<Begin Segment 19>

AI: I had heard that some parents in camp would say things to their Nisei children about, that perhaps the future of the United States was not so good for them. That here you were, U.S. citizens, but still treated the same as they, the immigrants, the non-citizens. Did your mother say anything like that to you, or did you hear any of that kind of conversation?

MN: Not that I recall, but I remember at one time, my father wrote to my mother and said he had enough of this, and he was going back to Japan. And he asked if we would go with him, and I says, "No way would we go." We don't know that country. Even if we are mistreated here, we still don't know anything about Japan. And so we said, no way would we go back. And so he decided to go on his own, and he got shipped from, I guess he was in Crystal City, Texas, to New York. And he got as far as New York to disembark, and somehow, he didn't, he got cut off and he didn't make it on the ship, which I think was real fortunate. And he came back, he was sent back to Crystal City, Texas, again.

AI: So what was your thinking about that when you heard that your father was determined that he was going to go back to Japan?

MN: I think his thinking and my thinking was quite different, but he was a very determined man, and this is what he was going to do, that's what he did.

AI: But in the end, he was turned back.

MN: Yeah, so it was fortunate that he was turned back.

AI: Well, another thing that happened, of course, in early 1943, was the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" came out. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

MN: I knew the questions were floating around, but as far as how I felt or thought about it, it's very vague at this time.

AI: Did you have any conversation with your brother or sisters about it?

MN: I don't think my brother was in camp, and my sister was in, younger, so no, we didn't have that much conversation about it.

AI: So Henry had gone out to work earlier, out, out from camp.

MN: Then he was later going to school in Pocatello.

AI: Well, of course, he was also a year older than you, and so he was draftable age. Was your mother worried about that at all? Or were any of you thinking or discussing about that?

MN: Well, we weren't worried about the draft too much, because they weren't drafting the Japanese at that time anyway. But I remember when he came back from Pocatello for a visit one day, he announced to my mother that he was going into the service, and my mother got really shook up, because, after all, he was the only son in the family. And I remember she used to wear dark glasses 'cause she was crying all the time.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.