<Begin Segment 23>

TI: And so after that, how was your father feeling about that? Was he getting more and more sort of...

TA: Suspicious, and he, he started to think more and says, his leave clearance, he knew, by reading newspaper and whatnot, one of the qualifications to weed these people out before you let 'em go. And he knew that troublemakers or people who had derogatory, unfavorable information on file, were not going to be released. And he knew that the FBI had a file on him. So, I mean, I think what he did is put two and two together and he says, "Hey, they're not gonna release me." And being proud as he was, he wanted his freedom. That's one of the reason why he came to the United States, is freedom and Constitution and liberty and civil rights. So as a result, he started to lean towards, "Hey, maybe I am not going to be allowed to go outside." That was his change of feelings.

TI: And so when the segregation issue came up --

TA: When the segregation issue came out, as soon as it came out, he made up his mind. Because he got us together and he says, "Look. We -- " he says, "I am holding you people in the family back. If I withdrew my name from the application, your chance of going to Granada to join the family will be, you're going to be able to go. Your mother's a citizen, you people are all citizens, and you'll be able to go. But," he says, "what I'm gonna do is I'll, going to volunteer to go to Japan." Said, "Once I get to Japan and the war's over and whatnot, I'll come back." But he says, "To provide freedom for you and freedom for me, the best thing for me to do is to volunteer to go to Japan, and you people go and join your mother's family." And my mother says, "No." She says, "No. If you're going, I'm going. We're all going." She was pretty stubborn about certain things, and one of the things he did, she did not want to break up the family. She wanted to hang on and be close to the family. And so that's what happened.

TI: Tell me about your mother. So, was she the type to stand up to your father on these, on other issues?

TA: Normally not. Normally not.

TI: But this one was really important to her. To really, to know your, your father said, "We should do this," she disagreed...

TA: She disagreed. Normally, there were times, like putting in the application to go to Granada. Yeah, she insisted on that. There were certain things that she, she held fast, but in normal cases, she would go along with my father. Like any good Christian wife, says, "I'll go wherever my husband will go." And then as us children, we were taught oyakoko, fidelity to your parents. Says, "Okay, if you're going, Mom, we'll go."

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.