<Begin Segment 31>

SN: And then you made a comment I found interesting about, maybe as to why the JACL was formed, and as to... I think it came in the context of, there aren't a lot of Sansei joining but they didn't have to deal with as much racism as maybe the Nisei population. Was that one of the reasons why the JACL formed, was to, in response to how non-Japanese treated the Nikkei population?

SH: I don't understand the last part.

SN: Why was the... well, why was the Japanese American Citizens League formed?

SH: Why was it formed? The Japanese American Citizens League was formed in Seattle, first chapter 19... in the 1920s, I think. It was formed because there was no single person to speak for the Japanese community, and they were being blamed for this, and blamed for that. It more or less to educate the public and to prove to them that the Japanese American population, the growing Nisei population was loyal Americans. They had to have somebody, some group to bring that knowledge out to the rest of the American population, people, so they would understand. And I think that was the main reason. I think that was the right thing to do. And being from this area here, well, if it wasn't for them, somebody might have started later, possibly, but with the heavy Japanese population concentrated in Los Angeles, San Francisco, I was surprised that Seattle started it. Other ethnic groups have asked me, out there in the country, "How did you get it started?" Some of the smaller groups would like to. And I said, "Well, you just band together and elect an officer, and get people to have a dues paying organization, if you think you need one." We sure did need it, we needed it and it was a good thing we had it. That's my feeling. Some of them blame it, for the, our incarceration, but I think the opposite. If we didn't have the JACL when we did, we would have been treated a lot worse.

SN: And then, you were talking about this meeting that you had within Tule Lake, and as a result of that meeting, two individuals had to be taken from the camp, I'm assuming for their safety.

SH: Uh-huh.

SN: That leaves me to believe something must have happened. Obviously, they feared for their safety somehow.

SH: Oh yes.

SN: Can you tell me, like some of the events that happened after that meeting?

SH: There were some anti-JACLers, not anti-American, but anti-JACLers, blamed the JACL for some of the trouble... that all of us were evacuated. And they went to the barracks and were going to, were trying to beat 'em up.

SN: Okay.

SH: But they failed. But when they heard about it, well then they moved those two, three individuals out, I won't name them, I know them, but they were moved out to another camp. But this was from Tule Lake, not from Minidoka.

SN: Yeah, I think that you had gone into that a little bit earlier. Also, during our pre-interview, I thought you had mentioned something about, did someone knock on your barrack door or was that...?

SH: Sure, they came to beat up...

SN: And they had actually...

SH: ...my neighbor.

SN: Oh, uh-huh. Can you explain or can you kind of describe what happened that evening when they accidentally knocked on your barrack door?

SH: Yeah, they accidentally knocked on my door, because the doors were just that far apart. My neighbor on my... one side of my door, he was an Issei, but he had a son that volunteered for the army, and that was the reason why. And this, his, this young man, eighteen years old... his father was being an Issei, but he came over early, he was engaged, he did fight in World War I.

AI: For the U.S...

SH: He was a World War I veteran. And so, they did, they didn't get in and they didn't get it done, but, I don't know, someone scared 'em out, but everybody had an idea where they came from. This was in Tule Lake. The neighbor on my right side -- you all know him... prominent businessman in town, you know him, yeah -- Tomio Moriguchi was two years older, my neighbor. Uh-huh... so, I had two famous neighbors.

SN: Thank you.

<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.