<Begin Segment 21>

AI: Well, we haven't quite gotten to that point, but, but actually, it was, as I understand or had read, that in the beginning of July, 1944, that's when Congress passed a law that changed the law about citizenship so that you were, U.S. citizens were allowed to renounce U.S. citizenship.

HK: Yes.

AI: And what do you remember hearing about that in camp?

HK: Well, I heard that there were groups of people requesting renunciation, and I thought it was something that was happening to them. I didn't bother becoming concerned with it. And yet, gradually, it came closer and closer to us, and then we had all these other frustrations, and my mother and the family situation, and the influence of her friend, and I guess the pressure that my brother was having to face, I guess one day he said, "Let's make up our minds. Are we American or are we Japanese? And if we are Japanese, if we think we are Japanese, then we should renounce our citizenship." And, and he's kind of like black and white. I was going to let it drag, and it'll blow over, I was hoping that it would. And, but when we had this family meeting, and he set up this decision, then I, I went along, and we, we decided we would request the forms for renunciation. And then, as it turned out, they were underage, my sister and my brother, so that their citizenship was void, their renunciation. Early on, I think they -- although from the records that I looked at, it was, the dates were pretty similar to mine, so that either I was with them, or they were with me. But I think, in one of the decisions, those who were under eighteen or something like that, didn't count.

AI: Whereas you were well over eighteen.

HK: Yeah, I was about twenty-one or so, twenty-two. So...

AI: So as a family, you decided to make this decision.

HK: Yeah, and as a family, we said that we would go to Japan and leave my father behind.

AI: Still in the sanitarium.

HK: Yeah. And I don't, I can't understand that, that we said that. But that, we had to say that, too, to have the renunciation accepted, I guess, approved. So for the longest time, I thought that we had not said that, that we were not going to Japan, and that my father, because of my father. And, but there was a little bit of confusion there, why did we renounce? And I think we, because, we had to say that we were going to Japan, says, this person says he's going to Japan after the war, and still, but his father is in the sanitarium, but the fact that he, they declare their intention to go to Japan, that they would approve the renunciation. So I think we were forced to say that, yeah.

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