Heart Mountain Reunion X Draws 520
By KATS KUNITSUGU
RAFU CONTRIBUTOR
Saturday, Sept. 29, 2007

Photos courtesy Bacon Sakatani
Above, the group Camp Dance performs at the tenth Heart Mountain Reunion, held Sept.
10-12 at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas.

In attendance among the former internees were, from left, back: Patty Ogino, Carla & Aya
Iri, Arata & Masako Yamaga, Susie Kinoshita; front: George Ogino, Helen Tsuyuki, Kats
Kunitsugu, George Kinoshita.

Chi Akizuki, left, and Keiichi Ikeda show off an original
barracks stove.

I have just returned from the Heart Mountain Relocation Center’s 10th reunion held at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas from Monday, Sept. 10 to
Wednesday, Sept. 12. It was a huge success, attracting a total of 520 former residents of the wartime concentration camp located in Wyoming between the years of 1942 to 1945 and their friends and relatives.

To tell the truth, I have only attended three other reunions–the first one in Los Angeles, the first of two held in San Jose and the one held in Seattle. I attended the first one because I was one of the organizing committee, the one in San Jose because my good friend, Mich Kamei
Morita and her husband Bill, both former classmates (S’44), lived there and in Seattle, because two of my children call Seattle their home now.

I am too much a miser to be interested in Las Vegas, but recently former Heart Mountain classmates Jim Nomachi and Mary Nakaki moved into Keiro Retirement Home where I have been living for the past four years, right across the hall from me, to boot. They are on the Reunion X Committee and insisted that I attend, since it may be the last Heart
Mountain reunion. I decided to go when my sister, Helen Tsuyuki, a volunteer at the Japanese American National Museum, said she would go to help with the museum’s exhibit there. She said Ike Hatchimonji, a former Heart Mountaineer and fellow JANM volunteer, offered to drive us there.

So, come Monday, I was up at 4:30 a.m. to get ready to be picked up by my sister at 6 a.m. in order to be at JANM by 7 a.m. Ike is a fast driver, and we got to Vegas in five hours. Helen and I registered at the Riviera Hotel, site of the reunion, and they told me I had called in my registration for Sunday night’s stay ($95). I protested to no avail and later discovered that I blindly followed the instruction sheet sent early in the year by the organizing committee, which said to reserve rooms for Sunday to Tuesday. I had called the hotel last Saturday to confirm my reservation but neglected to ask what dates they were for. It turned out that the California Hotel downtown, popular with Japanese guests, had rooms, so I quickly reserved one for Tuesday night. The bellboy who took our luggage, noted that I was walking with a cane and kindly arranged a room closer to the convention locale. He got us a nicer room at the same rate ($40). I hereby highly recommend the California Hotel when you are going to Las Vegas!

As for the reunion, the exhibits in the Hospitality Room were fantastic, with photographs, handiwork and many items of interest contributed by the attendees and arranged to cover two sides of the huge room by committee volunteers. They had also arranged continuous showings during Monday and Tuesday of some dozen short films, such as Estelle
Ishigo’s “Days of Waiting,” and films on the exploits of the 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team.

We were assigned seats for the dinner Monday night, and I was delighted to find Ayako Kinoshita Iri and Carl Yoneo Iri assigned to our table. Ayako and I were members of the same social club. Her brother George and his wife Susan also shared our table. Before that, while I was wandering around the Hospitality Room, Yosh Ito, who was editor of our school newspaper, the Heart Mountain Eagle, and to confess, one of the few boys I secretly admired, recognized me and we talked. He introduced me to his wife, Joy, lucky girl! Also greeting me in the Hospitality Room was Patti Hirahara, who told me her father Frank, one of my classmates, had passed away last year. I also met Miyuki Yabe Yasui and her husband, Homer, and had a nice chat. She is pretty as ever.

Sitting at the next table was Mary Shitamoto Ogi, married to my cousin,
Mamoru Ogi. Mamo didn’t attend the reunion, but Mary said she was still actively teaching badminton! She always was very athletic. We were also a bit surprised to see my brother-in-law Yosh Kunitsugu and his wife Ida Hayakawa Kunitsugu at a near-by table. We don’t see each other very often, so it was good to see Yosh looking trim, although using a cane like me. Ida’s sister, Helen Kido Hayakawa and her husband Bill were also at their table. Recognizing me was Richard Kushino, whose mother Kay, women’s editor of the Sentinel, looked after a cub reporter named Kats and taught me about garters to hold up hosiery. Other persons who recognized me from my U. of Wisconsin days were Akio Konoshima and Kiyomi Kobayashi.

I was surprised to learn that Jack Kunitomi, a fellow worker on the Heart
Mountain Sentinel, and Frank Emi, who urged me to relocate outside to a college, were both over 90! Another fellow Sentinel writer attending was George “Horse” Yoshinaga, with his wife Susie.

At the farewell dinner the next night, classmate Joy Takeshita Teraoka sang some old favorites, including “Don’t Fence Me In” and we all sang “Happy Birthday” to another classmate, Stella Nitahara Nishiura. Judge Raymond Uno, active JACLer and one of the spearheaders of the Redress movement, stopped by to remind me to say hello to oldtime JACL hostess-with-the-mostest, Betty Yumori, who is a daily volunteer at Keiro Retirement Home. MC Tamo Nishimura introduced the main speaker, Dr. Mitch Maki of Cal State Dominguez Hills, who gave a masterly summary of the Redress and Reparation Movement and touchingly thanked us Nisei in the audience, “Okagesama de, domo arigato.”

We are keeping our fingers crossed that the Class of ‘48 will put on H.M.
Reunion XI at the Riviera so that we again can have a wonderful time greeting our friends of many years ago.