<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Well, you mentioned earlier, before the interview, that you, in fact, wrote an article about, about this.

JI: When the, because I had worked on the newspaper, they had asked me to write an article on, for this magazine called Japan and America.

TI: So was this written in Japanese?

JI: No, no, in English. It was an English-language, little, I don't know what kind of, what kind of circulation it had.

TI: And so when you wrote the article, was there any response that you got after it was published?

JI: No, but I don't know whether it was because of that or not. But I'd find when I'm going to school, somebody would come sit by me, says, "Excuse me, what are you reading?" and just snatch it out of my hand and read and look at stuff. He, and when I went to the American embassy for something, they had a kohban across the street. And I was about five blocks from the streetcar, and I had almost gone the full five blocks when I hear pitter-patter of feet behind me, and they dragged me all the way back and said, "Excuse me, may I go through -- " and then he gave me a cock-and-bull story about there being trouble in the neighborhood and so forth. And so he looked at my bag and pulled out books. I had like sixth-grade readers, Japanese readers. [Laughs] And he must have thought it was some kind of code. But anyway, they were very apologetic and let me go. But I don't know whether it was because of the article or not, and I know I had a notebook that I was keeping notes in it. If he had found that, I would probably have gotten into a little more trouble. But he just looked at what I had in the bag. And it's interesting, I had on a Keio uniform with a, what they call a bocchan hat, 'cause Keio was the most prestigious private school, but at the same time, they called it a bocchan because they figure that all the kids who went there were spoiled. [Laughs] And I had some good friends there, too, but I also had some friends who would like to needle me when, say, a military officer would come by, they would get me into an argument or something. But the friends, I had two good friends, and one of 'em who was the only one in my class who spoke English without an accent. And in English class he starred, but in other things, too, but he just said, "Don't pay attention to him, he's from inakappei," he's from the country. Even though he may not have been from the country, but this is the attitude, he thought.

TI: But in general, your classmates, especially the ones that maybe you were closer to, your friends, how did they, what did they think about your views on what Japan was doing in China?

JI: Well, they were, they didn't criticize it or anything, but they remained friends. Well, as a matter of fact, one of 'em had a brother who had a shortwave radio which was forbidden. And we would go to his house once in a while and listen to radio from the United States. He may have had permission to have that, I don't know. He may have been doing work that required it or something. But for me and for my friend, it was sub-rosa to go up there and listen to that. He, I didn't get anything, I just heard some music from San Francisco, and that was about it. But there were others who... there was one guy who felt he was very close because he was a Catholic, and he felt that that made him almost like an American or something. But at the same time, he was, we would get into other kinds of arguments about it. The... the others, mostly, didn't pay attention.

TI: It's just interesting to me that you're, not only did you have different viewpoints, but you were outspoken about them, too, which must have been somewhat unusual.

JI: Well, that's been my big weakness everywhere, I get in trouble wherever I go for speaking out. I got into trouble in Nebraska, they were ready to, the president was ready to fire me, except somebody, one of the boosters tried to get me fired, tried to get him to fire me, and he wasn't going to let anybody tell him what to do, so I saved my job. But there for two different things, but because I open my yap too much. One was getting, opening, getting the swimming pool open to blacks.

TI: We'll get to that later. So, so we're still in Japan, and we're now, like, 1940, around 1940.

JI: 1939, '40.

TI: '39, '40, so right before war breaks out between the U.S. and Japan.

JI: Almost, I came back on, in (January of 1941), just about a year before Pearl Harbor.

TI: And at that point, when you were in Japan, was there a sense that Japan would go to war against the United States?

JI: No, I thought they would make a move in Southeast Asia. I thought, in the first place, the navy was very antsy because the army was getting all the glory in China and they went to Southeast Asia, navy, it would be a naval operation. And I was surprised when they attacked Pearl Harbor. I mean, I wasn't surprised in retrospect, but I thought that was very reckless. That if they did, I didn't see how they could win because I had, we had something like ROTC on campus, and I thought, "Boy, these guys aren't learning anything," they had wooden sticks that they were using as guns, and they didn't know how to break a gun down or rifle. At ROTC at UCLA, we had to learn to break a rifle apart and put it together again and stuff like that. And they were just learning maneuvers and bayonet thrusts and that sort of thing, but I thought just physically, they couldn't do it. At the same time, they were rather contemptuous of, of American willingness to be aggressive about things. We're too aggressive now -- [laughs] -- but they felt that they would be a match physically for any American, 'cause they thought they wouldn't, wouldn't fight. And I say there are a lot of Americans who are, are very aggressive, you just don't know them.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.