00:00We're Americans of Japanese ancestry who were imprisoned in American concentration camps in the United States,
00:10ordered by the President of the United States.
00:30Bring back some old memories, bad and good.
00:46Yeah, yeah.
00:48After President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942,
01:02a few weeks later, the Sheriff's Department from Santa Clara County came and told us we had to move.
01:09So they gave us two weeks.
01:11Two weeks, you know, you get rid of your belongings, and you can only carry what you can carry in your hand, and that's all.
01:19Nothing else. We sold the land, got rid of our farming equipment.
01:24The cold air would come underneath the barracks, and the floor would get cold, not only the walls.
01:29So we had to put sheets on the floor to cut down the heat, but it didn't work.
01:33It was cold and terrible.
01:35Inside the barracks, when the six of us had to share this room, we had no privacy.
01:39So my mother and father, you know, put the sheets up.
01:42All of us kids, we slept in terrible folding cots with this small mattress in there.
01:50That's where we slept.
01:51And some of the barracks not only were built from the ground, but some of them were built high enough that they had hollow spaces underneath.
01:59And when the winter cold comes in, underneath the floor, where they had passage of air, boy, the floor would get cold.
02:07And, yeah, you got cold in the walls, cold in the windows, floor.
02:22You'll be able to walk and see the actual site.
02:24It's all right to participate in discussions, oral and so forth.
02:29You learn something, but it's more exciting when you actually get to the campsite and see where we lived.
02:35So we're kind of looking forward to the hike, the tour, and the campsites.
02:41And I can point out, you know, where I used to live and who was there.
02:45It's sometimes tough to see him talk about his parents and stuff like that because you'll tear up and it's kind of hard for the family to watch.
02:51But I think it's really important to, you know, remember this kind of thing and not keep it all to yourself and to share it with other people.
02:58Seeing him have all that love for this country and then also come here and ask questions that he didn't even know when he was here,
03:05it's really great to see him learn and also talk about how he felt behind all of the things that happened.
03:28And I remember a few weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, kids in my class started razzing me and calling me names.
03:42When they started chasing me home from school and calling me dirty Japs, you know, I cried.
03:47My sister cried, told them we don't want to go to school there.
03:51They called me a dirty Jap, throwing rocks at us, and I was glad to leave school and not have to go there.
04:10The problem began way back before I was born, before my father was born, back in the 1800s.
04:17And this is when the hatred against Asians started, and we saw these kinds of evidences of hatred.
04:26With this fellow here, an Asian, with a bloodied knife in his mouth and a smoking gun and standing on top of this woman that he just killed.
04:36That image went across, and that started a string of other similar political cartoons,
04:42indicating the media effect on biasing the people in this country against Asians.
04:49There was a James Phelan, who used to be the mayor of San Francisco, and he ran for Senate, and he ran for the second time.
04:59I found this poster, it's kind of ridiculous, he says, keep California white!
05:04Which is, you know, that was his campaign promise.
05:08Well, he failed, and he failed miserably.
05:13After Pearl Harbor, things got difficult for Japanese people in this country.
05:18We saw these kinds of political cartoons, getting the idea planted in the people's mind that this is a very desirable thing,
05:25to not have Japanese among the people in California.
05:38We had a hospital.
05:40The problem is, it was named a hospital, and there was nothing more than barracks.
05:45They didn't have enough skilled medical help.
05:49And as a result, my father had glaucoma, and he went blind in camp.
05:54The other problem we had in camp was my grandfather.
05:57He died, and it was a sad situation, because physically he looked like me going into camp.
06:03He was pretty healthy.
06:05And he developed colon cancer when he was in the camp.
06:09And I remember, because within a couple of months, he was down to skin and bones.
06:15He looked awful.
06:25I've spoken to over 50,000 people.
06:28Once in a while, I'll hear an opinion that it was okay.
06:33There are certain times in our lifetime where it's okay to imprison people.
06:39And I say, absolutely not.
06:41It's never okay to imprison people.
06:46Maybe it could have been German families.
06:49It could have been Italian families at one time.
06:52Today, it might be Middle Eastern families, or Muslim Americans.
06:58This might be your child wondering, where is this guard taking me?
07:04And this is your child.
07:06This is your child.
07:08This might be your child wondering, where is this guard taking me?
07:14And this might be your son trying to climb out of a camp, like here at Heart Mountain,
07:22not knowing there's a guard with a weapon pointing straight at him.
07:26So I say to all these people who have any doubts at all, this should never happen again to anyone.
07:32Never again.
07:33Basically, it's all wood, and using wood studs and sidings were plywood.
08:03More than 40 years ago, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor,
08:13120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry living in the United States
08:18were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in makeshift internment camps.
08:24This action was taken without trial, without jury.
08:27It was based solely on race.
08:30Of these 120,000 were Americans of Japanese descent.
08:34Yes, the nation was then at war, struggling for its survival,
08:39and it's not for us today to pass judgment upon those who may have made mistakes
08:44while engaged in that great struggle.
08:47Yet we must recognize that the internment of Japanese Americans was just that, a mistake.
09:01No government is perfect.
09:03No country is perfect.
09:05I think the United States of America is still the best country in the world.
09:14I think it's important for us to accept what we had done
09:19and admit our mistakes and take that and move forward
09:23so we don't make those same mistakes again.
09:25It must be hard to see all of this and remember all of it.
09:28When I get home, I'll forget all about it.
09:31Yeah, I don't want to cry over it again.
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