<Begin Segment 15>

TI: Now, while you're doing this, these are the days after Pearl Harbor, the FBI is going through many communities and picking up Japanese leaders, things like kendo instructors. Now, was your father targeted?

CS: Yeah, when I was in, while I was in basic training, my mother wrote to me that my dad got picked up by the FBI.

TI: And what was your thoughts and reaction when you heard that?

CS: I wasn't angry at that time. I figured he would be on the suspect, you know. And my mother was a Japanese language school teacher so I figured she might be. But it so happened that she went to Japan to take care of my Keio application, so a substitute teacher came to Compton Gakuen, and she got picked up by the FBI. My mother was ready, she was all packed waiting for the FBI to come, but they didn't come after her because she wasn't on the list.

TI: Oh, that's interesting. Because she went to Japan, she had a substitute.

CS: The FBI had the latest list, I think.

TI: Now did the fact that your father was picked up by the FBI, during basic training, did that make it any harder for you? Were you singled out because of that?

CS: Well, see, after basic training, we were sent to the service unit, we couldn't get weapons. So I was sent to a station hospital at Camp Grant. And the Caucasian soldiers were all being shipped overseas, so all the Niseis in there were being all promoted. So I first got promoted right away to a corporal, and then first I was in the personnel department, and for some reason, they pulled me out of there. I didn't think nothing about it at that time, and I was in the sick and wounded section, and the captain kept trying to promote me because I kept taking over the... and he says he finally went to the personnel department and said I'm under observation because of my father's case. And Buttokai was confused with Kokuryukai, the "Black Dragon," so I too am under observation. "So I cannot promote you anymore." And then, in fact, he transferred me to his office, I guess he was instructed to keep an eye on me.

TI: And they told you all this?

CS: The captain told me that.

TI: And when you heard that, what did you think?

CS: That's why when the major came for volunteers for the MIS, I said, I'll go there. I'll have a chance for a promotion there.

TI: Oh, so you thought, okay, here's a way to get out of this difficult situation and go there.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.