<Begin Segment 9>

TI: While you're there, were there examples or incidents where people, you could sense that they disagreed with your stand? Whether there were, I mean, people in camp who felt that Gordon, you were doing the wrong thing?

GH: Well, I, I think, I think there were, because there were, there were the, there were definitely people who felt that the thing to do was to be patriotic, and they didn't see my activities as being one of those activities, being patriotic. I said, well, and particularly to students, I said, "Well, one way to show your patriotism is to join the army and go up to the front lines and risk your life and things like that. Another way is to, where you find injustices taking place, fight for more justice exercised, and curtailing the injustices and so on." And in, in one sense, from the way I was looking at it, I was working in that part of being a good American. And in fact, I found out later that there was a high school student, senior student in class, listening to me who took to heart the things I was saying, and wrote a very critical analysis of what the government had done and the injustices that had taken place. And he, he told me later, he says, "If I had to blame somebody, how come I'm writing that way? It was because we had Hirabayashi coming into class telling us he was put into jail for standing up for what he thought was good American citizenship. And for fighting for the Bill of Rights, he got stuck in the jail and so on, and that's not very democratic, and that's not the kind of country I want to die for." And so he, he took that to heart. And then the teacher said, teacher put on there, "You're entitled to your views, but you got to have some evidence for these things, and you have to be, change some of the conclusions about the state of, United States." And he wouldn't, he wouldn't change. He said, "Well, look at the evidence. What are we doing here?" He said, "What are those barbed wires?" And so on. And so he was taken to the principal, principal's office. And he was told, "If you don't change the nature of your paper, you're going to fail this course. And if you fail the course, you're not going to graduate." Well, he didn't change it, so he didn't graduate. But subsequently, he was drafted into the army. And...

TI: Well, how do you feel about that, that this student listened to you, and from that, that from hearing you, he wrote this paper and then wasn't able to graduate from high school?

GH: Well, I didn't know it until later, but I, I thought that was appalling. But I didn't feel particularly guilty about it, 'cause I, I wasn't rabble-rousing, you know, trying to get those students to really raise a stinko...

TI: But, see it's --

GH: ...and have a rebellion in class. I was just describing what happened to me and what there is in the Constitution that we're being educated about and the fact that not everything comes out rosy. We have to learn how during hardship periods, there are things you got to say, that we don't live in heaven, so not everything is rosy.

TI: But how is it that these same teachers, these same educators, who sort of wanted you to come in and share this with their students, would then come down so hard on the student who was essentially espousing the same viewpoints that you were talking about?

GH: Well, that's, that's a line that you have to defend yourself. He, he told me that later on, he went through the army, he got into, he was a very bright person, so he got into military intelligence, passed the screening tests and so on for that kind of candidate. And he got into there. And he didn't have a high school diploma. [Laughs] So when he had a chance to go to university, he got the report from the military about his qualifications, his background and activities, his rank and so on, and they gave him the equivalent of a high school diploma in terms, because of his army proficiency and record, and, and so was admitted to the university. And then the rest was in terms of whether he could maintain passing grades or not, and he not only had passing grades, had good grades, and got his engineering and worked for Boeing. This fellow's name was Henry Miyatake.

TI: Right. And we interviewed him, so he's also in the archives.

GH: Yeah. Well, he's one of these very bright persons who is very adamant on some things and he won't change, even when he had, high school diploma -- that's, that's pretty courageous in some sense, or like other people would say, "Foolhardy. Gee, you mean, all he had to do was just change a paragraph or two. What the heck?" [Laughs] Is the way some people would feel. But he, he took it seriously. "I'm not gonna lie about it. This is, I felt honestly about that." And he never gave in on that. Later on, he, he ran into other people, and because of his very firm positions when he took them, on issues of what JACL should be doing, or what, what we citizens ought to do in Seattle, to do this or that, he, he had strong views on some of these. And...

TI: This may not be a fair question, but if you were in Henry's shoes at that point in high school and were confronted with the same situation, what would you have done?

GH: Well, it's difficult to say what I would have done because I don't know exactly what his situation was. But in general principle from what I was describing to you, I probably would find it -- it would depend a lot on how the teacher framed this thing. But my viewpoints were, I have to accept that what I said could lead to that sort of thing, and so I probably would've found myself in similar situation. I would, I would try to survive. I'd try to get my diploma if there was some way of doing it without losing my own self-respect. I would've sought that out. I don't know if he was, he had that, but was too stubborn to take it and was going to kick this in their face anyhow. I don't know that. But I found him to be a very straightforward person, and I had a lot of respect for him. I may not always agree with where he's standing at the moment, but I'd like to have him on my side. [Laughs]

TI: Okay. Good.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.