<Begin Segment 38>

MA: And I'm curious, going back to the question I asked earlier, you know, about on one hand, fighting for your country, but on the other hand, having the government lock up your family and people just 'cause they were Japanese. I mean, it seems like such a tough position for you to be in.

GM: It's hard. It's hard, because, because this is your country, and you believe in your country. If I didn't believe in it, I would fight it. But I've always said, after that happened, that this country will never put me in the same position again, because I will fight to my death before they put me behind barbed wires. And I meant that, because I was fighting a war, and it's no different fighting a war than fighting at home if you think it's wrong. And now I believe that they'll never put me behind barbed wire fence the way they did back in 1941 and '42.

MA: Do you think they'd ever do it to another group of people like they did to the Japanese Americans?

GM: I don't think so, because we won't let 'em do it. The Japanese Americans will fight for the rights of those guys, and we're a big force. We're a real strong force because those have known what they did, the United States have learned what they did wrong, and those people will back us up, that they won't do that again. Some other people from different countries might do that, but this country will never do that again, to anybody. Not en masse, you know. They might do it to a person, but not as a group. And I don't think the people who might be put in that position will take it, either, they'll fight. But they might get this idea, but they'll never do it. That's what I'm saying, because they can't. But what they did to us is really, really bad. And people who were so great, like Franklin D. Roosevelt, you got to look at him, too, because he was the one that signed the paper to put us in, and we still say he's a great man, but he isn't great. You know who was great? His wife. His wife was greater than he was. In this country, to apologize to the Japanese, is really something. I never expected that. The money they gave us, so what did we do with it? Somewhere in my, one of my investments, maybe. Maybe I spent it, I don't know.

MA: But to you, the actual formal apology was the most important.

GM: The formal apology was the most important thing. It's like a kid leaving the family, and the family disowned 'em, and he, they take him back. That's what they did to us. They kicked us out and they brought us back in again and apologized, and said it was wrong. But things have changed today, 19-, or 2005, and that was 1941, and we've come a long ways. I think the Japanese should be proud of what they did.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.