<Begin Segment 15>

AI: Well, and at this time, did you feel that personally also? Were you somewhat fearful of what could happen to you?

MY: Yeah, of course, because the thing is, and then I was worried about the fact that I may not get my American citizenship if I got mixed up with Communists, that kind of thing. And in my father's case it turned out to be quite true, because I think in 1952 -- he died in '53 -- in 1952 he applied to go to Japan. And you know, he got out of prison and then he was applying for American citizenship, U.S. citizenship. And he applied to take a -- he thought well, "I'm going to become an American, get my American citizenship soon," and he applied to visit Japan because he hadn't been to Japan since before the war. And he got a letter from the Justice Department denying him a visa. They said they would give him a visa to leave the country, but they would not give him permission to reenter the United States. And so essentially he was not able to visit his relatives after World War II, and he died -- then he got his American citizenship in March, the early part of March, I think it was March 7th or something like that, and he was celebrating and about two or three weeks later he died of a massive, a massive stroke. So he was not able to enjoy his U.S. citizenship, which he had coveted for such a long time, for very long. But the ironic part about this is the U.S. government thought that he, deemed him worthy of getting a U.S. citizen, but they wouldn't grant him permission to leave the country. And after perhaps he got his American citizenship, it would have been interesting, after his U.S. citizenship, whether he had applied, reapplied again to go to Japan, whether he would have been permitted to leave and then come back. But he didn't have an opportunity to test that.

AI: It is so interesting to me that he did ultimately get American citizenship after all those years of being incarcerated and being under suspicion and having these hearings and rehearings and then really it was only not that many years after he was released from incarceration that he was accepted as a U.S. citizen.

MY: 1953, yeah. And so we thought, oh, that's really strange, they wouldn't let him leave the country but they thought that he -- they said it was, I think the reason was for the sake of national security or something like that. But at the same time, you know, he was able to get his U.S. citizenship. So, I mean, it just kind of shows that the various, because my mother was very astute about this, is that the various departments in the government do not work hand in hand. Like the Immigration, the INS was under the Department of Commerce I think, at one time. I'm not quite sure what the rationale of that was, and then it was not under the Justice Department. I think that it became part of the Justice Department only during World War II and so when my dad was arrested and his colleagues, his coworkers were working for the Department of Commerce, you know, and then the FBI were working for the Department of Justice, they just got head to head in kind of a power struggle about -- well, "This is our prisoner," and they said, "Well, he's our guy," and they were trying to get him out and so forth. So my mother was saying that -- I forgot exactly what it was in Japanese -- I remember hearing her say this and I thought, that's quite astute of her to recognize that Dad was kind of a victim of these American people who were fighting against each other, you know. Were fighting for power, you know, in the government over Dad, and Dad just became sort of this symbol. "Poor Papa, he was just sort of this victim of a power struggle between these two departments," and I thought well, how did she know that? [Laughs] This Issei woman, you know, who people thought, uneducated. She used to tell us, "I don't have any education, I'm not very bright." But she was very bright.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.