japaneseamerican

grandma:Did i tell you this one story about how my husband was in North Carolina and there was a water fountain that had a sign above it that said "whites only". So my poor husband didn't know what to do so he asked someone. The person said "You're in uniform of course you can get a drink of water"

great aunt:I know a friend that went to the south. They didn't know what to do because they were sent to came because they were yellow. He didn't know whether to sit in the white section in the front or the black section in the back.

grandma: We forget about all this until someone from your generation wants to hear about it and is prompted to ask about it.

It's not something you want to drag out and talk to everyone about all the time. If someone were to ask me I wouldn't hesitate to tell them. I'm not ashamed of it. It was shameful for the government. Uproot everyone from where they were living. Like my dad. I felt so bad that we had to lose our business and build back everything when we came back. But he never lost faith he was always working working working. He helped a lot of people.

2990 people? Oh my. I better shut up and go to bed. I guess they would rather hear about it from someone who went through the experience rather than reading about it.

I think every generation has some experience that's not a happy one.

great aunt: I don't know. I was 14. I didn't care at the time

grandma: Haha. You could be like my Chinese neighbors that wore a sign that said "I am Chinese, not Japanese"

great aunt: I don't know. I never really thought about that. It's hard to give an answer. When I was older I thought, you know, they shouldn't have done that. But when I was 14 I was very naive and I didn't think about that

grandma: I thought it was totally unfair because I am an american

grandma:There's a lot of people who never knew about our situation. A lot of people didn't know about it like my neighbor. Whenever I mentioned "camp" she thought I meant summer camp.

great aunt: That was the guy on star trek right? I noticed him because they finally got an Asian guy and I used to watch Star Trek. I think I saw wevery one in a while in the Pacific Citizen he would say something. One time he came to the Crocker Art Museum and I was like "oh well there he is"

young aunt: well they don't know about social media. So if they don't ever use social media they don't know him.

great aunt:I'm not a gopher. I just want to lean back and let everyone else do the work

grandma: Maybe if i was an advocate of something. But no one is going to listen to me now

My great aunt is now telling this story about how in camp her husband was drafted, but when he went to get a physical the recruiter rejected him and the 10 other men he was with. The recruiter felt bad that they were being drafted when they were in camp. So her husband came back with the 10 other men that were rejected and everyone was wondering what happened.