<Begin Segment 13>

TI: Going back, how did you feel about working for the Japanese as Nisei?

MO: I felt like a, very disloyal. But we felt that we were doing it under forced labor. There's a word for that.

TI: So, like, under duress?

MO: Under duress, yes.

TI: And so you didn't really want to do this, but you felt that --

MO: Yes, uh-huh. We were forced.

TI: Did you ever talk amongst yourselves about it?

MO: We did, uh-huh.

TI: And what did people say?

MO: "Sho ga nai, ne?"

TI: Meaning, what was that meaning?

MO: "You can't help it."

TI: "Can't help it."

MO: Because we were in a forced, a situation. There was no way of getting out of it.

TI: Did you guys, did the group ever try to do things to make it maybe harder for the Japanese in terms of the information you gave or anything like that? Did you ever talk about doing that?

MO: Oh, we didn't dare say that.

TI: So you felt that you had to do the best you could and just go along with it. Now, during this time, there were some Niseis who were also, sort of, under duress, forced to do things like radio broadcasts and things like that. Were you aware of any of that?

MO: We were, we were informed about that. But ours was, we weren't broadcasting, we were just listening. So that made a difference, too. Like something, the Rose? What's her name?

TI: Oh, Tokyo Rose?

MO: Tokyo Rose, uh-huh. Tokyo Rose was announcing, actually.

TI: So there was a group like Iva Toguri...

MO: Toguri, yes.

TI: ...was that group. And so did you know where that group was? Were they nearby?

MO: No, we didn't know that... we heard that there was somebody doing that.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright ©2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.