<Begin Segment 36>

AH: When Min Yasui, when you were speaking to him... you know, the story on Min Yasui that some people have is that here he was, a courageous guy taking on the government on his own behalf. But then, and the JACL did not support him, did not want to take on the test cases, they didn't support Hirabayashi, they didn't support him or Korematsu. But then, later on, he goes the other way in the sense that he becomes a JACL associate and then he starts putting pressure on all other resisters. Had that change been made or was it right in the process of being made, do you think?

JA: I didn't know. See, so I walked right into him and I told him that we, Japanese Americans in camp, 4-C, we do not have any military obligations, so we don't have to go. We don't have to fight, we don't have to claim our citizenship rights. I just said, "I'm going to go the other way, I'm going to follow what the government did and that's it, that's how I'm going to go."

[Interruption]

AH: Okay, we were talking about Min Yasui and the time when you were seeking counsel from him because he had gone through an act of resistance. And you were thinking about resisting and so you probably looked up to him a bit as somebody who was a model and sought some advice. So what was your impression when you talked with him then?

JA: Well, my impression was he was defeated, because he wasn't encouraging me. He was saying, "No, no, forget about it. You go into the army or whatever." So I felt I'm going to be wasting my time. So I told him, of which I shouldn't have said, that I'm going to declare 4-C and no military obligation and I'm going to stay with it -- that I am an alien. So I told him that I'm going to be an alien, put the monkey on the government's back and we're going to let the government do whatever necessary to restore everything. That means out of camp, get whatever we lost back or somehow monetarily or whatever. And over in Heart Mountain they organized, and they're saying, "We are an American and you did this, this, this, this, this. Unless you don't straighten it out, we will not go in the army." So in my case, I said, "They may say you are a, you have a moral case but you don't have a legal case." So I said to Frank Emi that I'm going to agree with the government. Yes, I am an alien. Now, to prove that point, I applied for repatriation through the Spanish embassy.

AH: And did you do that in '44 after the draft thing? Okay.

JA: Right, and I've got all the documents to show you. And they accepted me and they said, "Okay, if that's the case, we accept you as a repatriate." And that was the end of that.

<End Segment 36> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.