<Begin Segment 18>

SF: I think in those days, '42, '43, '44, that the American public sort of reoriented its sort of concern with Hitler and Germany to Japan. How do you think that sort of played a role -- were you more worried about Japan or angry about the Japanese because of Pearl Harbor, even though before the war the Germans were the major threat, I guess.

JF: Yeah. That was, that was my hate focus all the time. Yeah.

SF: So you, I mean, your anger was almost totally directed toward the Japanese because of, basically because of Pearl Harbor.

JF: Yeah.

SF: How did, that might have influenced how you might have thought about Japanese Americans, or did you think about the Japanese over here?

JF: I really didn't. I really didn't because I had no, I had no frame of reference for the Japanese people living here whatsoever. As I mentioned, I lived in a white-as-a-sheet neighborhood, and all my life I dealt with white people up to that time. And maybe, maybe some black people, interfaced with some black people, but not on, not on any of the, any remarkable occasions, and certainly never with Oriental, Oriental people or Asian people. So this was an unknown to me, just an object of desperation, I suppose.

JB: When did you first make that distinction between Japanese and Japanese Americans? When did you first realize there was a distinction?

JF: I don't know. It was, it had to be after -- I'm not quite sure really. I don't, I don't know whether during the war I ever knew anything about them, the fact that there were so many Japanese in this area or not. But I mean, the 442nd, the word of that outfit really woke me up to the fact that not all these, not all these people can be as bad as their images in my mind.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.