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AI: Well, now, as, as your children were growing up, at some point, you decided to tell them that you had been a draft resister in World War II and that you went to prison for it. What was the kids' reaction?

MK: My kids' reaction was, they, they showed no interest. Yeah. I, they know I went to prison. They know I resisted the draft, and they don't care. They got their own friends. It's amazing. They, lot of Sansei groups are very close. His group is very close. And in fact, there's about fifteen of them, and he and another fellow's the only person that's married. The rest are all single. They're all in the thirty-five to forty-year bracket, and they were pretty close. My son, he, he knows I was a resister, but he, he doesn't really care. He, he's not even interested. But my daughters are interested. They asked me this and that, this and that. They, if then there's a article or something that comes out in the paper or something, they cut it out and give it to me. But they're not gonna go out of their way. They're, they're not what you call activists.

AI: Well, now, many years, decades later after your World War II experience, some filmmakers came to interview you for their films, Frank Abe, for Conscience and the Constitution.

MK: Uh-huh.

AI: And then also the Omori sisters...

MK: Yeah.

AI: ...for Rabbit in the Moon. What was, what was your feeling when these filmmakers came to you and wanted to interview you and hear your experience?

MK: Yeah. It made me very happy that there were Sansei that's very interested in our story. I know the Nisei will never do this. But the Sansei will. I think it started when Sansei had the Day of Remembrance. I read about it, and I says, "You know, one of these days I'm gonna go to just listen to what they have to say." So I went. And over there, I, I met a young woman named Susan Hayase, and she was more or less the leader of this young group, NCRR group. They call themselves the Nihonmachi Outreach Committee. She asked me what my interest was in being there. And I told her I was a draft resister and I was put in prison. She kinda looked at me and said, "Well this is, there's a story here." She was very supportive. Without her help I would've never really gone out and talked about it. But I think her acknowledging the resisters and putting me on the programs, NCRR programs, to talk about the experience, I think this led to Frank Abe and Emiko Omori and these people to know, know, open up the story of the resisters to the public, Japanese American public. Most of them surprisingly didn't know anything about resistance in the camps. And surprisingly, well you know even today the leading JACL person on the panel, he, he talks about the resisters as being "no-no "people. Still yet after all these years, even though all this is written about the resisters being "yes-yes" but only wanted the return of their constitutional rights before they go into the army. But they still make this kind of mistakes, and I'm glad that they have these, like Frank Abe's program and Emiko's program is, I think they open a lot of eyes. That's why I'm here today in Seattle because these programs have opened the eyes of lot of people even in the JACL that they were, JACL was wrong in persecuting people that were willing to fight for their constitutional rights.

So I'm thankful that all you young people really willing to fight for the rights of all Japanese Americans. It's not only certain Japanese Americans are this or Japanese Americans are that. We're all victims of racism. And that, if the Sansei really want to help us, bring out our story, we'll be, only to help, we'd be happy to cooperate. We appreciate it. [Laughs]

AI: Well, we appreciate hearing your experience.

MK: It's been hard, but it's not easy coming here to Seattle and talking to a JACL group because a lot of them, they still got that mindset yet -- World War II, America, "(Love) it or leave it." I really believe some of those JACL people are further right than, than most of the redneck right-wingers when it comes to patriotism. They're very, I don't know what you'd call it, but the, the, they see their side of the story only one way. They're not willing to talk, talk about it from another perspective. But they're changing. Like I said, the, the reason I'm here shows that the organization is slowly changing. It's for the better.

AI: Well, we thank you for sharing your perspective. We really appreciate it.

MK: [Laughs] Yeah. I, I understand the other side, too. I, I, because I, I grew up in that time. I understand that, how much pressure there was. But whether there was pressure or not, you got to do the right thing. You gotta fight for your rights when they're violated. To accept racism, in my mind, is always wrong. Just 'cause you look different doesn't mean you are different. I think we're all patriotic. Maybe we might show it in different ways, but we are all patriotic. I thank you very much.

AI: Thank you.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2001 Densho. All Rights Reserved.