Densho Digital Archive - Joe Yasutake Interview (denshovh-yjoe-01-0006)

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AI: And for people who don't know of this information about people like your father who were still considered "enemy aliens" until the war ended, when you mentioned that he was on parole --

JY: Uh-huh.

AI: -- the parole had to do with the fact that he had been incarcerated at the Department of Justice camp.

JY: That's right.

AI: And he, when he was released, his -- the status of his release was as parole.

JY: That's right.

AI: And so when you mentioned earlier, I just thought it would be important to clarify for people who might --

JY: Uh-huh. Yeah, that's right.

AI: -- not understand the situation.

JY: So I -- you know, I never went with him, but I know that he had to go periodically to report to a parole officer. And I don't remember him doing that in Cincinnati proper, at the second job, so at some point he must have been, he must have been -- gotten over the parole status, because by the time we moved to Chicago I know there was no restriction like that on him anymore.

AI: Right. In fact, wasn't there a, also a travel restriction on him while he was on parole?

JY: There was. While we were in -- and I don't remember whether it was -- I think it was when we were in, in Cincinnati proper. He had been offered a couple of jobs, one as a, one at I think it was Penn-, University of Pennsylvania, and the other one at the University of Michigan to teach Japanese, and so I remember him being ecstatic. You know, that, "Oh boy, finally," you know, kind of thing. And then, then the Immigration Department -- not Immigration Department, but the FBI -- would, would not grant him permission to travel to take the job, so he couldn't. He couldn't take those jobs, and I don't know what it -- well, it must have been the end of the war, I guess, at that point, in '45 when we were in Cincinnati is when the war ended, and it must have, there must have been some mechanical, automatic thing that happened when the war was over that he was no longer a parolee, a parolee or something like that, because when the, when the job offer from Chicago came I don't recall there being any, you know, question about whether we were gonna go or not.