Steven Sindlinger | Interview 2 | May 26, 2022

FARRELL: Okay. This is Shanna Farrell back with Steven Sindlinger on Thursday, May 26, 2022. This is our second interview for the JAIN Project, and we are speaking over Zoom. Steven, when we left off last time, we were talking a lot about your background, your early childhood, your education, your career, your interest in history, that kind of thing. Your heritage, as well. One thing I'm interested in is if you could tell me a little bit about how you got interested in exploring your family's heritage, your adoptive or biological? What the entry point for getting interested in family history was?

SINDLINGER: The standpoint of the adopted family, that was always something that 00:01:00was ever present as part of my upbringing. My adoptive mother would often talk about her upbringing in Japan, what it was like. She had, I think, a very challenging upbringing because of her mother passing away at such a young age and talking about a lot of the holidays that we observed as a child that we don't have here in this country and what it was like on a daily basis for her to make it through the day. She had a number of unique challenges as a child and wanting to learn about that was something that I was very curious about, to understand the differences in her upbringing and what her society was like compared to what it was here. Educational system, for example, where you don't have summers off in Japan like you do here and what were some of the societal influences upon 00:02:00her. From the biological family side, also wanting to understand what was it that drove them to want to immigrate to America and how they settled here and what were their experiences through the generations.

FARRELL: It sounds like, on the adoptive side, that your mom was pretty open to talking about how she grew up and her background and things like that?

SINDLINGER: She would talk about it if I asked. Occasionally she would make comments about, "In Japan, this is how we do things, and this is how we celebrate Christmas, and this is how we celebrate birthdays." It was very different than what I saw my friends doing with their families and that just led to a natural curiosity about, okay, "Tell me more." I was curious. What is the basis for this? Where did this come from? How is it done this way? Why is it done this way and what was 00:03:00the societal influences that led to these traditions and how you celebrate life events?

FARRELL: Yeah. Given that you knew for your biological family that your background was similar to your adoptive parents, did that help you as you started to search for them?

SINDLINGER: Because I had some context and there were some commonalities that I assumed would be there, that were there. That was helpful to have as a frame of reference.

FARRELL: Okay. At what point did you start that search for your biological family?

SINDLINGER: I wanted to make sure that my adopted parents had passed away before I did that. I had no idea how they would react if I were successful in the search, so I didn't pursue it while they were alive. Once they passed away, both my adopted mother and adopted 00:04:00father had passed away, I decided I wanted to pick it up a little bit. Spoke with a social worker to understand a little bit more about the legal framework in terms of how adoption records are protected in our society and where to go next to try to do some research on that. It wasn't a burning passion that I had to have answered right away so I took my time with it.

FARRELL: Okay and just for context, around what year was that -- do you remember -- that you first had that conversation with the social worker?

SINDLINGER: Oh, goodness. My adopted mother passed away in 1992. My adopted father didn't pass away for another 14 years. After he had passed away and I felt more comfortable wanting to pursue this, I knew someone who was a social worker and had a very brief conversation of what would it take. What kind of 00:05:00paperwork would I have to file? I knew there was going to be some challenges because the adoption took place out of state. I live in Michigan, but I was born in Stockton, California. I knew there was going to be some additional challenges due to distance, if nothing else.

FARRELL: Did you feel encouraged by the conversation with the social worker?

SINDLINGER: It was kind of ambivalent. There was no real clear path forward. It was sort of, "Yeah, you can file paperwork," but the feedback seemed to be it's going to be real hit or miss as to whether that's going to lead anywhere. That didn't really compel me to move forward a lot.

FARRELL: Do you remember what the paperwork was that you had to file in California?

SINDLINGER: It was pretty much a request to have records that were sealed to be released and opened. My understanding was that there was just a number of obstacles to that, particularly due to the passage of 00:06:00time. It had been almost fifty years by the time I had started to look into this more actively. I knew that there was a chance that the records might not be complete, that there would be a request to keep it sealed. That if they're there, it may not be complete. There was a number of issues that were daunting at the time, that made it seem an uphill battle.

FARRELL: So, your adoption was sealed then. Your records were sealed?

SINDLINGER: My understanding is yes.

FARRELL: Okay. Did you ever end up filing that paperwork to open the sealed records in California?

SINDLINGER: No.

FARRELL: Okay. What was your decision not to do that? Was it because it was just more ambivalent?

SINDLINGER: That and it just seemed like the chances of success were small and that it was going to be difficult to pursue 00:07:00and the distance factor, on the other side of the country, also made it more, I think, challenging. It wasn't where I could just walk down to the courthouse and start requesting stuff.

FARRELL: Yeah. It is interesting. Each state is so different with the forms needed, the process, everything. Yeah, I understand that. At what point did you start making a little bit more headway?

SINDLINGER: Interestingly enough, it was my wife who was more of an advocate for this and eventually it was surely by accident that contact was made through 23andMe, a genetics testing service. That was done not with the intent of making content but simply from a health perspective, to see whether or not there was anything in my 00:08:00genes or genetic makeup that would put me or my children at greater risk for certain health factors. When I completed that, there's a little section of your profile in it that says, "DNA relatives," which are people that have your DNA. It fills up on the screen and it indicates the person's name, where they are, what percent of DNA match they have with you and several hundred people popped up in this section. Most of them were 1 percent or less DNA match and I thought, "Okay, these are not relatives. They're barely neighbors." I didn't really pursue that further. Didn't think anything would come of that. One day somebody pops up in that box and it said, "DNA match 25 percent, half-brother." That just was a shock to me. I received an email from a gentleman saying, "I'm your 00:09:00half-brother. I want to talk. Let me know if you would be available for a conversation."

FARRELL: What was your reaction?

SINDLINGER: I had no idea. I was raised as an only child. I assumed I was an only child and then here's someone who says, "Yeah, I'm your half-brother." I had no idea that this was going to be one of the outcomes. I ended up making contact with the gentleman. Turns out he's twenty-six years younger than I am. We had a long conversation and said, "Yeah. There's four of us. We knew you were out there somewhere; we just didn't know where you were." This genetic service is what put us in touch, so we had a long conversation about the commonalities we had, that the four of us have a common father. The gentleman who is the father of all four of us had a number of liaisons with several 00:10:00women, most of whom he didn't marry. I'm the first of the four. This gentleman maintained a lot of personal effects of our biological father and among the records was the women that he had spent some time with that still is my biological mother. It's like, "Here's her name, the places where we believe she lives," and I continued the search from there.

FARRELL: A couple of follow-up questions there. When your half-brother had reached out to you, how long did it take you to respond?

SINDLINGER: It took me about a week or two to process this, to decide, okay, do I want to outreach and is this person really who he says he is? Obviously, there's the genetic makeup that says yes but I had some conflict about this is not who I was expecting to 00:11:00find. I was expecting biological mother, biological father, not a sibling, and that was just so surprising to me. I said, "Okay. Let's make a call and find out what's going on here and what else I can discover." That led to, okay, there's two more brothers out there that are a part of our makeup.

FARRELL: What year did you join 23andMe?

SINDLINGER: Oh, goodness, it's probably been about five years.

FARRELL: Okay, okay. As you were having these conversations with him, thinking that you were going to find information from a health perspective, were you able to find that out?

SINDLINGER: Well, we did have the conversation of, "Hey, by the way, are there any issues regarding family history I should know about?" It's difficult 00:12:00to assess from a purely rational logical standpoint because the gentleman who was our biological father passed away, I believe in 2006. But he had a number of serious health risks that were self-inflicted. He apparently had been heavily involved with substance and drug abuse most of his life, which accelerated his passing. He smoked very heavily. There were other factors involved that were not genetic in nature but were significant contributors towards him passing away at a very young age.

FARRELL: Yeah. How were you feeling as you were having these conversations? You had mentioned that you were expecting to -- like first from a health 00:13:00perspective and then thinking like, oh, maybe there would be some connection to parents and not expecting a sibling because you were raised as a sibling. How did that feel for you to be talking to someone who was in a similar situation?

SINDLINGER: It was interesting from the standpoint that I thought that there would be a stable home-life associated with that biological parent and there wasn't. That this gentleman did engage in multiple relationships over the course of his life and only married one of the women that got pregnant and the other women, including my biological mother, were women he basically walked away from, which was disappointing to hear. I was also, I think, developing a sense of sympathy towards my three half-brothers and what they went through in life. They did not have, I think, what you would consider a stable 00:14:00traditional home life. They were very much interested in me, as well, to see, "Well, how did you turn out? What did you do with your life? What did you find out?"

FARRELL: Yeah. How did that make you feel that they were interested in you as well?

SINDLINGER: I wasn't expecting to find siblings, let alone three half-brothers that were there. It was fascinating to have that conversation. They all lived in Idaho, and they never left. Part of it was just curiosity of what's it like to live in the Midwest where geographically it's so very different than Idaho and from the standpoint of they lived in an area that doesn't have a very dense population. They did not have, and there still isn't, quite the abundance of employment opportunities that there are in a major metropolitan area. There's also different access to 00:15:00healthcare and other things that would lead to upward economic mobility that were limiting factors in their lives, as well.

FARRELL: So, I know it started with your half-brother who reached out to you on 23andMe. Were you eventually in touch with the other two half-siblings?

SINDLINGER: No.

FARRELL: Okay, so you've been in contact with just the one? Got it, okay. I'm curious about how he knew about who might have potentially been your biological mother. Like how he kept record, that kind of thing, or how that came to be?

SINDLINGER: Apparently our biological father was not shy about sharing all of that and he said that that was something that was fairly well-known within the family and a lot of 00:16:00records and mementoes were kept from that time in his life. It was not something that apparently he kept as a secret.

FARRELL: Oh, interesting. Okay. What was it like for you to kind of see those records? Well, I guess maybe backing up a little bit, is how were those records shared with you?

SINDLINGER: He had actually taken some pictures of these and emailed them to me. That's how I had a picture of what our biological father looked like when he was younger. It's like, "Here's a picture of him when he was x-years old and here's a picture of him when he's older. Here's some other information about him." We connected and he told me just from a day-to-day perspective, "This is what he liked to do. This is his hobbies. This is his favorite food. This is how he passed the time. This is what he ended up doing at different stages of his life."

FARRELL: What was it like for you to read through those 00:17:00 records?

SINDLINGER: It was a little odd. There's obviously a family resemblance when I look at the picture. The choices he made in life I thought were obviously very poor ones and had significant consequences to people besides himself. I don't know what his thinking was, but it seems like he wasn't particularly concerned about how he was impacting the lives of other people through the choices that he had made.

FARRELL: How about the records that pertained to the person who, at that point, was potentially your biological mother?

SINDLINGER: It was enough information. My half-brother had her name, had a sense of where she lived. There were a few pictures. There was a sense of what I could reassemble in terms of the relatively short time that they 00:18:00spent together. But it was enough to go off of to continue the search.

FARRELL: Did he ever have contact with her, or he just kept the records?

SINDLINGER: The records.

FARRELL: Okay, okay. How did you go about exploring that potential connection?

SINDLINGER: Well, it turns out that you can find an awful lot if you dig through public records. If you have a name, first and a last name at a residence, even if it's as little as a state where someone's living, you can mine a lot of information from an individual's public records, like voting records, for example. When I started doing that I could find information about her and other family members. There was a lot out there. If you run across an obituary of an individual, it tells you who their 00:19:00relatives are. They're survived by spouse, children, aunts, uncles, parents and it'll say their names. To their obituary and then you just do some research from there and that just keeps this cascading flow of information going.

FARRELL: How often were you doing this research? I'm curious about like how time consuming all this was for you.

SINDLINGER: It wasn't that time consuming actually. Once you start looking there's a trail of breadcrumbs that lead to more information. My wife has a membership to Ancestry.com and we checked there and there was some information and records that were located there on the extended family that pointed to other locations. There were things like Find A Grave, which is a website 00:20:00where you can punch in a person's name, roughly where they lived, and it will show where the individual's buried and find some information about the individual. There's other information that's maintained in public records that is actually surprisingly thorough and it's just a matter of knowing what's there and just doing a little bit of research. Things that were, I think, facilitated by the internet that thirty years ago would require you to go to some musty room in a basement government building going through microfiche has all been digitized and put online.

FARRELL: Yeah. That's interesting, you used both databases -- both 23andMe and Ancestry -- to do cross-referencing.

SINDLINGER: Yes.

FARRELL: There's no question there. It's interesting. 00:21:00You mentioned the trail of breadcrumbs. But how you started to connect those dots with this potential person where you started to see more things coming together?

SINDLINGER: There are pieces of information that are available through certain public sources that gives you a glimpse as to where you might want to look next. For example, someone's obituary will say where they worked. They retired from X. They lived here. They had certain children who are living elsewhere. If you read that you could say, "Okay, there is a cousin living in this city." You can go to that city's website, do a search for the name or, again, under voting records, property ownership records, for example, under property taxes, to find somebody and their address. That helps fill in the 00:22:00puzzle, pieces to that puzzle. There'll be information, for example, about if you do a search, someone could have a newspaper interview somewhere in a local newspaper that provides more information. That just fills in a little bit more information about the background of an individual, pieces of their life that help you assemble that and then, again, mentioning other relatives, where they live, what they do, their children, and then you start to build this larger and larger network that puts together a much more expansive tapestry of this family and how far it extends.

FARRELL: Yeah, so it sounds like with all this information you're basically like triangulating a lot of things. You end up finding your biological mother and I'm wondering if there was like a moment you 00:23:00have where everything kind of clicked into place or it was like an ah-ha moment or it just became undeniable.

SINDLINGER: Yeah. There was a time where I did a search. I had the name; I had the city. I had looked at voting records and everything matched. The name, the address, date of birth and then that matched a couple of obituaries I found where she was mentioned as a survivor of another family member who passed away and all of it matched and said, "Okay, this is the individual."

FARRELL: Can you tell me what happened next?

SINDLINGER: Took a little while to process all that and decide what to do with the information. My wife spent some time on Ancestry, as well, to do some additional research, to find other documents that had been uploaded by other individuals, I am assuming more family members and 00:24:00that produced a little bit more of a larger mosaic of what was happening with the family and where they had settled in, where they came from and then I decided the next step was to outreach. I didn't think I could do this by phone, so I ended up writing a letter as a way to broach the topic.

FARRELL: Yeah. What happened after you sent the letter?

SINDLINGER: Nothing for a while. I was very careful to write the letter saying, "Hi, I don't want anything from you, but I believe that you're my biological mother. I wanted to let you know that I had a good life, that I turned out okay. Here's my contact information. If you ever want to talk, that's fine. If you don't, I understand that and I will respect that 00:25:00decision. If you do decide that you do want to outreach and make a connection, I will welcome that." I mailed the letter, and I didn't hear anything for several weeks and then out of the blue there was an email that popped into my inbox, and she responded, and we started a conversation and a dialogue that's been developing ever since.

FARRELL: What were those several weeks like for you in between sending the letter and getting that email?

SINDLINGER: I assumed that this would be a bit of a shock, like it would be to anybody receiving information about an event that happened decades before in your life, particularly something of this magnitude would be something that would need time to process and determine what to do next. I had the assumption that I would probably not hear anything back for 00:26:00months and I may never, ever hear anything back. When I did receive that first email, I was incredibly excited. I had a certain degree of not knowing what to expect but from there we've had an ongoing dialogue for a long time and developed, I think, a very good relationship. Long distance but still transformative.

FARRELL: What year was this?

SINDLINGER: This is about two years ago. About the summer of 2020.

FARRELL: Okay, so this was also during the pandemic. Well, you mentioned that it was transformative. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

SINDLINGER: This was something that I, again, knew that I had another 00:27:00set of parents out there, biological parents, and it had been roughly fifty years I've had this information. I didn't know where they were and didn't know what led to the adoption, what these individuals had done with their lives, where they were certainly, and the more and more I had done research and was able to piece together a family and what the family went through and where they came from, where they settled, what they did for a living. It was interesting to see it on paper and read the newspaper articles. But it's a very different thing to actually have the conversation with the individual and to make that connection and to see the culmination of all of that research boil down to talking with the actual 00:28:00individual and having the conversation that I think was very difficult for both of us to have. It was something that was unexpected. Because I knew there was also a potential that I would never find either of my biological parents or to find both and actually make contact with my biological mother was, I think, a remarkable moment in my life.

FARRELL: When you were developing that relationship with her were you speaking on the phone or were you still email and letter writing?

SINDLINGER: At first, we were doing emails back and forth and then part of it was there was just so much to communicate. It's easier to do that and at our respective leisures by email as opposed to phone. Part of it was a get to know you phase and to understand expectations that we had of each other moving forward and where this could 00:29:00potentially lead. That progressed further to the point of having telephone conversations.

FARRELL: Were either of you explicit about kind of like the expectations there? Did you talk about that explicitly?

SINDLINGER: Not so much. I think there was an implicit understanding that the conversations we had would be kept confidential by both of us, that that was probably not going to extend beyond each of us and that any conversations with our respective families may or may not occur until a certain level of comfort was reached regarding our relationship with each other and understanding where that was going to be. Finding a person is one thing but being able to develop a relationship and a degree of compatibility is another thing. There was also the possibility that I could find the individual, but our world views would be so different, our points of view could be so 00:30:00different that we would just not be compatible to develop any kind of a relationship. I know other individuals who were able to locate their biological parents and there was just such an enormous gulf between them on their world views and their opinions that they just could not get along beyond just saying hi and those relationships tended to deteriorate very rapidly.

FARRELL: Did you feel a sense of compatibility with your mother?

SINDLINGER: Once we started talking, yes. There were certain things we had in common. Again, I think it was a certain world view. Part of it was I think we had similar backgrounds in our lives in terms of, I would say, again a world 00:31:00view or a big perspective that I think helped that relationship develop that might not be there with someone who had the polar opposite.

FARRELL: Part of the story is that you learned that your biological mother is a descendent of Topaz. How did that come up in the conversation?

SINDLINGER: That was something I discovered as part of the research. I was looking for records of the family and I found the obituaries. I found newspaper articles and amongst the documents was a reference to my biological grandmother having spent time, along with other members of the family, in the internment camps. She 00:32:00specifically was sent to Topaz after spending time in Tanforan, which was a holding facility while they built the camps. That was surprising. I wanted to find independent confirmation of it, so I went to the war relocation authority records which are, again, digitized and online. Anyone can view them. I found the records there of the whole family. The names, the dates of birth, everything matched. That was shocking to see. It was stunning. I knew about this missed incident in American history, I just didn't know that my biological family, my legacy would include this particular event.

FARRELL: Were you aware of this before that initial contact, before you wrote that letter, or did this come later?

SINDLINGER: I knew it beforehand.

FARRELL: You did. Okay, okay. How did that impact 00:33:00those early conversations, how you were developing the relationship with her, or did it?

SINDLINGER: This was not something that was brought up during our initial contact and during our subsequent conversations probably for, I would say, at least a year because I knew this was going to be a difficult sensitive topic for many Nisei Japanese. It's not something they talk about, and it is a difficult topic of conversation and I believed that there was the potential that this was going to be a sensitive topic, so I didn't press this as a topic of conversation. Now, there were other issues that I also knew were going to be sensitive, so I let her guide the conversation and talk about what she felt comfortable with.

FARRELL: Okay. Did incarceration ever come up eventually?

SINDLINGER: Eventually it did. It took about a year or so, but it did arrive as a "Tell me more about this. Help me understand this. How did this 00:34:00impact the family? How did the family feel?"

FARRELL: Did you say she's Nisei?

SINDLINGER: She is third generation. I'm Yonsei. So, she's Sansei.

FARRELL: Oh, she's Sansei. Okay, okay. Got it. You're Yonsei. I'd love to hear more about your explanation into this part of your heritage in terms of her being a descendent of Topaz. Before we go further, I'd love to hear more about as you're looking through these records, what you were finding, how you were feeling about it? Just what that process was like for you.

SINDLINGER: This is a topic that just wasn't taught in school. It's an 00:35:00element of American history but I had never had any element of this being taught through the public school system or even in college. This was just something that I stumbled across on my own as a topic when I was much younger and was surprised that it wasn't something that was a topic of discussion in our educational system. What I found out about it was just through my own research that I'd done on my own. I'm somewhat disappointed that this still isn't an element of American history because there are so many elements of our country's history, and we developed as a society and as a people that are just not taught, and you're left to discover this on your own. If you don't look in the right places you may never find out the full picture of your community and where you come 00:36:00from. This was a journey of discovery on multiple plains.

FARRELL: It is quite shocking that this is not taught in schools. I also did not grow up with this as part of being the curriculum and moving to the West Coast you hear about it more. And, like you, it was a thing that I learned about as an adult, and I still can't wrap my head around the fact that this is not taught more. This is a pretty significant part of American history. Given that, as you're doing this research and it's something you have to do on your own -- I know you mentioned going to some of the federal databases -- but what were some of the other avenues that you were taking to do some of this research? I know you read some books, you talked to some folks.

SINDLINGER: There's information out there that is available if you can find it. I was actually 00:37:00surprised to discover that there's a study being done of descendants from the internment camps that actually is being conducted by the University of Michigan, which is where I work. I found an article online about this. I found the name of the professor who was conducting the research and she actually works just a couple of miles down the road from where I do. I called her up one afternoon and said, "Would you have a few minutes of time to talk to me about what you're doing, what you hope to discover, what have been your findings?" She was very nice and gracious to volunteer her time and said that the study probably won't publish its results for another two years, but it was fascinating to hear about what was being done. In the process I discovered there were other individuals who worked for the university who are also descendants of internment camp 00:38:00 survivors.

FARRELL: Yeah. I'm curious about the research that this professor was doing about descendants. Do you remember what the research was focusing on?

SINDLINGER: It's looking at how the intergenerational gap can impact the individuals, the descendants from a sense of intergenerational trauma and how they process and deal with it. Understanding more about why this was not discussed within the families. For many individuals, their parents or grandparents never talked about this and part of it is understanding why. What was the rationale for that and how the people processed that when they discover it.

FARRELL: Interesting. Do you know if the study is focused on people who live within Michigan or is it a wider geographic scope?

SINDLINGER: It's anyone. It's well beyond the boundaries of the state of Michigan.

FARRELL: Okay. Was 00:39:00it in like a sociology or an anthropology or Asian American studies department?

SINDLINGER: Yeah. The University of Michigan actually has the Center for Japanese Studies is what it's called. It's actually a very robust program where they not only engage in celebrating Japanese culture, heritage and the language but there's an exchange program. They do a number of things that are designed to raise awareness and appreciation for Japanese heritage, its culture and its impact on this country along with relations between America and Japan. They have a lecture series that goes on. It's fascinating and a remarkable resource.

FARRELL: Did you have this conversation with this woman before you wrote the letter to your biological mother?

SINDLINGER: Yeah. I was wanting to see if there was some window 00:40:00or glimpse into this event that might shape or frame my outreach. There wasn't but it was a fascinating conversation, and it was very insightful, nonetheless.

FARRELL: Did that help you have the understanding that she might not want to talk about it and that's why you let her guide the conversation?

SINDLINGER: That was a primary driving factor. It's something that I understand can be extraordinarily difficult because it was something that happened to you. It's not something you chose to do. You had no control over this event in your life and, granted, it happened a long time ago but it's still a shocking event and how do you explain that and process that to somebody who may not have a deep understanding of the impact.

FARRELL: Yeah, I think 00:41:00so. I think you had also read Desert Exile by Yoshiko Uchida. Is that right? Did you read that book?

SINDLINGER: Yeah, I'll grab this. This is the book here. This particular book is about the experiences of an individual who went to Topaz which was the same camp that my grandmother went to. I wanted to understand the event from someone who went through the same experiences that she would have. The second book is this. It's When Can We Go Back to America? This is more of a documentary style research piece that explains the circumstances that led to the internment from the governmental 00:42:00militarily individuals. They're both very good reads and are excellent sources of information on the internment, to understand how it came about and what it was like to go through that. I also was able to locate an individual who went to Topaz, and he agreed to talk to me. He's in his late nineties at this point but was also gracious enough to spend some time with me because I wanted to know what it was like. What was the experience like? What did you go on a day-to-day basis? What was the sense of the atmosphere and the community as this unfolded and how did you deal with rebuilding your life after you were released from the camps. What kind of challenges did you face and how did it feel to be back in society? How do you reflect upon this experience in your 00:43:00life and incorporate this into you as an individual and how do you [go] on this from the greater perspective of history as someone who went through this and how do you look upon your country for having done this? Those were perspectives I was looking for that I think were remarkable and to be able to talk to someone who was actually there.

FARRELL: Did you have more than one conversation with that survivor?

SINDLINGER: It was just one, but it was a very, very long one. We spoke for several hours. After the conversation was over, we continued to communicate via email for a while. It was nice to have him share that much of his time with me. He had no idea who I was, but he was very gracious and willing to share some very personal information about a very difficult time in his 00:44:00 life.

FARRELL: I know that you're a bit of an internet sleuth, but how were you able to find him?

SINDLINGER: I just did a Google search and started looking for survivors of Topaz. I ran cross a couple of articles that were out there, and it mentioned several individuals who were being interviewed or had been interviewed over the years and I just searched for each one of them until I found one of them who was still alive, and again, did some research on public records to locate the individual.

FARRELL: Did you ever use the website Topaz stories?

SINDLINGER: I found that later. I found a number of websites out there like Densho, for example, that had a lot of information out there that I'm grateful for, that is being available and has recorded the information. But if you knew nothing about 00:45:00the internments you wouldn't know that these records existed. You wouldn't know that this is out there. I was pleasantly surprised that it was there and grateful to have the opportunity to take advantage of what has been recorded and what has been made available online. But, again, thirty, forty years ago, before the advent of the internet to the extent of what it is today, you would never be even able to find this unless you made a trip to that part of the country.

FARRELL: Yeah. I think thirty and forty years ago the conversation was very different, focused a little bit more on redress and that kind of thing. But people a little less willing to have these conversations then, too. It's interesting. Like the timing of everything is interesting. Actually, on that note, do you feel like the pandemic played a role in your time or your like availability to do some of this research or did that not matter at all?

SINDLINGER: It didn't 00:46:00 matter.

FARRELL: Okay, okay. Got it. Also, following up on when you spoke to that survivor, was he in Michigan or was he elsewhere?

SINDLINGER: He was in California.

FARRELL: Okay, okay. What was that like for you to hear his story from the firsthand account?

SINDLINGER: It's a little surreal because you can watch interviews. I found interviews with survivors on YouTube. There are lots of them to look at. I listened to them, watched them, thought it was a time capsule snapshot and you can't interact with the individual. You can't ask questions. This was an opportunity to speak to somebody, to hear their firsthand account and to be able to interact with them and say, "I've got a question. What did you think about? What was this like? Tell me more about this?" That was, I think, a phenomenal opportunity to 00:47:00have that type of a conversation and interaction with an individual.

FARRELL: Was he pretty open to your questions? Answering your questions?

SINDLINGER: Oh, yeah. He was very willing to talk. I think he was very surprised and excited to have the chance to share his story with somebody, that someone would call him, outreach to him seventy-five, eighty years after the incident and still express some interest in something that happened so long ago. He seemed very enthusiastic about it, as well.

FARRELL: How did having that conversation, reading the two books that you just pointed out, how did that shape the way that you were thinking about this moment in American history and then also the experience of your grandmother?

SINDLINGER: 00:48:00It was helpful to have read the books, to understand the political and social climate that was occurring at the time. To a certain extent there's a lot of, I think, similarities between today and back then. It helped provide a frame of reference to understand how this occurred and what was probably happening at the time and also having that reaffirmation by speaking with someone who lived it and said, "Yeah, this is what it was like and this is what happened and yeah, the accounts in the books are correct. This is the climate, the mood of the nation at the time," and seeing parallels through history.

FARRELL: When you were talking with your biological 00:49:00mother and when she finally brought it up, what was it like for you to talk to her about her relationship with this period of time and her being a descendent, as well?

SINDLINGER: That was a conversation that evolved over time. It wasn't something that came rushing out all at once. It was something that bits and pieces came out here and there. Again, I wasn't pushing this. I wasn't pressing this. I wasn't asking for more. I would take whatever she was willing to share with me. I'd ask an occasional question here or there. But it was something that took time to piece together and to understand what the feelings and the emotions were about this and how it impacted the family.

FARRELL: Do you feel like your personal research better equipped you to have those conversations or listen to her when you were talking about those 00:50:00 things?

SINDLINGER: It provided more context, some expectations of what I thought I would hear, which to a certain extent was there and did meet my expectations of what I thought those conversations would likely look like and provided some sense of preparation for preparing myself for what I was going to hear and what those emotions were going to be.

FARRELL: How much did she know about your grandmother's experience at Topaz?

SINDLINGER: Quite a bit. In addition to her mother, my grandmother had a sister and a brother and her own father -- my great-grandfather -- who also were sent to the camps. It was a number of family members.

FARRELL: Okay. 00:51:00Did she ever share if her family members discussed their experience with her or was there silence around it?

SINDLINGER: There was silence. I wanted to know what it was, and she said the family did not talk about it. She said part of it was they never talked about this, in part because there was nothing that could be done. It happened. You can't go back and erase it so what's the point of talking about it. She said they also felt that if they spent too much time talking about it, that the children might develop some resentment against this country, of how their family members were treated and they didn't want that to potentially occur, so it just was not something that was addressed directly. They knew about it they just didn't talk about it.

FARRELL: Did it ever come up about the way that 00:52:00your mother felt about the country?

SINDLINGER: Still gets back to it was something they couldn't go back and erase from history. There was certainly an understanding that it was an appalling event, viewed as something unthinkable but that did happen and makes you more cognizant that it could happen again. It makes you look at events and make you see parallels and view current events more critically than you otherwise might, to have that sense of understanding that your family's history was impacted by this and how it could happen with somebody else.

FARRELL: 00:53:00Yeah. I'm wondering after that -- simultaneously you're doing this research, you're having these conversations with her -- were you at that point ever able to learn more things about her family and start to do some research about their experience there on your own?

SINDLINGER: Actually, she shared a newspaper clipping with me not too long ago where the local newspaper interviewed her mother about her experiences at Topaz. This was at the end of her life. It talked a little bit about her perspective, which was fascinating to be able to read something that had, in her own words, her point of view and her thoughts on it. I was grateful to have that glimpse into my grandfather's 00:54:00past. I saved a copy of it and still retain it as, I think, an important piece of family history.

FARRELL: What were some of the things that you learned about your biological family? As much as you're comfortable sharing. We can also take this out, too, but I know that there was somebody who was involved in the 442nd, that kind of thing.

SINDLINGER: When the internment came about, one thing my mother shared with me is that the family was living in a suburb of San Francisco, which is where they emigrated into this country. They had a small farm when the internment took place. They had to leave all that behind. When they did go to the camps, my grandmother's brother did end up joining the 00:55:00442nd as part of, I think, a show of loyalty towards this country. He was willing to fight and defend it. He ended up getting killed in combat shortly after joining in a battle in Italy, which I have to imagine was devastating for the family.

FARRELL: Did you start to research the 442nd a little bit more?

SINDLINGER: Yeah. There's a lot of information you can find online. Not as much as I would like but it was -- again, the internet is a phenomenal resource if you use it, [great] resource. So I'd never heard of the 442nd. Even when I started researching the internment early, I was just fascinated to find out that there was this element, branch of the Army that was made up entirely of Japanese soldiers who had fought extensively in World War II in defense of 00:56:00the country and to further the cause of democracy that was being threatened by the powers [that be].

FARRELL: These initial conversations start just a couple of years ago. How are you thinking about this history both from an American history perspective and a family or like heritage perspective? How are you thinking about all of this stuff now?

SINDLINGER: It's, I think, sobering and becomes very personal. When you read about a piece of history and then you find that there's a family connection. For example, if you study the Civil War, there's a certain amount of information about it and then all of a sudden you discover you have an ancestor that fought at the Battle of Gettysburg. Makes it much more personal. Makes it much more 00:57:00real to you as an individual to have that connection, to have the knowledge that your family had a role to play in a pivotal point in this country's history. You become much more invested in it and want to take a much more active role to understand it, to contextualize it and understand how this fits into you, your family's legacy and your personal history and how that element fits into the larger narrative of our nation's history.

FARRELL: Are you discussing any of this with your children?

SINDLINGER: Yeah.

FARRELL: You are, okay.

SINDLINGER: My eldest is eighteen and I think he also did not have any educational formative experience about the internment. He certainly learned about World War II, which is probably the most that you hear about the role of 00:58:00Japanese in the history of our nation as the enemy of World War II But not the internment. I gave him the books to read. I've been telling him about the family connection to it and helping him understand how to place this within his own understanding of his self-identity and understand this role in history and what it has meant to the development of the nation.

FARRELL: Has he been receptive to it?

SINDLINGER: Yeah. He also has, I think, an intellectual curiosity which I believe is healthy and he's asked a lot of questions. My youngest is thirteen. He's a little young but we're having some conversations to understand, hey, by the way I think this is something that's important. You need to understand that it's part of you and your family's 00:59:00place in this nation's history.

FARRELL: What's it like for you to share that with your children and have those conversations?

SINDLINGER: Well, we've always discussed the fact that our children are Japanese. We share some of the history and the culture with them. Certainly the food. I support an element of that. This is just another piece of that. It's not the biggest piece but it's an important element to help them understand how this fits into who we are as individuals as well as a component of the history of this country.

FARRELL: The food questions are always things that I love. But as you're sharing your heritage with your kids through food, how are you doing that? Are you going to Japanese restaurants? Are you cooking onigiri? How are you using food as kind of a gateway for that?

SINDLINGER: 01:00:00Well, for example, my youngest loves rice. I shudder whenever he wants to have Minute Rice because that's not real rice. Let me show you what it is. Again, I still have a rice cooker that my adopted mother gave me that's almost thirty years old and so this is how you make rice the proper way and then this is the way it should taste. He likes ramen. Eats the same brand of ramen that I have had for the past fifty years. We do have meals from Japanese restaurants and we this is what this is, this is the role this plays. This is something you would have eaten on a daily basis if you had grown up in Japan and helping him understand that is helpful for them to appreciate the upbringing they have and their day-to-day lives and how it would have been different at a Japanese culture.

FARRELL: Yeah. That makes 01:01:00sense. In terms of your relationship with your biological mother, where are things now?

SINDLINGER: We still converse on a regular basis. Part of it is just, "Hey, how's it going? What are you doing? What's in the news up at where you're at, in your neck of the woods? How are things going?" But also, part of that conversation involves understanding a little bit more about each other, backgrounds, our histories, our commonalities, and what our plans are for the future and to continue to have this type of an ongoing relationship which, again, I am very grateful for. I am grateful for the generosity of her time and her willingness to open up and talk so much about herself, her family, and her past.

FARRELL: How about your half-brother that you had those initial conversations with. Are you both still in touch?

SINDLINGER: Yeah. We still talk from time-to-time. Very different point of view, very different 01:02:00perspective. Obviously his is very different because he does not have that Japanese element to his background. But we also talk from time-to-time. Again, "What are you up to? What's going on? What's next? What are you doing? How are things going?" It's very different, again, because I was raised as an only child and I had a very limited family. I now have a much larger family to talk with, to interact with, and since my adopted parents have both passed away, it's rediscovering more family.

FARRELL: Have you met any other biological family members or talked to any others?

SINDLINGER: No.

FARRELL: Okay. So just the two. Your mother and your half-brother.

SINDLINGER: Yeah. At some point I'm hoping that that circle will widen a little bit. Again, it's only been two years so it's going to be a slow process.

FARRELL: Yeah. It takes time. For 01:03:00sure. I am curious, too, so you grew up knowing that you were Japanese, and you grew up understanding culture, traditions, that kind of thing. What's your involvement been with the Japanese American community?

SINDLINGER: When my adopted mother was alive, we spent time with the local JA community but when my mother passed away, my adopted mother passed away, all that evaporated. All those connections and ties disappeared when she passed away. Now it's been a chance to reconnect and rediscover that. One of the things I've done, for example, is I've joined the Japanese American Citizen League, which I understand my grandmother was also a member of, so I'm hoping there's an opportunity there to be able to make a contribution that honors the family legacy of advocacy and community 01:04:00 involvement.

FARRELL: Are you involved with your local JACL or the national chapter?

SINDLINGER: Local chapter here in Detroit.

FARRELL: Are they pretty active?

SINDLINGER: At the moment they are, I think, trying to be a little bit more active but there are opportunities there to become involved with elements of it and to be part of the local JA community, which is nice to have that back as part of my life.

FARRELL: Yeah, yeah. If those connections were originally forged through your adopted mother, what's that been like for you to create those connections on your own?

SINDLINGER: It's fascinating. It's rewarding. Part of doing that is very reaffirmative for me, to make those connections. I miss having those. It's easy when a sort of 01:05:00aspect of your life has faded away to forget about it and to reconnect is remarkably reassuring and I want to say exciting.

FARRELL: Are there other JA organizations that you have been interested in or become involved with?

SINDLINGER: I'm still looking, exploring and learning. There's actually a very large community of Japanese Americans living in southeastern Michigan because of the auto industry. There it's just a matter of outreaching and making contact.

FARRELL: Yeah. One thing I think I forgot to ask about last time was you spoke about your adopted mother that one Christmas, writing your names in 01:06:00Japanese and saying, "You should learn how to speak Japanese or read Japanese." Did you ever learn how to do that?

SINDLINGER: I had started last fall. I'm subscribing to some YouTube channels and reading several books on it, so I'm teaching myself how to speak Japanese.

FARRELL: I know you just mentioned a couple of mechanisms but are you using like workbooks? Are you using like Duo Lingo or something? Yeah, how are you teaching yourself?

SINDLINGER: Just workbooks. There are books I'm reading on pronunciation, for example. But it's primarily the YouTube channels. There's, I think, four or five of them that I found that are really good and part of it is just language practice. Listening to the language and then they provide a very nice overview of grammatical structure, of how the language works, syntax, verb conjugation, for example, and then how to form basic sentences. It's a long process but it's fascinating. I studied Spanish for about thirty 01:07:00years, so I think that helped understand, sort of as a foundation, to help learn another language because I had to learn how to think and speak a different language besides English. There are certain elements that are in common enough, that Spanish and Japanese have a lot in common, but from the context of having to learn syntax and learning how to reprogram your mind to think when forming language and listening to others, it was fascinating and it's a rewarding experience.

FARRELL: Are you learning to speak and read or one or the other?

SINDLINGER: Primarily it's speaking. I haven't learned yet how to read Japanese. The hiragana, katakana and kanji are going to be more of a challenge. It's a slow, slow, slow process because there's just so much to it.

FARRELL: Yeah, I think also characters. In 01:08:00Spanish it's a little bit more like one-to-one, I guess, where there's direct or close to direct translations to things. But characters are so different.

SINDLINGER: Yeah. Kanjis, the pictographic way, system, it's very, very different than English and the kanji and the hiragana, it's fascinating. I can recognize words now. Just not enough to write and translate complete sentences. But it's a process that I will conquer at some point.

FARRELL: Yeah. Well, that's great that you're working on it and sticking with it and understanding it's a slow process. But that's pretty fantastic I'm also wondering if you've had any interest in traveling to Japan?

SINDLINGER: I want to live there. If I had the 01:09:00choice, if I won the lotto tomorrow, I would move to Japan. I'd love to be able to spend several months there. I don't want to do the touristy thing where I go to Tokyo for two weeks and then come back. I would love to be able to rent a cottage or an apartment in the countryside for six months and just live there and explore the country, live there, immerse myself in the culture and live daily life.

FARRELL: Any particular part of the countryside? Like north? South? Any part of Japan you're most interested in?

SINDLINGER: Probably central and southern Japan. I know from an ancestral standpoint the parts of Japan that I have a connection to are Tsukishima and Wakayama. I'd 01:10:00be interested in going as far south as perhaps even Okinawa. But I would welcome any opportunity to go to any part of the country.

FARRELL: In terms of pilgrimages, have you ever thought about going on a pilgrimage?

SINDLINGER: Yeah. It's on the other side of the country but at some point I will.

FARRELL: Can you tell me a little bit more about your interest in going on a pilgrimage? Like what you would hope to get out of it, what that experience you would like to have?

SINDLINGER: Like any experience, it's one thing to see it on TV, to watch it through YouTube, to read about it, but it's very different and it becomes much more real, much more visceral if you are there in person and you can physically touch something, an historical artifact. You can watch a YouTube video about climbing Mount Everest, but unless you're actually there, you don't have the 01:11:00same experience. Becomes much more real, much more part of you as an individual to have that actual live experience, to be there, to immerse yourself in the environment, the place where this took place. I think without that, there's a certain element that would be missing from my understanding of the events. At some point that will happen.

FARRELL: Are you hoping to do something around Topaz or are you thinking about maybe other sites of incarceration?

SINDLINGER: I'd like to go to Topaz again because that's where the family history is, but I also would be open to visiting the other sites, the other camps, like Minidoka, for example.

FARRELL: Yeah. I do want to ask you some reflective questions. Are there things that we didn't talk about that you want to discuss?

SINDLINGER: Wow. That's a pretty expansive 01:12:00 topic.

FARRELL: Well, I mean, I just want to make sure that we're addressing everything that you want to address.

SINDLINGER: No. That's a pretty comprehensive far-reaching topic. It's still, I think, difficult to process all of this. Because, again, it's only been two years since I discovered not only my biological parents and their families but also understanding the internment, as well, which is a significant piece of American history that was there and then to have all of that come rushing in under such a small period of time, relatively two years, it's just a lot to take in and a lot to process and I think it's something that I will continue to incorporate into my identity as an individual and my understanding of my 01:13:00place in this country and it's going to be a time consuming process, which is part of why I think the pilgrimage is going to be an important element of that, and understanding and reconciling what happened with this nation and this event that took place so many years ago but still continues to resonate with this nation.

FARRELL: You've kind of touched on this but how are you feeling like you are processing all of this information? I know you've talked to people; you've read books. You've talked to your kids. You're wanting to go on a pilgrimage. Are there any other ways that you're trying to make sense of this history?

SINDLINGER: Talking with other people who were there and other individuals who are descendants of internees is also an important element. There 01:14:00are other organizations, informal ones, that consist of people from my generation that their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, were individuals who spent time in the camps, and we talk and discuss what our views and thoughts are, how it impacted our families. I think that's very helpful to be able to process that and to understand that you're not alone, as somebody who has this as part of their family history.

FARRELL: Yeah. Yeah. It just takes time, I think. I think that you make a good point about it's only been two years. It's going to be a little while. Are there any things about maybe your heritage or your family, either adoptive or biological, that you want to 01:15:00 discuss?

SINDLINGER: It's, I think, a natural phase of aging that the older you are, the more reflective you become on your life, your life choices and the impacts and influences on it and to have something this significant occur this late in my life I think has been an eye-opening experience. It's been remarkable because I didn't expect at this point in my life there would be anything this significant happening, that not only finding my birth mother, finding out about the rest of the family and the internment was just something I never foresaw as an event happen. You get to a certain point where you have routine in life, and you don't expect that to significantly deviate and then something this momentous occurs. It's a lot to take in and it's a lot 01:16:00to process and when you talk with other people there's a certain degree of excitement, to say, "Hey, let me tell you about what happened in my life, of what I've discovered," and to connect with other people who have a similar history, it's also, I think, very invigorating and exciting to make those connections.

FARRELL: Yeah. And important, too, I think, just making connections and things. You had mentioned that you like history a lot because it helps you understand where people come from. As you've done more research, has this helped you understand where you've come from? In a broad sense or in a specific sense, however you want to take it.

SINDLINGER: I understand it from a standpoint of how people can be caught up or swept up in the moment of what's happening in a nation's 01:17:00history and that it can be jarring. It can be transformative. When you look back upon it through the lens of time and can place it in the context of what's happening in society, within a nation's development, it can help you understand better about what was going on and how it plays a role in the unfolding of a nation. It's difficult to, I think, come to terms with it or to make your peace with it. I think that's a difficult thing for, I think, any people who have been subject to an unfortunate sequence of events, where a specific element of society takes advantage of another.

FARRELL: Yeah, yeah. 01:18:00Yeah. Is there anything else that you want to add that we didn't talk about before I ask you a few reflective questions?

SINDLINGER: I think part of what you look upon when you find certain elements of history in your family that is shocking because of something like this, where your personal family members were impacted by it, if it helps to process it, to understand it, to be able to place it in its proper context. It's also, I think, disappointing when you see historical patterns that emerge over time that make you wonder do we as a people and as a society have the 01:19:00strength to summon the courage to build a better world, a more inclusive and respectful society, or at least one that's tolerant of others? Can we build that better world? Because if we can't, then we don't honor the legacy that was left to us by our parents and our forebears and that leaves the door open for history to repeat itself and that's when tragedy ensues and that's when you have the opportunity for the past, to happen yet again. But I also have to believe that there is a strong undercurrent of fairness and compassion in this country, where people want to summon that greater future for the next generation and want to rise to face those challenges to build and forge and move forward with a greater sense of purpose that does 01:20:00produce a greater future for our children and for future generations.

FARRELL: Yeah. I think that's very well said. I also think part of this is knowing about this. The education component is a huge part of it.

SINDLINGER: Yeah. Mark Twain once said that history does not repeat itself, but it does occasionally rhyme. I have to disagree with that. I think it's a whimsical saying but I think there's plenty of evidence to indicate that the contrary is the truth and history is people and people have hopes. People have fears. Sometimes people act upon those fears. That can sometimes lead to tragedy, sometimes can lead to certain elements of our society being taken advantage of for the benefit of another element of society. But there's also times where that can lead 01:21:00to transformative change, because if there are enough members of our society that share in witnessing events, whether it's a moment of shock, awe or unimaginable tragedy, that can sometimes cause people to rise up and say, "That's enough. There has to be change. There has to be a way to move forward." That's where that desire can sometimes reach critical mass and lead to actual positive change in a society. It does happen but I do believe it takes time for that critical mass to be reached.

FARRELL: Yeah, yeah. Also, I think that's very well said. I'm wondering what it's meant for you to learn about your heritage in these different capacities, when you were a kid, when you got older, as an 01:22:00adult, in the past two years. What has it meant to you to understand the layers, the nuances of your heritage?

SINDLINGER: Well, I think it's part of the never stop learning, never stop questioning, never stop searching because you never know what you're going to find. This is a journey that I would never have imagined would take place five years ago. But if I look back at the different stages of my life, when I was ten and talking with my adoptive mother about her experiences in Japan during World War II, learning more about her past and how that impacted her life, the internment, moving forward and then finding that personal connection with my mother, with the internment and how it impacted her family and her life, it's just a constant process of learning and evolving and it's also been phenomenally 01:23:00rewarding and enlightening as an experience and it helps me to build and understand my personal identity and that of my family and my children, for helping them understand the role it's going to play in their lives.

FARRELL: What's it like for you to share that with your children?

SINDLINGER: I think it's an incredible experience. It helps provide a connection. It helps provide almost like a bequeath, of a legacy and understanding to help them realize where they came from and that their family history is significant and when you read about it in a textbook, that does happen someday, to say, "Yeah, I'm part of this. This is part of where my family was impacted by this nation's history. This is 01:24:00where I understand it. This is how I understand it and how I will contextualize it."

FARRELL: I do think that sharing that with them is -- granted, I'm an oral historian, I'm also the child of an adoptee -- but I do think that having that knowledge to share with them is a gift really. Yeah, it's a gift. On that note, what has it meant for you to be able to make this connection with your biological family?

SINDLINGER: I think it's one of the most important things that's happened in my life. It's been something that, again, I never would have visualized could have happened. It hits me out of the blue. One of those events that you never think will happen. You don't foresee it, can't foresee it. But it has been 01:25:00a remarkable joy and an incredible experience that you can't place a price on that kind of experience, to have that connection and to reconnect with that element of your past.

FARRELL: How do you hope that people learn from the period of incarceration and the stories of descendants and things? What are the points that you hope people learn and take with them?

SINDLINGER: Well, part of it is the history of the times of this nation, how it came to be and to understand that if you remove the years in which it took 01:26:00place -- oh, yeah, this was signed by President Roosevelt in 1942. If you take away the dates and you look at simple human nature, what led people to want to pursue this policy against part of its citizenship and its citizenry, you can take those events and transport them to any other time in American history and see that there are parallels there, that there are commonalities that are not restricted to only one particular era in time. Again, because you're dealing with people and their hopes and fears, and to a certain extent, that doesn't change. Those beliefs, those fears can easily affect our 01:27:00society and can impact decision-making at the highest levels. That is something you have to have vigilance against. That those things can reappear at any time. But I also believe that there is that capacity, tremendous capacity for positive change in our society that does combat that and works to make sure that you contain that because it's a never-ending battle. It's not something that you resolve tomorrow and it's gone. It's a constant battle that I believe never ends. It's something that you have to constantly fight to contain and to combat. It's sort of an ebb and flow. And it doesn't go away.

FARRELL: What are your hopes for your future 01:28:00involvement with the JA community?

SINDLINGER: I hope to be able to make some sort of a contribution. Again, connecting with the community. Expand my language skills. To be able to have a conversation in Japanese and hopefully not stumble too badly. But also, there are certain advocacy interests within the JA community. I hope to be able to be part of that and to be able to make a difference, even if it's a small one, and to connect with other individuals. I hope that I can find other individuals that are descendants of internees and I know that they're out there. Someday I will find them.

FARRELL: I think that's all the questions that I have for you unless there's anything else that you'd like to add.

SINDLINGER: No, I just want to thank you for your time and for the opportunity to share a little bit about my experiences.

FARRELL: And thank you for sharing 01:29:00everything and your openness and your willingness to discuss this. I think this is a really important perspective. I think your story is really important and I am really happy to have it as part of the collection. Thank you for all your time and your willingness to do this.

SINDLINGER: My pleasure.

[End of Interview]