<Begin Segment 26>

BT: Well, what do you think the appeal was? There were a lot of young people in the Seinendan and the Joshidan. And so what do you think the appeal was?

FS: The, why? I think the folks, mainly. I would say mainly, the folks made 'em do it. Most of the people that were in the dan, when I recollect who the member was, a lot of the members, it's just like Heart Mountain, the 442, good example. The 442 members were not Hollywood High School area, not Los Angeles city, not me. They were all from the country, you know? Look at the roster, the names. Portland, Oregon, Wapato, you know? You know that Wapato area. Or they were from some inaka place, Gardena. That's a farm town. But nobody from the city went into 442 if you look at the roster. Babe Nomura, you heard of that? Babe Nomura? He was very active. Tosh Asano, you've heard of him. He never was in there. But all the boys from the country went in. Why? Because people from the country, you could get 'em as a group. But the city people were too independent. They didn't want to be in the group, they wanted to be for themselves. They didn't want to be in the group. They want to be for themselves. So that was the reason why. The Hoshidan was the same thing. They joined, "You're in it, I'm in it." But Yamakido went, I didn't go. Charlie went, I didn't go. I think Jim Kai wanted to go, but he thought, "Aw, kind of stupid." So he said, "Hey, Frank, you gonna go?" I said, "No, I ain't going." So we didn't go. So there was five or six people that I know are real pros that didn't attend these things. And to us, it was kind of stupid, really, when it comes down to it.

BT: But while you didn't buy into their thinking...

FS: Yeah, that's basically.

BT: And the Yamakidos, though, didn't go to Santa Fe.

FS: Bismarck.

BT: Right.

FS: Father...

BT: But they weren't picked up in that first, first or second group the way you were.

FS: No, no.

BT: So I just... it's kind of interesting how you would have gotten put into that group.

FS: Yeah. My dad went Bismarck. [Laughs]

BT: What, he was, like, in that big group of 650 people that went to Bismarck, like with the Yamakidos?

FS: Yeah. That's the last group of "disloyal" guys at Tule Lake, the last bunch. Yamakido was lucky; his father was there. My dad was in Bismarck, my mom and my brother was in Tule Lake.

BT: So if you were picked up early, did you renounce pretty early, like some time before December?

FS: I think so, yeah.

BT: No recollection.

FS: No recollection. Because, see, I got a copy of, two or three copy of birth certificate I made before we went in camp. And I still got 'em, I found 'em someplace, I didn't know where it was, but I couldn't find 'em in Tule Lake. I know I lost the original in Tule Lake. I think maybe my dad sent it in.

BT: Right, it needed to be sent to the Department of Justice when you renounced.

FS: Yeah, yeah. So I think my dad took care of everything. I just went with the crop, flow. You know what I mean? I'm gonna go to Japan, and I made up my mind. So if I'm going, this way, go to Japan, I go that way. If this way, I go this way.

BT: You know, one of the stories, you always hear about people being forced to do things in Tule Lake, like being forced to join the Seinendan or being forced to renounce. Do you think that most people, as you said earlier, did it because of their parents?

FS: Parents and friends, and associates. If you're tied up with those kind of people, you're gonna go drift into it, regardless.

BT: So it's not, not necessarily that they were being forced, but that there was...

FS: A trend to go with the flow. In other words, if you go this way, that's no good. You gotta go this way. So whether they believe it or not, it's just that they followed. See, this is where the "follow the sheep" come in. So the people that were from the city, they didn't like to go into that kind of group. They had more sense to keep away, because we didn't understand it. I didn't understand the purpose of the exercises in the morning, and I didn't understand the meeting, have meeting when I couldn't understand a word of Japanese. That was stupid, you know what I mean? How come they didn't have somebody speak English? That was the downfall of the Seinendan. They thought everybody spoke Japanese.

BT: Well, the expectation was that you would want to learn Japanese so that you would be prepared when you went to Japan.

FS: Right, right.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.