<Begin Segment 8>

AI: Well, now at about that time there was also this new law that was made enabling citizens, American citizens to renounce their citizenship. Do you remember when you, or how did you hear about that? What did you find out about that?

BN: Yes. I believe the government really wanted to make sure of our position -- whether we wanted to be an American and stay here, or be a Japanese and go back to Japan. I think that was the feeling, I felt that way. So they decided to really make it black and white. So I feel they brought this up of renouncing the American citizenship. So we, we had, we really didn't have any choice. It was said that, "You join the army or you renounce your citizenship." So I decided to renounce my citizenship. And after I renounced the citizenship, all the members who also did the same thing, we formed a organization called Hoshidan. And what this organization did was train ourselves. So we got up at the sound of the bugle at 5 o'clock, and then we ran for one whole hour every day, I mean, every morning, rain, snow, or windstorm. Yes. And then this interior security was very much concerned about this activity, so they wanted to confiscate the bugles. So they would come when we were running, you know, come beside us and try to confiscate, but when they come too close to us, we would pass the bugle next to the runner, and they never found the bugle.

They thought this isn't going to work, so they decided to round up all the head members. So they did. And they sent them to Santa Fe, New Mexico. And we had to think out a way to continue this organization, so we decided to have a decoy at the top of the group. And the most, more intelligent person were at the background, leading us. And they tried another roundup and collected, got all these decoys -- [laughs] -- people who were decoys, and sent to Santa Fe. And I was one of the decoys there. [Laughs] And then, yet the organization went strong. They never faltered. And the government thought, oh, it's no use doing such a thing, so they decided to round up the whole member of the group, and they split them. And then one group went to Bismarck, North Dakota, and then one went to Santa Fe, New Mexico. And the one went to the Bismarck, they were together with the PO, German POWs. And we were together with the, the very first internees that were FBI-interned, with the, well, people from Hawaii, Mexico, Peru, and then Alaska, and they were all in together.

AI: In Santa Fe?

BN: In Santa Fe, right. And then people from Hawaii was, they were really intelligent people. So they operated a school like, oh, many, we had many schools in Santa Fe like drawing, physics, electricity, in shigin and shakuhachi and utai, and of course Japanese language. And then they had the pen shuji -- that's Japanese calligraphy, writing with the regular pen, not the brush. And so our time spent there was never idle. We always did something. And then our group head were to be transferred to some other camp. So we wanted to say, bid farewell, so we stood by the fence, and the border patrol ordered us to disperse and, "Go back to your barracks." But we didn't, we didn't obey their order. So what they did was they went into the other compound and got the tear gas canister and start throwing it at us. Unfortunately for them, the breeze was blowing towards them, so they had to quickly run for cover. And then at that time, we really raised a roar, which they didn't like. And when the smoke cleared, all the -- I believe there was about seven or eight border patrols swinging their clubs, and dashed into the compound, and start to, swinging at us and the melee started. And a few were injured, how badly I do not know. And then we were all sent to our barracks. And we had a sweatshirt with the insignia Hoshidan, and that, we had to cut out the Hoshidan portion, so we had a hole in our sweatshirt. And then after that, we were separated -- (They hastily made a stockade and had us in there for a while. Later they put us together with the older group.) And then we had the access to the outside, outside of the compound. But after this incident, we were never able to get out of the camp.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.