We developed a musical, Allegiance, which is about the internment of Japanese Americans, and we opened first in San Diego, at the Old Globe Theater. I was surprised by so many younger Japanese Americans who came to talk to me after the performance, and said to me, “I knew my parents or my grandparents were in camp, but that's all I knew. I didn't know anything about what happened in the camp.” They didn't know about the "loyalty questionnaire". They were deeply moved and they were shocked by what their parents or grandparents went through.
So it's an important story that our own people, they younger generation, don't truly understand. And it's an important story that other Americans throughout the country have never heard about. They're shocked when I tell them I grew up in two barbed wire US prison camps.
Date: February 3, 2015
Location: California, US
Interviewer: John Esaki, Janice Tanaka
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
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