really revealed it to me on their own, it was only prompting that they would share some information. Then I would get more information as I had family gatherings with my relatives, and then I would ask my aunts and uncles, and then they would all start to chime in together. However, interestingly, I never sensed any bitterness when they were discussing their camp life, which I find also very unique because I don't think I would have been in that same proper state of mind if I was a young man or even an adolescent like my mother was. But they never harbored any ill-will, however, they did say they suffered and sacrificed a lot, but I think in their eyes, they had a life, but I think the toll was on the Issei who didn't really kind of understand, couldn't speak the language necessarily. So I know my grandmother, she might have had a different perspective than my mother or father did.

RB: Are there any specific stories from the camp years that either your parents told you or that you heard from other relatives?

MA: Camp still raised, I know my mother, who was three years younger than my father, she would always say how much fun she had. She would be playing sports, basketball, softball, with the other females, and she thought this was great. She thought really it was like camp because, summer camp, because she didn't have to work the fields as I understand her. When she was in Salinas, they picked strawberries, they picked other vegetables and things, and she said all we did was work in the fields, go to school, come back, and do house chores. So she has a different, I guess, perspective on her teenage years in camp. Where my father was sixteen to nineteen, and I think his was more sobering in the sense that he knew that he had to make a wage so that he can take care of his ill mother. His father was not with the family at the time, he was detained in a FBI Department of Justice camp, which I'm finding more information now as we speak. So that's another, I guess, item or variable in the equation of how I'm trying to find out more about my family's history.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2023 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.