Oral History Program Dr. Mildred Miya Interviewed by Shannon Butler and her English 1010 students October 2004 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Dr. Mildred Miya Interviewed by Dr. Shannon Butler and her English 1010 students October 2004 Copyright © 2021 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State University Oral History Project began conducting interviews with key Weber State University faculty, administrators, staff and students, in Fall 2007. The program focuses primarily on obtaining a historical record of the school along with important developments since the school gained university status in 1990. The interviews explore the process of achieving university status, as well as major issues including accreditation, diversity, faculty governance, changes in leadership, curricular developments, etc. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Miya, Mildred, an oral history by Dr. Shannon Butler and English 1010 students, October 2004, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Dr. Mildred Miya October 2004 Abstract: The following is a recorded class lecture with guest speaker Dr. Mildred Miya, conducted in October 2004, for Dr. Shannon Butler and her English 1010 students. In this lecture, Dr. Mildred Miya discusses her life, her memories, and her experiences in the Granada Internment Camp, in Granada, Colorado. MM: There was some nearly 3,000 of us on the west coast that was rounded up in military trucks. And you’ve seen this in film. I believe Dr. Butler told me that you saw a film from an artist’s point-of-view. And there are other films that may of looked into it. In particularly, one done by Kendra Doya on channel 7 called, “Topaz”. I think you’re studying Topaz at this point. What I want to bring to you really is merely a child’s point-of-view. Okay? Because I was a child when I was in those camps. So I can’t do anything more than to give you vignettes of what my experience was at that time. But before we get into that, I wanted you to know, first of all, that we are looking at a different time over here. It’s not like it is today where today you know, growing up, have your classes like this one, Dr. Butler’s, and you then went to grade school and junior high and high school where you’ve been taught sensitivities toward other cultures. Okay? You have been taught ever since you were in kindergarten to respect the differences. Well you are studying a period where that was not the norm. We are looking at the 1940’s. In the south, Black men were being tarred and feathered for having looked at a white woman. They are hanging Black men and no one is called to account for it. And in California in particularly, it was the “in” thing to make fun of ethnic people. That was the norm, where it is not today. So you have to put yourself back into that time. It’s a different time all together. 1 Okay? It’s like looking at the old west, where you could pack a gun around and shoot when you felt like it and nobody called you to account. We certainly don’t do that today. So if you can put yourself back into that time when 1942 comes around, that’s 62 years ago, which seems in perspective a short time ago. But if you think about the difference in time, the difference in atmosphere. If you went as an aide to the Kindergartens of any school today, and you saw a little child who might look like this [shows class a small child’s coat]. This is a replica of a coat my mother made for me. It’s called a Japanese Hopki, okay? And there I was, going to school, first and second grade in this. Today, you would say what? “Awww that’s kind of cute. That’s kind of ethnic.” Okay? But in that day, what this little coat of many colors—to paraphrase a Dolly Parton song—it was a mark of difference, not of distinction, difference. And it became a symbol of demarcation between me and the others. So I began to hate this little coat because by the time I was put in prison, I was wearing this by the way when the military trucks came to haul me away to prison. As I said, the times were different, okay? Today, we’ve got all kinds of sensitivity classes. We have some at Weber State where faculty members and staff members are required to take classes where you are sensitive to people who are different. There were no such things in that day. Okay? So you have to look at it—it was a terrible time in history. But remember that a society cannot grow, unless it goes through spurts of that type. We go, “Look at how we are today.” The most advanced country in the world. Moreover, it is the most free. This is the only country in the world where a person like me could stand before you and complain about what 2 happened. It’s the only country in the world where a government says, “I’m sorry. We are sorry we did that. We will do better.” No other country does that. So keep that in mind, okay? As we discuss my experiences. If you’d like to ask me what happened or what I did, you’ve got a bunch of questions, I’ll be glad to answer them. I want to keep that in mind. Most of the films that you see are quite negative, it’s a blaming of the government, but remember that these things happen and we grow from it. Okay? Okay, ask me questions. Did I stop you? Yes. Student 1: How old were you when you were…? MM: About seven. As you can see [holding up the coat] about seven, eight maybe. I’m not going to tell you how old I am. Yes, I’m old. Student 2: MM: Where did you live before you moved into the camps? In Sacramento, California. That’s the capital. That’s the short-stayer country. And there’s a little suburb called, “Foreign” and that was a town where only Japanese lived, over 2,500 Japanese in Foreign, California. It’s about five miles—well it’s now Sacramento, but it’s about five miles south of Sacramento. It’s a community of Japanese people and so it was targeted. Okay, any others? Yes. Student 3: What was the, kind of, daily activity for you, down in it [referring to the internment camp]? MM: Where? In California or in…? 3 Student 3: MM: No, in the camp. In the camps. Well as a child, I can only remember a few things like barbed wire surrounding the camp, huge forests and swamps that prevented anybody from escaping obviously. And for a child… for the first year, I was like any other child. They had schools, they had schools for children, and the teachers however were the wives of white administrators of those camps. I remember that we had no supplies. No pencils, no crayons, no papers, just a teacher in front of the classroom. We got really progressive however, when it was time to study music, the teacher brought in a little cardboard and we all drew keys on the cardboard, and that’s how we learned to play the piano. That was the early years, okay? But after about a year of that, I became deathly ill. I lived in a room about half of this size with about two other families. The first camp that we went to had no beds, only straw. And as a little kid, I slept on a straw mattress and I’m allergic to this day. And I got all kinds of rash all over my body because of the straw that was prickly. Okay? We went to eat in mess halls as the military does and because of this crowded situation, I became very very ill. But only through allergies. But because we are living in a crowded situation, it’s like a person in here where there are what? There are twenty of you in here. Let’s say a couple of you got the flu, but we are together for 24 hours out of the day, every day. What would happen to the rest of us? We’d get the flu. And that’s exactly what happened to me. I became very ill. Two of my sisters and I came down with pneumonia and there by the swamps, this happens, got tuberculosis. And I was immediately shipped to an isolated place— 4 this is as a child—just image, put your mind into a child that has to go through this. Up a hill top, to be isolated from my family. There were few doctors and they imported some doctors and some who were imprisoned were already doctors. So when I was put in that isolated place, my mother, heartbroken as she was, was not able to see me. And you can imagine the child who was put away from his or her parents. What would that be like for you? If someone took you away from your parents for years? And they put you away in a particular part of a prison, where in it of itself, that was your prison too. Would you be really happy? Would you? No one would. And neither was my mother. And my dear mother trampled for miles to that high place where I was, just to be beneath the window where my bed was. To this day, I think of my mother, the sorrow that she must have felt in doing that. She could not see her child. They would not allow her to see her child in that hospital. This is getting to be a long story, you know, that’s what I did as a child. In that hospital, they didn’t know what to do with the lung. But I think that in an effort to help me, they did some experimental surgery on a little child. They cut my neck, and here’s a scar, right there. [To a student] I’m sorry, you’re crying. Are you okay? Student 4: MM: Oh okay. I don’t mean to do that. Student 4: MM: Yeah. Yeah. No. Sorry about that. Oh she’s just so frowny. It’s okay, I’m alive. Anyway, this scar that you see right here, which I always try to hide with a necklace, it’s unknown 5 today. Doctor’s don’t know what happened, but they cut my neck and tried to find a nerve that goes from here [pointing to her neck] to the diaphragm. To crush the phrenic nerve to arrest my lung. Today, doctors don’t know what that is. My sister, the experimental surgery they did on her was to remove her ribs. Now all of these, today, we don’t even know what that is. Doctors frown at such experimental surgeries. But we were like animals. How do we get medical advancements today? We experiment on what? Animals. Okay. I’m an animal rights activist myself because I know what that is. I’ve gone through it. So we were considered to be nothing more than animals. And so I spent a good deal of years, we were in prison for four years. Three of those years were in this isolated spot, removed from my parents, being looked upon—my body being looked upon as an experimental being. [To student 3] Does that answer your question? It does. Okay. Any others? Yes. Student 5: How many brothers and sisters did you have? MM: I had one brother who did not go into camp, but he served in the American military as a soldier in the 442nd Infantry Division. Perhaps, you might have heard about that division. They were the most decorated unit in the history of American military warfare. At the end of the war, they paraded on Pennsylvania Avenue before the president. They rescued the Texas Battalion that was held up in Germany. My brother was a part of that. He died three years ago, and he might have been a good one for you to have interviewed for that. He was in the army serving while the rest of his family was in prison. That’s… and sisters, I was the youngest of eight. I was the youngest of eight. I think I was my mother’s 6 mistake. But, everybody else was older than I and so my mother was an older mother when she had me. And consequently, my sister’s who went into those prison camps with me, would have known more about the experiences of teenagers and I, who was too young to know. Yes. Do you have any others? Don’t be so sad, it’s okay. It’s okay. Yes. Student 6: MM: After you got out of the camps, where did you guys move to? Okay, I went to, I think, three different camps. First, I was in an assembly center with military trucks who took our family. They took us first to inland California— central California in Fresno. That’s where the straw mattresses were. Where I developed this horrible allergy. And from there, military trains took us to Jerome, Arkansas. This is where the swamps were, okay. Forrest and swamps, but still highly fenced with guards with machine guns, guarding the camps. And from there, we were moved onto Colorado. I had no idea where Granada, Colorado is. I think it’s central Colorado. It’s like the one in Utah, was in Delta, which again is central. But this one in Colorado is named Amache, Colorado. That was the name given to the camp. But the town closest to it, was Granada. And from that moment, I think it was about 1945 when the war ended, we were told that we could go back to wherever we could find a place. California was off limits. They were still restricted. SB: So you couldn’t go to California? MM: No, couldn’t go back to California. California was not an open state until about 1947. Here we are, 1945, told to get out. No money, nothing. But fortunately we 7 had a sister who, rather than go to the camps, moved inland to Utah. And so she was here and so we all came to live with her. And this was in Brigham City. How we got there, as a child, I can only recount the horrible memories. I don’t know how we got to that train, but the government came in trucks again, took us to a train full of soldiers returning from the wars. There was plenty of room, but we my father, my mother, my sister and I were the survivors of that camp - they would not give us room to sit with the troops. And so what we did, we were shuffled off—have you ever been on a train where there’s a connection between trains? Have you ever been on a train or seen that? The section where one train is connected, one car is connected to the other? You don’t know what a train looks like? So right at that intersection where it’s cold and noisy, is where the bathrooms are. They shuffled us off in a space about that small [pointing to a place in the room] where that table is. The four of us. And we would keep looking back at the number of seats that were available. Soldiers taking two and three seats, sleeping. But not one soldier stood up to give us room. My elderly father, my mother, a teenage sister, and a little child. They were not given seats. And the one thing I remember about that time coming from Amache, Colorado to Ogden, Utah, is that the only person that gave us food was a Black porter. In those days… what is a porter on a railroad car? You don’t know? SB: He’s the one that takes your baggage. MM: Right. No, he’s the one that… 8 SB: Or that takes the tickets? MM: He’s the one that takes… yeah, they take tickets. They show you to the dining car. You’ll have to take a trip on a track. You are so unaware of what wonderful… but today, however, of course, they don’t do that anymore. There used to be a club called the Porter’s and Waiter’s Club in Ogden, where it was limited to Blacks. Well anyway, there was a Black porter, who came and felt sorry for us and gave me a carton of milk. And my father, mother, and sisters, a carton of orange juice. And that was the first act of kindness that I remember getting on my way to Utah. Did I answer somebodies question? I have no idea who’s question… yes. Student 7: MM: Not optimistic, it’s perspective. Student 7: MM: You seem so optimistic about your experience… How did you though? It’s a certain kind of levity that you develop and only age can do that. Okay. So you’re saying, “Wow, she’s old.” But age does something. It gives you a viewpoint. No, I’m not optimistic. I’m realistic. You can’t… what use would there be for me to always be looking and saying, “Well, look what you white guys…. Look at what you did to me?” What use would it? What forward looking response would that be? It would be self-defeating to do that. Okay? Now people have said, “Oh my gosh, how come they are so nice and quiet and they’re not complaining?” Well, in your grandparent’s day, California was furious. It was fomenting racial unrest. In your grandparent’s day, there was the 9 Black Power Movement of the 60’s. Okay? And then after that, the Chicano Power Movement. And then after that, in a much lesser state, the Pan-Asian Movement. All of them, very very angry. But I was never a part of that because I always thought that it was self-defeating to do that because I realize, as I grew older, that society changes. Bad things happen. But because of those turbulent times, what have we got now? The Civil Rights Movement that followed you see. And all kinds of movements, laws that have been passed to make society, perhaps, more equal. More compassionate. I don’t know that I answered your question, now. Why am I optimistic? Student 7: MM: When did I what? Student 7: MM: When did you…? When did you realize that… have you always had that attitude? I think I have. I think I have. But one thing, when I was this age [holding up her old coat], I wished that I had blonde hair and blue eyes. I began to hate this coat of many colors for what it meant to me. Okay? But then I… Why do you suppose I keep this? As a reminder of my childhood. But I met many many nice people growing up. Now, I didn’t go to school for three years while I was held up in that hospital prison. But when I was released, and you think about it, I had … having been in prison for four years, I’m older, twelve, thirteen. What grade would you be in normally if you went to school here? Seventh, eighth maybe? Okay, so I come back out of the camps and I’m stuck in Perry Elementary School. That’s where I started. Now, what does that do to a child? Particularly, one that’s going to be pre-teen or one that is pre-teen. What does that do? What 10 would you do if you had to? Say you are eighteen or sixteen or whatever, and you’re starting out as maybe a fifth grader? You’re taller than everybody else, you look older than everybody else, would that do something to your self-image? You begin to hate yourself, as I did. But then I met some teachers who realized the predicament that I was in. This is why I began teaching. I pursued a degree in teaching, because teachers have such a great role in fashioning human beings. I happened to meet a teacher who said, “You know what? You don’t have to be afraid, I’ll help you.” And she did. An art and music teacher at Box Elder Junior High School. SB: What was her name? MM: Her name was Marie Thorn Jepsen. Brigham City, she was a seventh grade teacher at Box Elder Junior High and she passed away about five years ago. We were lifelong friends. She took me in, tutored me, and help me jump two grades so that I would feel less pressured by the age difference. She taught me to sing, and she put me on the radio to sing. And do you know what a road show is? Do they have any of those these days? Anybody in here LDS? Okay, do you still have? You do. You perform in those road shows? Okay, so she put me in the road shows. Okay, we had heard about the Mormons when we were coming here. And people had said in the camps, “Go to Utah. Because the Mormons themselves have been discriminated against. So they are more likely to be kind to us, those of us who have been discriminated against.” So we were very happy to come to Utah. Only problem is, while I was at Box Elder Junior High School, 11 some white senior girls wanted to learn a Japanese dance and they asked me if I knew any and I did. And so my mother had Japanese clothes, I leant them—my Japanese dresses and taught them the dance. Okay, so to thank me, they took me to Idle Isle Café for a soda. Do you know where the Idle Isle Café in Brigham City is? It’s still there. They make candies. Okay, there’s a huge sign there, there’s a huge sign that says, “No Japs allowed.” And so when these girls tried to take me in to get me a soda, I was refused entrance. That’s my first experience in Utah. But, this Mrs. Jepsen showed me that that is not the majority of this society. And in fact, I thought that I had really met a Mormon angel. She was so wonderful. Those are the things, those kinds of teachers that understand the problems that students are having. Those are the things that gave me a different view of life. Did I answer your question? Okay. Any others? How long do you want me to talk anyway? SB: Dr. Mildred… Miya, tell us a little bit about your childhood before the camps. What do you remember and what did your father do? MM: I don’t remember a whole lot. My father was a farmer. And in those days when Japanese were not allowed to own ground. He purchased 20 acres, I think this was before my birth. He bought 20 acres in the name of my brother, who was the second oldest. Linda Oda’s mom is the oldest. SB: Okay. MM: And then my brother who died here recently. SB: Is Linda’s mom the sister that you lived with in Box Elder? 12 MM: She was already here in Utah and she never went to the camps. She was already married and so they moved here to Utah, worked in the canning companies in Perry. And then we were able to come to those—from one camp to another. There was a camp in those canneries and we lived in those camps too. But before, I don’t remember a whole lot except that I went to school like this [holding up the coat], it was a copy that my mother had made. And I was so happy to be going to school. I didn’t grow much and you might…. SB: You’re short. Sorry. MM: Well yeah, well, she is kind of short. Can you imagine that there I was as a little girl from first and second grade I was still like that. Okay? So, I remember that when I was in first grade, the white sixth graders—they thought I was a doll. And so they would carry me around from class to class. So. Those are the things that I can remember. But I think people are still thinking that, “Yeah, she’s short.” The other day, I was so embarrassed. I do the Greek Theater and the major speaker wanted to thank me for twenty years of service said, “You know, I get help…” I’m on stage here. “I get help from big people and little people.” I was so offended. And he gave me a t-shirt and it was a size small. I’m going to demand extra-large. He called me little. But ever since I was a child, I have been little. Okay. I didn’t speak a word of English as a child. Not one word of English, we are an immigrant family and we spoke Japanese in the family. I could understand English, but I was afraid to speak to it. And so for years, I learned in silence the way Native American’s learned in silence, okay? This was a way of life for me when I was in first and second grade. I could read the words, but I 13 couldn’t speak them. At first, I would listen to the teacher, translate what the teacher would say in Japanese and then in my mind, retranslate that into English. It took a long long time. I really didn’t speak English well until I was about ten and I haven’t stopped talking since that time. SB: So your parents spoke Japanese in the home? MM: Exclusively. SB: And were they first-generation immigrants? MM: Yes. Yes. My father came as a youngster to this country. You can imagine the kinds of prejudices my parents would have had to deal with. The first Chinese came into California about 1850. I’m going to go back a little, I think they came in about 1830. They came in to help with the building of the railroad. And as I said earlier, it was pretty common to treat ethnic people with disdain. It was common in San Francisco for Sunday entertainment to line up twenty Chinese on the streets and stone them to death as entertainment for the children. This is common. So into this atmosphere come the first Japanese, like in 1867. So they are coming into an already inbuilt prejudice against Asians, Orientals. You have people like Jack London writing very racist views about the yellow hoard, the Asians, that we have to get rid of. So you can see into that kind of atmosphere, here we’ve got 1941, Japan has this so-called sneak attack which today we know wasn’t even a sneak attack. One of the problems with that World War is the lack of communication. This is one of the things that every Japanese knows. Okay, there are different ways of communicating. In our 14 country, what? We have to make a point, look at your teacher who shows you how to write a paragraph. What’s the first thing you need in that paragraph? An expository paragraph, starts out with a lead-in sentence. You have to have a kernel idea in the topic sentence. And every sentence that follows it, must relate to that. That is a rhetorical pattern that we get from the Greeks. Japan, China, totally different. For the Japanese—and I’m explaining this so that you’ll know why the war even happened. English [Miya starts writing on the chalk board], this is a lead in sentence, and these are the major supports, okay? Romance languages, they are digressive, French, Latin, so on. Asian language, this their rhetorical. Do you know what I mean when I say rhetoric? Rhetorical patterns, the way we express ourselves in writing or in speaking. The Japanese, have a rhetorical pattern like this [draws a spiral shape ] So that.. where we must have a topic sentence that has a topic idea, a major idea, the Japanese sentence is best if it doesn’t state the main idea. Isn’t that strange? We’ve got to have a main idea clearly out there so we can look at it. For the Japanese and for the Chinese—Chinese is a little bit different. For the Japanese, the idea must come from you. This whole thing about saying the least and expecting you to understand it is a big problem in relations between Japan and American in the 40’s. All from the 30’s on to the 40’s and it culminated in the war. Couldn’t understand what they do. They are trying to tell them something but they couldn’t understand what it was. And the Japanese have all of their ideas imbedded in the language. And that’s not so with our—our names do not have any significance. Does it? The Japanese language… how many of you saw 15 The Last Samurai? See that? How many of you saw Jet Li’s Hero? You’ve got to see that. That is awesome and now you’ll be able to see it and understand it. That whole story about the hero is that the philosophy is imbedded in the stroke of a brush. That’s the language of Asia. You remember that’s what it is. The whole thing about the search for philosophy in the stroke of a brush. And the same thing with Tom Cruise’s Last Samurai was always thinking of how best to describe the falling Cherry Blossom. Oh, if you didn’t see The Last Samurai, you have got to see that. I require that my students, I teach an ethnic literature class and they have to see The Last Samurai. This spring they have to see Hero. Okay. Because you wonder, “Well why am I so optimistic?” that is part of the Japanese in me. Okay. The language this is a concept called, “Ohm.” Meaning, I am obligated, I am obligated. I live here, my parents live here, we are born here. I am obligated to do everything I can to be worthy of this country. That’s why in the four years that the Japanese were imprisoned, not one person complained about it. What do you suppose would happen if we put 20 million Blacks in prison today? What? Student 8: MM: They would kill each other? Or would they kill you? Student 8: MM: They would kill each other. Both. You bet. And you can’t blame them. What would happen if we put 30 million Spanish speakers, Mexicans. Student 8: The same thing. 16 MM: Same thing. But they are a culture quite different from Asians. They haven’t had the cultural training. The behavior patterns of the Asians are quite different from those of Hispanics or Blacks or any other. Just ask the patterns, the quality of living is different for Native Americans. But every culture is different, this is why I can’t answer, “Well how come the Japanese are so optimistic? How come they didn’t complain and everyone else here is complaining?” And this is what happened too during the 60’s with that uproar of ethnics. People said that. “Why can’t they be more like Japanese?” Hey, they were in prison for four years and nobody is complaining about it. Okay. But they are different and so you can’t make judgements about other cultures. You look at things of this nature, the language, their religion, their philosophy, all of that comes from—you’ve seen The Last Samarai, you know that what is called the Samarai Bushido, the code of the Samarai. And you must endure adversity in the whole of their times ahead. I don’t know if that answered your question or not. Did I stun you with my arrogance? Is this why? Student 9: MM: What? Student 9: MM: So in Brigham City, did you have a hard time getting work? When you were in Brigham City, did you have a hard time finding work? I was too young to be looking for work. Student 9: Right. Student 10: What about your parents? 17 MM: My parents were working in the canneries. They were in camps there. We don’t have canneries today. There is not one cannery left in Utah. But in that day, okay, that’s pre 1950, they had freezing companies like R. E. Pringle and Company, Perry Canning Company. Here in Ogden, we had the Utah Canning, the Monty Cannery in Roy and so on, but they are all gone now. What has replaced them, well, for one thing, Utah used to be a farming community and my husband was a farmer with many hundreds of acres but that’s dying down too. I still farm, you know, it’s just a minimal piece of my ground that I have left. No, I did not work. I just went to school. Student 11: Did your husband have any experience in the prison camps? MM: My husband was already here. He was born in Utah. People in Utah did not go to camps. He was a farmer, and as a matter of fact, his father is the one that took in a lot of these returning prisoners. He put them up in his home, hundreds of them, while they were waiting for California to open up and he got an award from the Emperor of Japan for having that humanitarian act that he performed. SB: What college did you go to? Or where did you graduate from high school? MM: I went to Box Elder Junior High School and then California opened up so I went, we all moved back to our home and there was nothing left of our home. When the war came, my father sold that 200 acres for $200 to a neighbor. That 20 acres today would sell for about $50 million right in the heart of Sacramento. But, $200. And we went back and we had to rent a house from that person who purchased that land for $200. And my father farmed strawberries. He grew 18 strawberries, okay. But he died a broken man, a broken man. In fact, in 1986 when there was a movement to compensate those who survived those prisons, out of 120,000 people who were imprisoned, only 65,000 survived. My mother and my father and my sisters didn’t. As a matter of fact, when that movement was going on, there were congressional hearings. And the amount that they felt would be, you know, commensurate with what they lost, was $20,000. That’s $5,000 for every year in prison. Now, would you settle for that today? If you were put in prison for four years, would you settle for $5,000 for every year of your imprisonment? We are a litigious society. I don’t think that any of you would. But the Japanese did. As a matter of fact, I thought it was ridiculous, it was ridiculous to pay-off the survivors. The money would have been much better served in places like this—education. Education is a place for people like you, who want to know about things that happened in the past. And that’s how we grow as a society. I think I and one other person felt that way. But we were outvoted. The other person was Senator S.I. Hiakawa of San Francisco State. He was president of San Francisco State and then he became a California Senator. We became fast friends and he was part of a chapter of my dissertation. We would go places and he would always introduce me as the other English teacher in the United States because at that time, we were the only two in the United States. You wouldn’t expect a Japanese person to go into languages. What’s the stereotypes about Japanese? They’re gardeners, they work at Hill Field. Gardeners, you know, my husband believed in that stereotype that the Japanese farmer can spit on the ground and make a plant grow. Okay and my husband 19 believed that a Japanese farmer never has a weed growing in his farm. He believed that and so he would work 27 hours a day to keep up with that stereotype. This is one of the reasons we only had two children. It’s hard when one is keeping up with this stereotype, you can’t do anything else. That was joke and you’re not laughing. I can’t believe it. You knew it. You knew that, all of the rest of you are like, “Ahhh.” Goodness sakes, lighten up. So back to where I went to school. Box Elder Junior High—I went back to California, okay. And then I started to say… there was nothing left. But I went to—has anyone ever heard of Elk Grove High School? I guess you don’t watch basketball. Anyway, I graduated from Elk Grove High School at the top of my class, and I couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t had help from people like Mrs. Jepson in Brigham City. I went on to become valedictorian of my class and I won a debate tournament debating this very topic as to why the Japanese Americans were put in prison and what is the future. And then after that, I came to Utah for a visit, to visit my sister again and I met my husband. He was quite older than I. What happens in the Japanese family is that families get together and they arrange marriages for their children. I liked my husband, but my father thought it was time for me to get married and so arrangements were made. Nakodo is what you called them. Representatives from both families and what they do is investigate each other. Is there insanity in the house, are they are a thief, and this kind of thing. Bad blood? Any diseases in the line on both sides. And then a contract is made and then we were married. So for those of you who think, you have to fall instantly in love, you have to realize that love can come gradually. 20 It’s much more permanent than that instant gratification that you call, “love”. I’ll bet you can’t even imagine that you can marry someone without having been madly in love with that person. I’ll bet you can’t believe that. What happens to most of you…. Particularly at your ages. What’s divorce rate in Utah? Student 11: 50% Student 12: Probably more than 50. MM: Is it close to 50? Like 53%? Why? Because it happens too fast okay. You don’t get to know one another. Of course, you know, while my parents are arranging this marriage was when we got to know each other very well. And love of that kind comes later and it’s so permanent. I just lost my husband seven years ago and I still call myself Mrs. Miya in all of my businesses. I have a farm, a farm he left me, okay. And the love survives, it goes on, as in—what’s that show? Titanic. Have you seen that? If you haven’t seen The Last Samarai at least you’ve seen Titanic. Okay, and then after Elk Grove High School, I met my husband, got married, had two children and then I got a letter from my old high school. I was voted one of the most likely to succeed when I graduated and they wanted to know how I was doing. I was so ashamed that there I was working in the onion fields and the tomato fields and I thought, “I’ve got to do something before I got back to my reunion.” Have you been out of high school for a couple of years yet? Not yet, when you get out five years, they’ll send you a letter saying, “We’re having a five year reunion.” Okay, “Tell all what you’re doing.” And then you immediately go, “What have I been doing for five years.” So that’s what happened. And that happened to me, okay, and I thought, “Oh, well I can’t go 21 back saying, ‘I’m just farming.’” So what I did with my husband’s blessed support, I came to Weber State and I took a night class. And then I liked it. I took freshman comp and I was good at it. Okay, I was terrible in math, that’s another thing most of you think, that the Japanese people are just wonderful at math. They are wonderful in science, their physics is great, okay. I can’t do math with a calculator. And I can’t make a tulip grow. Tulips you can just throw in there into the ground and it grows. I can’t make a tulip grow. Here my husband, all of these years is living up to a stereotype, beautiful state prize winning tomatoes, prize winning onions, and I can’t make a flower grow in my garden. So I break all of the stereotypes. When you think of Japanese women, they’re supposed to be quiet, submissive, okay. Well, my husband always knew his place in the world. I was not very submissive, okay. And so, with his help, I came to school. And I think I broke a record at Weber State too. I graduated with a 4.0—that’s when we didn’t have credit/no-credit classes and you had to earn your grades. I graduated with a 4.0 and I immediately went to… some of the English professors thought my future lay here. And I substitute taught many classes for professors while I was still a student. And they encouraged me to get my master’s degree, which I did at Utah State University. Came back to teach with a master’s degree here in English. That was in 1967 and I taught since then. I’ve taught for 37 years here. But then as time goes, you can’t be a teacher with just a master’s degree. So I got a PhD in English. That’s when I was working with Dr. Hiakawa in my first dissertation. Since then however, I developed an interest—I’ve always had an interest—in classical literature: Greek 22 and Latin. So I got… I did my studies in Athens, Greece and with my friend James Swenson, I not only got an English PhD, but I now have a PhD emphasis in classics of Greek and Latin. I have, during the course of my education, developed a knowledge of eight languages. English was never my first language, but Japanese was. I don’t want to be an example of what you can do. It’s just, maybe I can exemplify perhaps the drive to be better than what you feel you can be. You don’t have to cry, you can laugh. You’re so serious. My students are just hackling away and laughing at everything I say and you take this so serious. You’re wondering if this is a joke or what. Student 13: How many languages did you teach your children? MM: Unfortunately, my children know only English. As a matter of fact, when my children were going to grade school in Roy—Roy Elementary—this is what happens when so assimilated are we. One of the children in second grade, I think, made fun of my daughter. And called her a Jap and she thought, “That must be some bad thing.” So when one kid did something bad—he was a white kid—said something mean to her, she said, “You Jap.” So I had to… “Woah… wait a minute, that’s an ethnic slur. You don’t call him Jap.” Okay, so they have no knowledge of Japanese. As a matter of fact, my daughter here recently took a Japanese class somewhere and when she spouts off Japanese, she sounds just like you goes, white kids talking Japanese. It’s ridiculous. So and you know that. Okay, they don’t speak Japanese. Okay and they are now very successful, 23 they are administrators. One is vice principal of Viewmont High School. Anyone from Viewmont? Student 14: I know her! MM: You know Mrs. Jenson? That’s my daughter. Student 14: Yeah, she is so nice. Student 15: She is so nice. MM: She’s so nice and so Japanese. That’s my daughter. Student 15: She’s way cool. MM: Yeah, she used to be the drill team coach at Northridge High School. Anybody from Northridge? You know Suzie Jenson of the drill team? She got two master’s degrees. I wonder why their intent on education? It must be my influence, because my husband always used to say, “Hey, I don’t need an education. She’s got enough for all of us.” So anyway, yes. And my other daughter, is anyone from Fremont High School here? Are you from Freemont? She’s vice principal at Fremont High School. She also has two master’s degree. SB: What’s her name? MM: Jan Hoke and you may know their husbands. Dave Hoke of Northridge High School is the athletic director, baseball coach, assistant football coach. Student 16: I played on that team. 24 MM: You played on that team? See my family is all over the place. And some of you from Bonneville High School, my daughter used to be vice principal there for years until she moved to Fremont. But some of you who have been at Bonneville may know Madea, a niece of my husband’s—basketball coach, athletic director now. You can see most Japanese excel in education. Unfortunately, that’s another stereotype because we’re not all good in math. Some of us are pretty good in English. We have this compulsion to excel in education. That was the only way, as a matter of fact, during war time—I’m talking about war time—that was the only way the Japanese said, “We have to prove that we are as good as any white person.” So in order to be felt as good as any white person, we had to exceed that. And so that accounts a great deal for their academic successes. So instead of one language, you pick up eight instead of being just good in one. You’re good in eight, okay. Instead of being a C student, you want to be an A+ student. That’s the drive that most Japanese of my generation have. Unfortunately, that drive is gone in my children’s generation. It has totally disappeared in my grandchildren. Okay, I have a granddaughter, one of her favorite teachers is Dr. Butler. My granddaughter, my goodness, we said, “Look, you are Japanese, you’re half Japanese. That half has got to excel in education.” And she did pretty well. She graduated from Weber State with something like a 3.8. It wasn’t a 4.0 but you know it will do. But this is the thing that the white side of her, “Hey, a C is fine.” But the Japanese part of her, you’re like, “You’ve got to do this.” SB: Now, Dr. Miya, I graduated with a 4.0 too. And I don’t have any Japanese in me. 25 MM: No, it’s not exclusively. SB: I’m just kidding. MM: Don’t get me wrong, it’s the drive. SB: I’m saying that you’re granddaughter—the other part of her may have also been driven. MM: That could be, that’s right. That’s true. I don’t remember what the question was now. Student 17: I think I know your grandson. MM: Do I what? Student 17: I think I know your grandson. MM: I bet you do. Colten Jenson of Northridge. Student 17: Yep. MM: He’s kind of cute, isn’t he? He’s like 6’2” 185 lbs. Student 17: He’s nice. MM: Northridge Football. He’s at the University of Utah now. Waiting to be called up to the baseball team. He’s just waiting. Okay, he hasn’t been called yet. Yep, I’ve got six grandkids. And so my name, Miya, some people whenever I get into the front of a class, they’re immediately response is, “Aha, Mama Mia.” That’s their immediate response, “Mama Mia.” And I tell them, that’s a, “no, no.” And so is Grandma Miya. That dates me like 1812 so okay, a grandson. I have a 14 26 year old grandson who is at Central Davis Junior. Let’s see do you know my granddaughter Tracy Hoke? Graduate of Roy High? She’s an awesome softball player. She plays for Salt Lake Community College. Made all region and all state, all kinds of things. And she’s short like me, skinny as a toothpick, but boy can she throw that ball. Okay, and I have one fifteen year old coming up, Colten’s sister, plays for Layton High School Softball. All of my grandkids are sports people. And I don’t have an athletic ability in my body. I think they get that from their dad. Their dads are sports people and that’s the thing, you know, I told my daughters, “Just choose carefully. I’m not going to choose your husbands. You can choose your own.” But it’s just as easy to find a wealthy husband as it is to find a poor one, so what do they do? They…. I’ll bet your mom has told you that, of course. So, what do they do? They marry poor poor former athletes, former baseball players. One played for the Seattle Mariners, got injured and had to quit. The other one played for Cincinnati Red and got injured and had to quit. They are poor marks, but they are wonderful boys and they’re white. But I couldn’t…. that’s funny? SB: Really? MM: That wasn’t even a joke. SB: So they married white and so how much of the Japanese traditions did you bring to your children and have in your own home that they are still carrying on? MM: Well they are not really carrying on the Japanese tradition. All they know is that they are Japanese. Okay, but their husbands are so wonderful and we are a 27 very close family and every Thanksgiving, every Halloween, every birthday, every Christmas, all of them are at my house. This is why I have grown old before my time, I have… now now, I am old. But I think I aged before my time. I have to make the Thanksgiving turkey, I have to make the Easter ham, I have to make the Christmas dinner, and the New Years is totally Japanese and I have to do the whole thing. And my sons-in-law, they love Japanese food and that’s the extent of their… and they’ve got more Japanese friends in the community than I had. So, and then one is LDS, he’s a returned missionary, and one is a Catholic altar boy, and we’re Buddhists and we get along just fine. And I keep telling them that religions don’t have to conflict. Some people think, “Woah, you know, you can’t marry outside of your religion or outside of your race.” I think our family is an example that you can do that. You can be perfectly happy. My daughters have been married for a long time, they are happy, they are accomplished professional women, as are their husbands. And their children are getting along fine. And it can happen. It starts with somebody who hated a coat of many colors because this was a line—a symbol of demarcation between cultures. But they can come together and that’s what I want to leave with you today. It’s not that I’m so overly optimistic, but all of you should understand that from that, can come good. It’s an evolutionary process, it’s the process of intellectual development that must—we are a dynamic society to survive and that must happen. I’m sounding Billy Graham. 28