<Begin Segment 21>

AI: I'm sorry. I need to back up because I forgot to ask you, while you were still in Manzanar, about the "Wassho Gumi" group.

AO: Oh, the Wassho Gumi was in Tule Lake.

AI: Oh, oh, I'm sorry.

AO: Yes.

AI: I made a mistake. So now you're in Tule Lake.

AO: Yes.

AI: And there were quite a few organizations that the administration of the camp allowed--

AO: Yes.

AI: -- to operate, including several organizations of people who were planning to go to Japan.

AO: Yes. I, in our block, Block 82 and that ward -- this had different wards. And Block 82 we were, we were called Hokoku Seinendan.Are you familiar with the word Hokoku?

AI: Please explain it.

AO: Yeah "Hoku" is "north country," young people, seinen, young people's organization. And that's what our number represented. And we had hachimaki and it had a symbol, their logo on the hachimaki. So we had to wear that, and we did calisthenics, military-style and when we form in formation, four abreast. And I don't recall how many boys in one section. And so we march around the roads there in military-style, "Wassho, wassho, ichi, ni, san, ichi, ni, san." And that's what we had to do.

AI: Well, tell me, how did you get involved in the Hokoku Seinendan?

AO: My mother told me to sign up for it. And we drilled just like the military. We'd march and turn military-style, "Hidari, migi, kiyotsuke." [Laughs]

AI: Well, so what was the attitude among this group, the Hokoku members?

AO: Well, when they get in a group like that, we get very enthusiastic and perform because we're, we have given military orders, so to speak, to march, turn left, right, about face, mawaremigi, and we did it military-style and that was calisthenics training.

AI: I had read that some of the leaders of this Hokoku Seinendan group were very anti-U.S. and --

AO: Yes.

AI: -- that not all the members were, but that the leaders were quite vocal in supporting Japan.

AO: Oh, yes.

AI: What kinds of, did you get lectured or some kind of teachings, that, as a member of the group?

AO: We did go to studies, Japanese language, and the teachers that my brother and I had in that class, he was very pro-Japanese. And he would tell us about, about "shedding blood for the sake of the Japanese country."

AI: And what did you think when you heard that?

AO: Well, I just listened, but I wasn't that pro-Japanese feeling myself. I just listened and I studied Japanese language as much as I can, as I could. And then at the final when we were to be transferred to Bismarck, he would, I think he wrote to all the students that were going to Bismarck and he signed it and he cut his finger and put his thumbprint in blood on the correspondence that he gave us. And I don't know whatever happened to him, whether he went to Japan or not, I don't know.

AI: So, do you think that this teacher and other leaders of the group expected you and other members to be very pro-Japanese, expected you to be willing to fight for the emperor in Japan?

AO: [Laughs] I wasn't willing to fight for the emperor at heart, but whatever the others thought, well, I imagine they thought the same way, is that it was, we were instructed to study Japanese to go to Japan.

AI: So part of this was a practical preparation for life in Japan?

AO: Yes, get used to the language and the feeling, because I know, lot of young boys in my situation did not go to Japan. Later, after returning to United States, I did become acquainted with a young boy and his brother that were living in San Gabriel at the time, that I met them and (his name was) Frank Tsujima, he was one of my mother's students. And when he talks, he talks very violent situation. He says he hated my mother's teaching the Japanese language, that he was about to tear her eyes out. [Laughs] That was just a expression of the way he felt. And, but I believe he did go back to Japan.

AI: Well, one other thing I was wondering about, in this, the training of the young people in preparation to going to Japan, I had heard from one other person that there were, that some of the teachers were abusive to the younger people. Did you ever see anything like that?

AO: I didn't see anything, but I can imagine that some of, even the students themselves, like myself; were very bitter about the U.S. government. And, but this one student of my mother's saying that she's, he would, had the feeling that he wanted to tear my mother's eyes out, he's not that violent at heart, but just an expression like he liked to talk big and important.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.