remembering an internment camp's teen volunteer

This is an interesting story on the late Ruth Mix Campidonica, who more than sixty years ago, at age 15, volunteered at the Gila River Internment Camp for Japanese Americans, 50 miles southeast of Phoenix: Teen witnesses a wartime injustice.

During World War II, Ruth worked as a nurse's aide in the maternity ward of the hospital at Butte camp, one of three at Gila River. Among the internees, the 5-foot-8 redhead was known as "the girl whose hair touches the sun," or "Taiyo" for short.

After the war, Ruth put the experience behind her, until the early 1970s when she and her daughter attended a lecture by none other than George Takei. A conversation with Star Trek's Sulu reawakened memories of her past—memories she had blocked out because of her guilt that she couldn't do more.

Today, her daughter, Claire Mix, is putting together a documentary about her mother's experience. She hopes to talk to Japanese Americans who remember Ruth. For more information, go here.