Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Mits Koshiyama Interview
Narrator: Mits Koshiyama
Interviewer: Alice Ito
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: July 14, 2001
Densho ID: denshovh-kmits-01-0017

<Begin Segment 17>

AI: Well, then after a short while in the Cheyenne jail, you were transferred and sent to McNeil Island...

MK: Yeah.

AI: ...Penitentiary for your sentence. When you got to McNeil, you went there in a group with some of the other resisters. Can you tell me what it was like there at the penitentiary?

MK: Well, when we went to the main institution, we were kind of shocked at how tough every -- really those people in the main institution are pretty tough-looking people. They don't, I don't think you want to mingle with them. But I think the administration realized right away that we were, we weren't that criminal type. So right away they sent us to the farm, prison farm, so, where they had a lot of draft cases over, already over there like Jehovah Witnesses and conscientious objectors. We also had people sent there for illegally wearing uniforms and stuff like that. It's surprising why, how many people do funny stuff to be in jail. It was kind of shock to see Japanese people in there. We had few Japanese from Alaska. Got to be friendly with one of them, and one of them told me that he, he killed his wife. Oh. I didn't want to be friends with him after that. There was a group from Los Angeles in there. They were the old Tokyo Club. I don't know you ever, people ever heard of Tokyo Club, but I think they were tried for murder. Probably did away with somebody, somebody didn't pay his bills, maybe. I don't know. But they were there. I learned a lot of things that go on in a prison, that some people will continually be losers, because, I know one person that went out, he received a certain amount of years' sentence, and he went out, he served it and went out. Before you know it, he was back in again. So it's, all kinda people there.

AI: Well, what was your daily life like?

MK: At the prison?

AI: Yeah. When you, when you went out to the farm.

MK: Oh, we, I was a truck driver, so I, I took my job pretty seriously, did the best I could. Saturday and Sunday I was allowed to go by myself to go to the beaches. They had little, little streams that I was supposed to measure. Put a stake in the water and measure how much water flows through it. They were talking about, thinking about putting a dam there. So I was like a trustee. Every Sunday I used to go there, then go to the beach, put my truck there by the beach and walk the beach. I said, "Gee, isn't this lovely?" There's a, next to McNeil Island there's a big island called Fox Island. I used to walk, look at the Fox Island and say, "Boy, freedom is right over there." But I never was tempted to go over there. [Laughs] I, all I know is I wanted to spend my time and get out and go home. I think, I think majority of us had the same idea.

[Interruption]

AI: Well, continuing back to your time in the McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary, you were describing a little bit about the daily life. But as, as time passed on and you were carrying out your sentence, what were you thinking would be, would happen after, after you finished your sentence?

MK: I felt that I, I'll go back and resume a normal life. I, I think, I thought the people would just forget what happened during the war. Well, not carry the war debate over and over and over again. I thought that'd be over with, but apparently it's not true.

AI: Well, in fact, you got out of prison a little bit earlier than you thought you would. You had a three-year sentence. But in December of 1946, President Truman pardoned you and the other draft resisters.

MK: Yeah, that was '47.

AI: Oh, I'm sorry.

MK: December of 1947.

AI: Oh, I'm sorry. So actually you, you did carry out, you did have a two-year prison term.

MK: Yeah, I served actually probably twenty-five months.

AI: And you were released in about late July...

MK: Yeah.

AI: ...of 1946.

MK: Yeah, uh-huh.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2001 Densho. All Rights Reserved.