“She said that it would have been better to stay in because at least she would have been protected from some of the explicit hate and racism that she experienced being out. She couldn’t walk to school without cars trying to run her off the road.”
— Midori Samson, on her grandmother
Marjorie Julia Gundran
Nisei
Marjorie Julia Gundran was born on a farm in Brooks, OR between a Japanese mother and a Filipino father. She was seven years old when she was sent to Tule Lake with her mother and two brothers. They were released three months later when Marjorie’s father—a prominent produce supplier in the war effort—negotiated an early release with government officials.
After their release, Marjorie and her family returned to Brooks, where she, her mother and her siblings were required to wear a badge in public to indicate their early release from camp. Marjorie was harassed for years after her return—she couldn’t walk to school without cars trying to run her off the road—and she rarely spoke about her incarceration with her children or grandchildren before she passed away in 2021.
Marjorie’s family information as it appears in the Final Accountability Roster for Tule Lake. Courtesy of Densho Encyclopedia.
Listen to this portrait.
Gregory Samson
Sansei
Gregory Samson is the son of Marjorie Julia Gundran. He was born and raised in Portland, OR.
Growing up, Gregory did not learn Japanese or attend Japanese cultural events. “I was raised not to be Japanese, not to be Filipino—to be American,” he says. “Because if I wasn’t, I could be in trouble. That was the feeling I had growing up, that I was already suspect. I was taught that the country suspects me of something all the time.”
Gregory says he learned about his family history predominantly through his own research. “Until I was in high school, until I started reading about [the incarceration], I knew nothing about it,” he says. “We never talked about it.”
When Gregory decided to name his daughter Midori—a Japanese name—his mother protested. “My mom had a fit—just went on for months […] about how this was going to be nothing but trouble for us, with her name being Japanese,” he says. He wonders if her incarceration and the harassment she experienced after returning from camp informed some of her fears. “There’s that feeling […] that this could happen again,” he says.
“I was raised not to be Japanese, not to be Filipino—to be American. Because if I wasn’t, I could be in trouble. That was the feeling I had growing up, that I was already suspect. I was taught that the country suspects me of something all the time.”
— Gregory Samson
Listen to this portrait.
Midori Samson
Yonsei
Midori Samson is the paternal grand-daughter of Marjorie Julia Gundran. She was born and raised in Portland, OR.
Growing up, Midori says she did not feel connected to her Japanese heritage. “We mostly embraced Filipino food and language and social traditions instead of Japanese ones,” she says. Her grandmother was upset when she discovered that Midori’s parents had enrolled her in a local Japanese immersion school.
Midori had been interested in visiting Tule Lake for years, but refrained so as not to upset her grandmother. “I felt like I needed to wait until my grandmother died to do [the pilgrimage] because I didn’t feel like she would want to know that we did it,” she says. When Marjorie passed away in 2021, Midori invited her parents to accompany her on a visit to the site. She shares that wartime incarceration has led to secrecy within her family—but at the same time, “lots of humor to cope with the pain.”