Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Tetsujiro "Tex" Nakamura Interview
Narrator: Tetsujiro "Tex" Nakamura
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda (primary), Barbara Takei (secondary)
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: September 24, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-ntetsujiro-01

<Begin Segment 1>

TI: Okay, so I'm going to start the interview with today's date. Today is Thursday, September 24, 2009, and we're in Los Angeles in the offices of Tex Nakamura. And doing the interview is Barbara Takei and me, Tom Ikeda, and on camera we have Dana Hoshide. And so thank you for being here with us today. The first question, Tex, is can you tell me when you were born?

TN: I was born July 16, 1917, in San Francisco.

TI: And so that would make you today ninety-two years old?

TN: Ninety-two, yeah.

TI: Well, you're in great shape. And you said you were born in Sacramento?

TN: San Francisco.

TI: San Francisco. And for the purposes of this interview, we're going to kind of jump around a little bit. But I guess the first question, I just want to ask, how did you get the nickname "Tex"?

TN: Oh, I received the nickname because I was playing in the Sacramento High School B basketball team, and I was the only Japanese American there, and the rest of them were all white people and colored people. And they can't pronounce my name fully, "Tetsujiro," so my coach put up the name "Tex" for me as an abbreviation. [Laughs] It stuck with me all my life.

TI: And so from that point on, people just called you "Tex" instead of "Tetsujiro"?

TN: No, I'd never been to Texas until during the war time I went there one time.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

TI: So now I'm going to bring you to Tule Lake.

TN: Yeah, Tule Lake, yeah.

TI: And one of the jobs you had at Tule Lake was working at the legal aid office.

TN: Yes.

TI: Can you explain to me how you got that job?

TN: Well, I was out in the seasonal leave from Tule Lake, and I came back after the season was over, and my brother was in Tule Lake. And he knew all the people in the project director's office and the project attorney's office, and they were looking for somebody in the legal aid office. Because after the segregation, most of the personnel left Tule Lake and went to other camps. And I had a little legal background by then, I was working in an attorney's office, Mr. Takeda's office in Sacramento. And I interviewed with Mr. Silverthorn, he was the project attorney. He was attorney for the WRA, and he gave me an interview. And I had some little accounting background, so they asked me to prepare income tax returns, things like that, for the attorneys. So I received a nineteen dollar a month job. [Laughs]

TI: And so in this job -- and let me kind of recap a few things. So you were on seasonal leave, and so prior to that, you were first sent to Tule Lake, and then you took a seasonal leave. And then when you came back, this was after Tule Lake had become a segregation camp.

TN: Yeah, after segregation.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

TI: And then your brother found the...

TN: Yeah, my brother was... before the war, right after the war started, he went to Texas A&M during the war, and he got really sick in San Antonio. And I received a permit to leave the camp from General Eisenhower's brother, who was Milton Eisenhower, he was in Washington, D.C., and he got me the permit to go see him. But I was told to come back to Tule Lake, you know. [Laughs] I tried to stay in Texas, but they said I had to come back. And after he got well, he rejoined us in camp.

TI: Now, why would your brother, because he was in Texas at this point, why did he join you in camp and not stay in Texas?

TN: Well, he was ill, see, and he couldn't swallow anything for a long time, it was paralyzed. And there was a Japanese family in San Antonio that... and she was a very religious lady, and she said, "I'll take care of your brother, so don't worry and go back to camp." So I left him with her. Gradually, he recovered, gradually, and I couldn't impose on the other people to take care of him, so we told him to come back to the camp, we'd be all together. We didn't know what was going to happen, you know.

TI: Okay, that makes sense. And then later on, when you were on seasonal leave, he was at camp and was able to help you get this job.

TN: Yeah. He was working for the canteen or something like that, and he was able to contact a lot of people in the camp.

TI: And so I'm curious. There was some friction with people who worked in the canteen, especially after the segregation.

TN: Oh, yes.

TI: Was your brother involved with any of that?

TN: Well, he was, he had a little accounting background. He worked for Mitsui Bussan before the war. So he had a commercial knowledge, and they asked him to work, help him in the administration. And there was naturally a friction between the people that was in Tule Lake at the beginning, and there was a lot of other people that came in from other segregation camps, especially Manzanar, they were the tough ones. They wanted to take over the whole canteen. [Laughs] So he told me who was the head of the canteen at that time, was (Hitomi) in Tule Lake, you know. And after that, everybody said, "No job is worth that much." They all resigned, you know.

TI: But your brother, did he resign also?

TN: Oh, yeah, he resigned, and he was working someplace else after that. But you know, the wages were very nominal, nineteen dollars, and get a three dollar and seventy-five cents clothing allowance. [Laughs]

TI: And so I'm curious, when your brother resigned, did you and your brother ever talk about how Tule Lake had changed sort of before segregation and then after segregation?

TN: Oh, yeah, I noticed the difference, tremendous, yeah. And I was able to go across the... there was double fences inside Tule Lake, where the personnel, Caucasian personnel were residing. And since I was in the project attorney, was always up in the front, so I had occasion to go through there, so I could see a tremendous friction between the Caucasians and the internees. But you can tell, the internees, we had eighty-four blocks in Tule Lake, and each block had so many thousand people. And naturally, when you have a big city like that, eighteen thousand people. [Laughs]

TI: Yeah, I'm tempted to ask so many questions, but I'm going to keep moving along here. So you mentioned in the legal aid office, one of the things you did was you helped fill out income tax returns.

TN: Yeah, well, like people had problems. They had... a lot of 'em had life insurance, they wanted to cancel their life insurance, or they had a pending lease on a property, or they left behind some goods and things like that, and they'd like to get into Tule Lake. They tried to resolve a lot of differences without getting the outside attorneys. So I helped them as best as I can.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

TI: In July 1944, there was a law passed, the renunciation law, that was pretty much targeted to some of the people in Tule Lake. Do you remember that law and the impact of that law?

TN: Well, I heard about that law that was passed, because a lot of people were expecting... they figured that there was no future for young people in the United States if you're going to be discriminated like this. So they wanted to renounce their citizenship so that they could go back to Japan and be treated in a little better light by the Japanese government. And some of those were "Red Hot" people, and I remember the Red Hots because they were inciting other peoples to do a lot of things, pro-Japanese activity. But the Justice Department people wanted to get rid of those "troublemakers," and the only way they could do that was to pass this law so they could renounce, during the wartime, American citizenship, and make them aliens so that the Enemy Act would come into force, and they could grab them and take them to other camps. That was the original purpose of that thing, of the Justice Department. So at the time of the hearing, I remember the Justice Department officers all came and they were leery about accepting renunciation from all these people. And I suggested to the project attorney that, "You shouldn't conduct any hearing like this in camp here. You should have it outside, maybe Klamath Falls, someplace like that, where the environment is different." They said, "Well, can't be helped. We're going to do it right here."

TI: And before we talk more, I just wanted to clarify something. So these younger people were U.S. citizens, and you used the term "Red Hots." I'm curious, where did that name come from?

TN: Well, there were... there were some people who were educated in Japan, you know, right before the war. And they came to the United States, they were called the Kibeis, you know. And they said... well, they would do a lot of things which was really not... people in America would never recognize. Like they would cut their hair short and wear the rising sun sweatshirts and march around the camp. And they would do that early in the morning, they would blow the bugles and wake up everybody. [Laughs]

TI: And so the label, kind of, "Red Hots," was that kind of a...

TN: Yes, that's why those people were called Hoshidan. They said they were gonna go back to Japan. They tried to solicit a lot of people into their membership.

TI: I see. But was it common, that term "Red Hots," was that something, a common kind of description?

TN: Maybe I adopted that thing. [Laughs]

TI: Okay, that was just a... because I hadn't heard it before, so I wanted to ask.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

TI: So you talked a little bit about the process, where you suggested to the administration that they should hold the hearings in Klamath Falls and not in camp. But it sounded like they didn't listen to you and held the hearings in camp. So explain to me what happened next, the hearings and how that went.

TN: Well, at the time of the hearing, I think Mr. Burling was the head of the Justice Department. And he explained to us, to the hearing officers, that these people were evacuated, so they must have a tremendous feeling about evacuation, which was wrong. And if that was the reason why they were renouncing, don't accept those renunciations. So that was the primary motive of the Justice Department, trying not to accept their renunciation at the beginning. But the thing is, we had these organizations that was set up already, and these people were intimidating all these people to renounce, see. They even coached them what to say at the time of the hearing. And it became a pattern, everybody all going. But the real reason why they were renouncing was because they didn't want to be separated from their families, and they were influenced by other people, too.

TI: So let me make sure I understand this. So Mr. Burling, who was sort of the head of the Department of Justice team, his instructions were that essentially, the people at Tule Lake were there almost, like, under duress, that they were there, kind of forced. And that because of that, the Department of Justice lawyers should try to dissuade them from doing this. But countering that, there were these other groups within camp who were encouraging people to renounce, and they were even coaching them in terms of how to, what to say to the lawyers so that they could. And furthermore, a lot of that pressure came from wanting to keep the families together. So is that pretty much...

TN: Yeah. Well, and everybody who renounced, they didn't want, the family didn't want to split up, so they, the family had four children, all four children would renounce, and the parents were aliens, too, see. And the parents would say, "If you became alien, we would be all together." Even if they're deported to Japan, "We'll be together." But here, if you're a citizen, they might be forced to, forced to leave the camp or something like that. They didn't want to be separated because the future was very uncertain in Japan.

TI: And so during this time, what was your role? What did you do at the legal aid office during this process?

BT: Well, a lot of people were stymied, so they were asking me to, advice as to whether to renounce or not. I told them, frankly, "Hang onto your citizenship. It might be not worth anything at the present time, but the time will come when your citizenship will amount to (something)." Because I remember all the Issei had tremendous difficulty before evacuation because they were aliens, they were not citizen, they couldn't acquire land or anything like that, certain type of business. So I said, "If you want to renounce, you could renounce at the time when you get on the ships or you go to Japan. Then hang onto your citizenship." Very few people took my advice. [Laughs]

TI: And do you think a lot of that was that fear that even though you would say that, they still might be separated as families?

TN: Yeah. Well, those things, you know... but there were so many rumors going around, and a lot of people were listening to Japanese broadcasts from Japan. They were able to pick up shortwave radio, and naturally, Japan would have to say, "We're always winning the war," you know. "So America is not telling the truth." But they would never read any... the main thing is they were not educated properly, a lot of people, to read all the periodicals that was available, able to outside newspaper or magazine or things like that, that would be able to tell them who's actually winning the war. [Laughs]

TI: And so for you, what did you read or listen to to get that wider perspective?

TN: Well, I tried to... I was getting Times and Newsweek and all that, Wall Street. The New York Times, I always subscribed to that. I used to read this and I used to show my mother the picture of Mt. Fuji, you know. She said, "Oh, that's full of trick photography." They won't believe it, you know, the submarine, American, U.S. subs going into Tokyo Bay and taking pictures of Mt. Fuji. Some of the people, the Issei people who were intelligent told me that after the battle at Tarawa, that they said there's no way Japan's going to win the war if they're going to be on the defensive like that. Even after the Midway, yeah, they lost so much. But it was hard to convince a lot of people to accept the real fact of life. They were confined in camp for two or three years, you know, you don't know what's going on outside. So if you go out on a seasonal leave or something like that and see how people are living, it would have been a different story. But they confined them so much that then, I think Dillon Myer was a very intelligent fellow. He said, "Even though they renounce their citizenship," he wanted to get them out of the camp. So the Justice Department would have a hard time picking them up. [Laughs]

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

TI: Well, so as more and more people were starting to renounce their citizenship, at some point, after they signed, some of them decided maybe that was not a good idea. I mean, were there things that you would do to help those people?

TN: Well, after the war, they realized that the war was ended in, what was it? August? Yeah.

TI: August 1945.

TN: Then the Justice Department, the WRA was trying to liquidate all of the people out of the camps, you know, they wanted to get everybody out of the camps. And the Justice Department was going to take over, but they were scheduled to deport all these people to Japan who renounced their citizenship. But the people who renounced, some were believers, but most of 'em didn't believe there would be a deportation. But they were going to be involuntary departure, they said. Involuntary departure means deportation.

TI: Oh, so interesting the words they used. "Involuntary departure."

TN: Yeah. So I got out of the camp right after the war, and I saw the situation in San Francisco where all the ships were all lined up to take the people back to Japan or anything like that. And I came back and told people, "They got the ships all lined up, and you fellows are going to be scheduled for deportation unless you fellows do something." And then they started getting worried, you know, the Nisei people who didn't know Japan at all, they didn't want to go to Japan after the war. They didn't know how this thing would turn out.

TI: So, Tex, I want to ask you, so after the war, you left Tule Lake, you saw the ships lined up. When you were in camp before, you advised these people not to renounce their citizenship.

TN: Yeah, yeah.

TI: And so, but they decided to go ahead and do this. Why did you feel compelled to go back and try to help them after you...

TN: Well, the groups in camp who were, later on they became the committeemen in these renunciation cases, asked you to go out and do something, try to find a lawyer that would help us. And there was Issei people, he was a well-established man in southern California, Mr. Sasaki, Mr. Masami Sasaki. He said, "We can't let all these kids go back to Japan. Find a lawyer in San Francisco and see if we could stop the deportations." So I went out and I contacted the, contacted the JACL in Salt Lake City to help these people. And Mr. Saburo Kido wrote to me that, "As much as I'd like to help, we can't do anything." But he suggested that we contact somebody in the American Civil Liberties Union in San Francisco. So I went on and saw Mr. Besig of the Civil Liberties Union, and he suggested I contact Mr. Collins because he handled the Korematsu case -- no, not the Korematsu case, later on. And I talked to Mr. Collins, and he came up to Tule Lake for me, and we started getting a group of people, tell 'em what to do. So what we did was, from each block, we received a representative, and trying to relay the information of what we were planning to do with trying to file suit in San Francisco. And from each block, we nominated a committeeman that would take, relay all this information. And we finally organized a group, that was November 13, 1945, we filed a class action suit in San Francisco, U.S. District Court, one thousand people. And in order to finance this type of operation, you know, it cost us a lot of money. So Mr. Sasaki suggested that, "If you get deported, you could take only three hundred bucks to Japan, you can't take any more money than that. So why don't you gamble and give us at least a hundred dollars of that? Take a chance at it." So we raised a fund of around eighty thousand or ninety thousand dollars.

TI: So, wow, so that's quite a bit of money. So there were about a thousand, you got eighty thousand, so pretty much everyone paid almost a hundred dollars.

TN: Well, yeah. About six hundred people paid a hundred dollars, and then we, anything over fifty dollars, ten dollars. And if they joined, if they didn't have anything, we joined them anyway. So we had our... number was the main weapon for us. And Mr. Collins wove a theory of governmental duress for this litigation.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

TI: Before we go to that, I just want to back up a little bit. So you would walk to Block (25) to talk about this. How many, do you have a sense of how many meetings you did?

TN: Well, countless meetings. [Laughs]

TI: And you were able to attract about a thousand.

TN: A thousand, yeah.

TI: Out of how many people?

TN: Oh, five thousand, over five thousand renounced.

TI: So about five thousand renounced, and so about twenty percent, you were able to join.

TN: Then the suit, there were two suits. One for habeas corpus, you're released from your detention, and another one was inequity in setting aside the renunciation to restore your United States citizenship. Because Mr. Collins said even if you get out, you'd be released under habeas corpus proceedings. If you don't have citizenship, you don't have anything. So on a theory of governmental duress, we filed both suits. And the number was so huge that the Justice Department couldn't handle the individual hearings. So what they did was they sent the same hearing officer back and they had a mitigation hearing.

TI: I'm sorry, could you say that one more time? I didn't hear that.

TN: The Justice Department team conducted a mitigation hearing because they couldn't handle hearing each individual case. If you're filing one thousand case, you're going to have to hear every, one thousand cases individually. It would be a tremendous burden to us, but it would be a tremendous burden to the government, too. So they decided to conduct a mitigation hearing to see who should be deported or not. And when they conducted that hearing, they asked, naturally, the people who went to these hearings would tell the truth, you know. "Well, gee, we didn't know what was going to happen, we didn't want to be separated from the family. Not that we want to go to Japan." So the government released about eighty percent of them to camp, you know. So the government felt that they didn't, they were able to finish off with this renunciation program, but then you realize they have one thousand cases in restoring citizenship. So that was the only way to protect all these people. Because the Alien Enemy Act was still in full force, in fact, until the peace treaty was signed. And they were all, the rest of 'em were all scheduled for deportation. So Mr. Collins hanged on until the peace treaty was signed, and we were able to get everybody released from camp.

TI: But, I'm sorry, the peace treaty, and that was signed about when?

TN: That was signed. But that was in San Francisco, I remember.

TI: Yeah, I'm trying to remember the...

TN: 19', that was about two years later.

TI: So '47?

TN: '47, yeah.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

TN: And then the, I think... prior to that, we filed the suit in front of Judge Goodman, who was very sympathetic to the Japanese Americans. And he gave, he set the whole renunciation program aside, restored all the citizenships. And the government was panicky about that, so they appealed the cases. That's where we came down, because we figured there was a lot of duress inside the camp, among the Hoshidan people that forced these people to renounce. They didn't want to give the citizenship up to those people, or they didn't want to, they still wanted to deport them. But the treaty, peace treaty made it such that the Alien Enemy Act was not in full force and effect. So after that, we were able to proceed with the citizenship issue.

TI: And that was, in the case in front of Judge Goodman, that was the Abo v. Clark case?

TN: Yeah. Well, see, there were a lot of other... originally, we filed a couple of suits, Mary Kaname Furuya and Abo v. United States. Because we figured, the people between eighteen and twenty-one were minors. So the government never contested the minor cases, their citizenship was restored.

TI: Okay, so if you were under twenty-one...

TN: Yeah, between eighteen to twenty-one.

TI: Eighteen to twenty-one and had signed that, those were all...

TN: After we got the verdict from Judge Goodman, we, Mr. Collins opened up the case again. So we opened up an office in Los Angeles, too, we asked all the renunciants to come in and join the case. So we got five thousand people inside the case.

TI: So five thousand individual cases.

TN: Yeah.

TI: So what happened to this whole idea of more like a class action or --

TN: That was a class action. Then afterward, the government appealed the case, and then they overturned, they figured that there's some... that's where we were running into difficulty with the ACLU. The American Civil Liberties Union of New York, and the Los Angeles Civil Liberties Union missed the boat on the evacuation issue, so they wanted to get into this issue. So they -- I hate to name people, but Mr. Chuman, who was attorney in Los Angeles, he was utilized by Al Wirin to find the test cases. So they found some test cases, and I would go and stop the cases. We kept on doing it, but he did those things secretly, and they filed the Murakami case. Murakami said... the government never contested that case because they figured that... the Murakamis said some other people forced them to renounce. So the judge, appellate court figured that then we have to find out who did apply the pressure. So we had to go through all this process of filing an affidavit with the Justice Department, and we have to do it for all the five thousand people.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Okay, so let me see if I understand all this, 'cause there's a lot here. So you had a group of five thousand trying to do a class action suit, essentially arguing government duress. And the ACLU decided to do an individual case with Murakami.

TN: Yeah, they're trying to get in on this action. That was the New York and the southern California.

TI: Okay, so they wanted a piece of this action, and you're almost saying that, because they missed the boat on the original incarceration and all that, this was a way for them to sort of get back into the game in some ways.

TN: Yeah, well, see, ACLU wanted to get into, involved in the case. And the northern California was backing, although they never backed us financially, but at least gave us moral support.

TI: And I tried to... and I think what you're saying also was, but the way they were doing it was very different.

TN: Oh, yeah. Well, they tried to, they blamed somebody within the camp, not the government.

TI: Okay. So your case was focusing on the government duress, big picture, and try to do this as a class action.

TN: Yeah.

TI: They took the case, "Well, we're gonna blame a group or some groups in camp," and so it was a very different... so when this was happening, very different strategies, did the two groups ever discuss or try to either join forces or come to some understanding in terms of what...

TN: Because we figured that, Mr. Collins figured that none of these people should be deported, none of these people... everybody's citizenship should be... because it was the government that forced us to evacuate. And after we were evacuated into camp, the government was supposed to protect all these people. If there's any discernments like that, the government should pick those people up and incarcerate them. So they, once you make a mistake like that, the evacuation, then they keep on making mistakes constantly, and forcing people to do things against government. And like in Tule Lake, you could... I realized that... I'm getting thirsty.

TI: Oh, sure, there's water right there. But while you're drinking, so the way I understand it, it's almost like Mr. Collins took the perspective that all these people are innocent, and they should be, their citizenship restored. And probably if the government wanted to go after, maybe an individual, then they should go after individuals. Versus the other group was thinking that each one had to apply separately for their, to restore their citizenship. So a very, very different approach.

TN: Yeah, yeah, different approach. But Mr. Collins figured that the approach, which the ACLU in New York and Los Angeles was doing was appeasing to the government, to save the face of the government. Mr. Collins said, no, the government should not be appeased at all. They're the ones to be blamed for everything that took place. And a lot of them were in Japan, too, they went back to Japan, fifteen hundred people went back to Japan.

TI: So did Mr. Collins ever talk with the lawyers with the ACLU in New York and southern California about this?

TN: Oh, yeah. Wirin even came to San Francisco trying to appease Mr. Collins. They had a big fight, you know. [Laughs]

TI: Were you there when they...

TN: Oh, yeah.

TI: So describe that meeting. What can you remember from that meeting?

TN: Well, Wirin, that was at the beginning of it, he wants to get in on the action, you know, he wants the publicity and all that stuff. And he was trying to make money out of this case, see. So Mr. Collins said, "Well, I don't want to join anything with you. You're not a real civil libertarian." So all these people getting misled by a lot of people.

TI: And so these two lawyers obviously disagreed. How about the community, the Japanese community? How were they kind of...

TN: Well, Mr. Kido, after the war, I remember Mr. Kido in Los Angeles and he said, "The only reason why we couldn't support your program was because we had a tremendous opposition from the Northwest people, especially the veteran groups, they were opposed to renunciants, and we couldn't do anything."

TI: So this is Sab Kido, so the JACL as an organization said, "We can't support the Collins group because of the veterans up in the Northwest, Seattle, Portland area."

TN: Yeah, he told me that they were opposed, they would get out of the JACL program if they supported this, backed up the Tule Lake people. And a lot of Tule Lake people might have caused, you know, made some derogatory statements to those people, too. So they had bitter feeling among themselves.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

TI: So you have these two approaches sort of in progress. You have the Collins group and then the Wirin group. So what happens next? I mean, what...

TN: Well, finally, the appellate court said we would have to go through administrative hearing to decide every one of these cases. So the task was big, really big. That took us around five to ten years. So we prepared an affidavit for every, each one, and presented it to the Justice Department, and they would review it. And if they rejected it, we'd get the affidavit back, so we filed it again and reword the amount. Then, in the end, they agreed to restore their citizenship, so we get our judgment from the courts. So we did that for five, six years.

TI: So you're talking, again, thousands of cases over five years. How, how was the team supported? I mean, how were you compensated during this time?

TN: Well, only thing is, I asked, we increased our pledges from a hundred dollars to three hundred dollars for people in this country. And people went to Japan, we asked them five hundred dollars, 'cause it would take us more effort, you know. Because postage alone was a lot of money in those days. The whole program was financed by only about two thousand, two thousand or three thousand people that paid in three hundred dollars. We raised around seven or eight hundred thousand dollars.

TI: And what would happen to those who could not afford?

TN: We joined them anyway. [Laughs]

TI: So you would help everyone. Even if they couldn't afford it, you would do this.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

TI: Tell me a little bit about Mr. Collins. What kind of man was he? How would you describe Wayne Collins?

TN: Oh, he was Irish; he had a hot temper. [Laughs] And I remember joining with him, going to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to see all these renunciants in Crystal City, Texas. And he would tell, in front of the Justice Department official, you know, to all the clients there in Santa Fe, he said, "These people are denying people access to an attorney, because they're not supposed to be eavesdropping, you know, violating attorney-client relationship. "And I'm going to," he even approached these people and said, "What's your name? I'm going to sue you." [Laughs] You know, perk up all the people, you see, get up all the people to stand up for their own rights.

TI: Oh, so in front of people, he would confront the government officials there, and that showed the people there that, "You have rights."

TN: Yeah, and "violating your rights of attorney-client relationship."

TI: And when you saw that, what was your role at these meetings?

TN: Well, a lot of times, I was, I went with him because there were a lot of people that couldn't speak English at all, understand English. So I did a lot of interpreting, explaining to them in Japanese. And there we found, in internment camp, other problems. We ran into people, the Issei people that picked up by Alien Enemy Act, some of those were scheduled for deportation. So we said, Mr. Collins said, "We've got to protect these people, too. We want to show that the government didn't have the right to deport you Japanese." And then we ran into the Peruvian Japanese. They asked us for protection, too. So we ran into all kinds of problems, and then we found a lot of people that was, in Tule Lake, the wetbacks, the Japanese, people who didn't have visas, proper visa, and they were all called up. We had to protect them, too. We filed suits all over the United States.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

TI: So I'm curious, you mentioned at Crystal City, the Peruvians. What did you think when you found out that Japanese Peruvians were taken from their homes in South America and brought to the United States and put in camps? I mean, what did you think when you first realized this was happening?

TN: They were scheduled for deportations. So there was a group in Santa Fe, the Peruvians, too, and they were brought to Terminal Island, so Mr. Collins asked me to come down to Los Angeles and check Terminal Island every day so that, to see that they didn't deport them. We filed a suit for habeas corpus, we filed a suit for a hearing. That was a gimmick just to stall the government from deporting these people. And then all the suit of people in Texas, someplace in Texas, we filed a suit. And then the group was sent to Seabrook Farm after that, so we filed some suit in Philadelphia. We ran around all over the United States. [Laughs]

TI: 'Cause you had to go wherever they went.

TN: Yeah.

TI: But going back to the Peruvians, Japanese Peruvians in Santa Fe and Crystal City, did it surprise you to find them?

TN: Oh, yeah. We were surprised to find them. They were kidnapped from, by the U.S. FBI was in South America, and they picked them up, and they brought them to the United States.

TI: Do you recall any comments that Mr. Collins made, or any discussion the two of you had about the government kidnapping Peruvians?

TN: Well, he made the interpretation, he said, "They were kidnapped," you know. Not really removed, they were kidnapped. Because the FBI didn't have any rights, authority to be in South America to pick them up. And the Peruvian government was hostile to some of these groups. They wanted to get rid of them, take their business over or something like that. That was a pretty tragic thing.

TI: Yeah, it just seemed like this gross injustice. As an interviewer, I'm not supposed to share my opinions, but it just astounds me that this happened. And I was curious, when you and Mr. Collins first came upon this, what you thought.

TN: Well, we were amazed, you know, how our Justice Department arm went into South America, and they influenced all the politics over there.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

TI: How did Mr. Collins gain the trust of so many people? I mean, so many people went to him. How did he gain this trust?

TN: Well, to tell you the truth, when I came out of the camp, there was no attorney that would handle this case at all, Japanese American case. He was the only one. So after he filed a suit in San Francisco, then everybody trusted him. So that's how Japanese American people felt that he could be trusted. And that's how Mr. Toguri asked Mr. Collins to defend Iva Toguri's case.

TI: Because when people saw him take these cases and he started winning, then people started trusting.

TN: Yeah. Well, like Mr. Sasaki said, "Mr. Collins is, he's half crazy to take..." you know. [Laughs] But you need an attorney like that to fight the government. And the only reason why we were successful in San Francisco was because he did a lot of pro bono work for the U.S. district court. And attorneys never get paid, you know, for those pro bono work. Well, he did it for... he figured everybody had a right to an attorney. So he went to Alcatraz, he defended the Bundists and the Communists. [Laughs] So he had no qualm about that.

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

<Begin Segment 14>

BT: I wonder if we could go back a little bit. When you were looking for an attorney that would take the, and represent the renunciants, and you went to the JACL and then they referred you to the ACLU and you talked to Besig, why was it that Besig didn't take the case?

TN: Well, Mr. Besig was the director of the ACLU. He said, "The ACLU in northern California will support you, but we're financially strapped and we can't finance it, the cases like this. So you'll have to finance it yourself." But, you know, we couldn't get any support, so we come back to camp, and I told all the people that the main thing is money, so raise a fund, a trust fund. So we raised a trust fund. And Mr. Collins said, "Gee, I would have used all that money for publicity," he says. Buy, get a good time in... well, the San Francisco newspaper were very liberal at that time, especially the Chronicle. And the Hearst papers were very bad, but they were turning around. So he was going to use all that money for publicity more than anything else.

BT: So why do you think that Besig didn't... and he was the head of the northern California ACLU?

TN: Well, he had supported us, all right.

BT: Right, but why do you think that he didn't go to Roger Baldwin with the national ACLU?

TN: Well, they had a conflict already.

BT: Could you talk about that?

TN: Well, you know, I never talked about it, but Mr. Collins told me that Roger Baldwin supported the government more than... he was a conscientious objector during the First World War. Now he turned around, he wanted to be a pro-American more than anything else.

BT: And so there was no support from Roger Baldwin.

TN: No, no. Then, once we started this case, the ACLU in New York figured they missed out on the evacuation issue, the biggest civil liberties case of all. So they wanted to get in one way or another, by hook or crook, they wanted to get in. So they got in. [Laughs]

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

BT: Well, would you explain a little bit more about the Goodman decision? When Abo v. Clark was the big class action, and then Goodman decided that case. And would you describe a little bit more about the meaning and the impact of that decision?

TN: Well, the impact of the decision was that Judge Goodman figured that it was the government that was to be blamed for everything that happened. And the government didn't provide proper protection to, in protecting the internees. So you figured that these people didn't know what they were doing, and they were duressed by the government, they didn't provide protection. So he set the whole thing aside and restored the citizenship to all the people in the class action suit.

BT: That was the Abo Nishio.

TN: Yeah, Abo Nishio. So, and then the one thing I realized when we went to Crystal City, I forgot his name, but he was a Department of Justice head. He said that when they came to accept them, Justice Department people came to accept the renunciation for people in Crystal City, he said he wouldn't let 'em in. He said, "These people don't know what they're doing." So none of the people in Crystal renounced at all.

TI: And that was the Department of Justice, I think you mentioned his name. So not Mr. Burling, but someone else?

TN: Yeah, Rosteen or something. No, no --

BT: It was the camp director.

TN: Camp director.

TI: Camp director, okay, very good.

TN: Getting old now, I can't remember all the names. He was a really nice fellow.

BT: So back to the Goodman decision, he basically returned everybody's citizenship.

TN: Oh, yeah.

BT: And so that was a tremendous victory.

TN: Oh, yeah, that was tremendous victory. So naturally, the northern California Civil Liberties Union was backing us up, so the southern California people figured they lost out on the civil liberties issue, previous civil liberties. Because Mr. Collins took the Korematsu case, remember? And he wanted to vindicate, take a revenge on the government on the Korematsu case. And I remember the other attorney for Endo -- Endo was... I don't know what's the Caucasian lawyer that was in [inaudible]. And Mr. Collins mentioned that the Korematsu case should have been, you know, should have been decided for Korematsu at that time. He took that case personally up to the Supreme Court.

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

<Begin Segment 16>

BT: Well, after the Goodman decision, how long did you have to celebrate before the case was appealed by the Department of Justice?

TN: Well, I don't know, about six months.

BT: Did you expect the appeal?

TN: Well, we expected it, yeah. But meanwhile, the case was still, we opened the case up so that we could accept other renunciants to come into the case. That's where the Southern California Chamber of Commerce helped us in getting all the people to come in. We flooded the government with cases.

BT: Oh, you mean after the deal?

TN: After the decision. So we were able to... then a lot of people from Japan, we put 'em all in the five thousand people, everybody.

BT: Well, what was the timing of Wirin's filing, when Wirin filed the Murakami case? Was that after the Goodman decision, right?

TN: After, yeah. After, when they appealed the case.

BT: So it was happening during the appeal?

TN: Yeah. Well, I think they tried to file... the Murakami case came after that. I don't know if... which was which... prior or not. But the thing is, it left the government a leeway for them. They were giving an excuse for accepting renunciation. That was before we got the Goodman decision.

BT: So you, there was this awareness that Wirin was trying to put together his own case based on a totally different theory.

TN: Yeah.

BT: And what, you were also aware that he was looking for plaintiffs, right? That he was looking for plaintiffs in his case.

TN: Yeah, well, he was trying to get into the case.

BT: Yeah. And did you talk to any of those potential plaintiffs?

TN: Yeah, I told them. Then they told me that, well, naturally, time has passed, so a lot of people want to get their citizenship back fast. They figured that they had the individual priority, you know, so they wanted to, they could be solicited easily. They said, "Why don't you file your own suit and get your citizenship back?" While these people were in camp, they said, "We don't want our citizenship, we want to get out of the camp." Once they got outside, they want to get their citizenship back. But the thing is, a lot of people were riding on the back of other people, too.

BT: So how many people got their citizenship back in the Wirin case?

TN: Just one. One or two or three.

BT: And how many in the Collins case?

TN: Oh, five thousand. We got 'em all back.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So when you think about those five thousand, this happened over a time period of years. What was the impact on those people when they got their citizenship back? Once they found out they had their citizenship back --

TN: Well, there was all kind of people. They figured that "the government was generous enough to give us citizenship back," some people figured that way. And some would never admit they were wrong. And naturally, there was friction among the five thousand people, you know. Some were contributing and some were not. If they couldn't afford it, that was another story, but they could afford it, but they were opposed to same thing. So I learned a lesson, too. You try to help the people out, and they fight you in the back. But, so that's one thing Mr. Collins always told me: "You help these people try to get their citizenship back." Once you start practicing the law, they'll never come back for you, to your office for advice. Because you know too much about their past history.

TI: Interesting. I would have thought the opposite. That because you helped them in the past already, they would return --

TN: I know the background, see. I know what they did. They renounced their citizenship, okay, so they would never come back to me for attorney advice. They go to other lawyers.

TI: And was that the case, pretty much?

TN: Oh, yeah. Some were very loyal, they come back to me. There were all kinds of people. There were a lot of good people, too. I remember Shimizu.

BT: Iwao Shimizu.

TN: His father was Iwao, he was one of our committeemen. And there was another, Iwao Namakawa, he was an editor in a San Francisco newspaper, he was one of our committeemen. And I had all these people in the newspaper like Rafu Shimpo, Yano-san, Nozawa, they were all newspapermen.

TI: So all these years that Mr. Collins did these cases, how well compensated was he? How much money did he make off of this?

TN: He got nothing. He lasted twenty years, you know. And all the overhead, we had to hire girls to keep the office going. It cost us around fifty thousand a year, those days. So, you know, in ten years, happening, twenty years, he didn't get anything.

TI: And so this was almost all pro bono.

TN: Pro bono, yeah.

TI: So in that time, there must have been some people who were very appreciative of his work. Can you remember any example of a person or family being very appreciative to Mr. Collins?

TN: Well, they never expressed anything. But I suppose a lot of people still remember what they went through and how he helped people.

TI: Well, how did it make you feel? Because you're Japanese American, he helped so many people in our community. Do you feel like he was acknowledged enough or thanked enough?

TN: Oh, there was a lot of other publicity from the JACL group, you know. [Laughs] JACL group, figuring that these were "troublemakers" and tried to ignore them. They tried to ignore them, Tule Lake people. They were the ones that fought for the civil liberties, for all these cases. And the Japanese American Citizens League should have supported a case like this. Because that was a big civil liberties issue. They missed the boat in that respect, I thought. That's my, that's none of my opinion now.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 18>

TI: Tex, we're going to start up again. And I wanted to kind of go back a little bit. Because during this whole process, you got your law degree.

TN: Yes, I went through night school at Southwestern University, and then passed the bar. [Laughs]

TI: And I'm curious, working, so you had kind of this unique experience. Here you're doing all this legal work even before you were a lawyer. And wanted to find out how valuable was that in your training to work with Mr. Collins?

TN: Oh, yeah, I learned quite a bit from him. The relationship of attorney and client is very important. And a lot of things which... although I had some accounting background, but not too much of attorney relationships. Yeah, he taught me quite a bit.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So what would be helpful for me is if you could describe like maybe, with the renunciants, maybe one case. What does one case look like in terms of working with the client, the type of correspondence, how long it would take. Can you kind of go through like one typical case?

TN: Well, in one case, when we started the hearing, we interviewed them, the reason why they renounced. We asked their backgrounds, we asked them whether they joined any of the organizations that was listed by the government, and if they were a member of the organization, the reason why they joined, and what were they doing before the war. Like most of 'em were farmers, and they said, "We left all of our growing crops, and we had to go into camp, and then we had to sell the tractors and all the equipment. So to go outside and start all over again, it would be hopeless." So they thought the life would be better in Japan. "At least we'd be together in our family, as a family."

TI: So you would do this kind of in-depth interview to establish the duress...

TN: Yeah, the duress. Individual case was a little different, every one, so we have to interview everyone. So I interviewed quite a bit, and then roughly prepare an affidavit for them to sign. So I made a trip to Japan to interview quite a bit of people in Japan from Tokyo and Osaka. Wakayama, there was a whole group of people in Wakayama. And Hiroshima, there was a whole mess of 'em.

TI: Now, was there any, sort of, examples or cases where it was hard to get the trust of people, that they weren't sure about whether or not they should work with you or not?

TN: No, they trusted me, yeah. They trusted me. By then, you know, if they don't trust me, they wouldn't even come to me.

TI: So you would go around and do these interviews and then prepare an affidavit.

TN: Yeah.

TI: And then what would happen next?

TN: Then we would submit that -- people in Japan, we made a special arrangement with the American consulate in Japan to accept the... you have to be a sworn statement, so the only way you can do that is to go to the, in front of the consulate and sign the affidavit. And then when we received the affidavit, we submitted it to the Justice Department for review, and if they figured that there was sufficient cause to set the renunciant aside, they would concede the case to us. Then we prefer that judgment for the government to sign and file it with the court. We received a judgment for each individual from the district court and mailed it to every one of these kids. So if there was any dispute, you know, about the renunciation, they were restored initially like she said, citizen like before.

TI: And so that was, that was pretty straightforward if the government signed to concede the case. What happens if they did not concede the case?

TN: Well, the government said, "We'll try those cases." Finally, a lot of people decided to stay in Japan, so they figured that they'd rather stay in Japan. There must have been about ten or twenty of those people. But this is one case where I met Wakayama, Kinzo Wakayama, and he told me that the government forced him to renounce, too. And they had a gun in front of him, says, "I'm not going to renounce." They pulled a gun on him. So he said, "Okay, then, if that's the case, I'll sign." He signed it. And so I don't know whether that was the truth or not, but I told that to Mr. Collins. So made a suggestion to the Justice Department that if Kinzo Wakayama wins the case, everybody get it back. Evidently, the government wouldn't go for it. [Laughs] He was a labor organization leader in San Pedro. He was the head of the Hoshidan.

TI: No, I've read about him. But when you, when you went to trial, I'm guessing there's a lot more paperwork.

TN: We didn't have to file any individual hearings. We all did it on legal affidavit purposes.

TI: But when the government did not concede, though, was there more work then involved?

TN: Oh, yeah. We keep on resubmitting the affidavit. We'd get it all back if it's rejected, so we can do it over again.

TI: Oh, so you'd have to then maybe get more information or change it, edit it, and then send it back?

TN: That's right. Some would be submitted about four or five times, and finally we'd wear them out.

TI: Okay, so that's how you would wear them out, you would just keep going back and back, and finally they would just get that stamp and say, "Go ahead."

TN: Well, gee, we were worn out, too, you know.

TI: Well, so again, so you just talked about the work involved with these cases. So you go interview them, you prepare an affidavit, you have to get a sworn affidavit, then you submit it, and then sometimes you have to resubmit, resubmit.

TN: Resubmit, yeah.

TI: And you're talking, you're multiplying this by thousands, you said five thousand.

TN: Yeah, we submitted quite a bit.

TI: And where did all this paper go? It must have been just boxes and boxes.

TN: I don't know. It's in the University of California archives. [Laughs]

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 20>

TI: When I came into your office this morning, I was looking at some of the pictures and things. And there's a really nice picture of you standing next to President Nixon.

TN: Oh, yeah.

TI: And I'm curious, did you and Wayne Collins ever talk about politics? In the country and what was going on, things like that?

TN: Well, he mentioned... I had a client in Japan, see, and he suggested that I help Mr. Isurugi. He was a Senate, he wanted to interview Nixon. It was after he was dismissed, remember. And we went to see him, and I think it was in the... what's that called? Right down in southern California.

TI: Oh, sure, I'm blanking now, too. Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

TN: So, you know, he had a mansion there, you know, and he had a staff there. And he mentioned the, met a lot of these, the Japanese prime ministers like Kishi and those people, he said he knew them. And just wanted to pay respects to him, I suppose. Well, he didn't say much, though. [Laughs]

TI: But I was just curious, in terms of your politics, because my understanding is you're a Republican, and I think of Wayne Collins as being very liberal, and whether or not you guys ever had discussions about politics.

TN: Oh, Mr. Collins? Well, I asked him what, who did he vote for? "Mahatma Gandhi," he said. [Laughs] He wrote on the ballot, "Mahatma Gandhi."

TI: And what did you do when he said that? Did you just laugh?

TN: "The guy must be crazy," I thought. But, you know, come to think of it, that's what he thought. He didn't believe none of these people, being President, deserved that kind of job. [Laughs]

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 21>

TI: So we kind of talked about how you got your law degree working with, during the time with Mr. Collins. I kind of want to talk a little bit about some of your other legal work after the renunciant cases. You're down in Los Angeles, and wanted to, were there any particular projects or cases that really stand out for you?

TN: Well, I represented them in mostly civil matters. People get involved in leasing the premises for hotels and things like that. And a lot of, and gradually, right after the war, a lot of treaty traders starts coming into the United States, and they wanted to set up a corporation and business relationship. So there was a lot of work in that respect. One thing, mostly referrals, those cases. Because those days, borrowing was very strict, you know. You could never advertise as an attorney, so word of mouth.

TI: And during this time in your career, was there anything that kind of stands out that you think about proudly in terms of an effort that you worked on?

TN: Well, there was a lot of pro bono work I did. [Laughs]

TI: And so what are some that you really are glad that you did?

TN: Well, I'm glad that I was able to help these people. Especially, I'm a member of our Nishi Hongwanji, you know, and I was asked by Mr. Sasaki -- he was the president then at that time, of the Nishi Hongwanji -- he asked me to come in because the church might need some legal advice. So I went there, and we were faced with the city, the city was planning to condemn that property on First and Central Avenue where the museum is, and expand the City Hall, you know. So we were, had to take steps to relocate or do something. So it got to the point where we had to raise the funds, I had to help them raise the funds and find property on the Nishi Hongwanji. It cost us more than a million dollars at that time to start a project like that. That was the first time a nonprofit organization was able to raise that kind of money. And it was a good thing we had the foresight enough to go in an area where it was getting kind of deteriorated. We bought all the properties we could, figured that we'd need, parking more than anything else. So it's a big, big outfit now, Nishi Hongwanji.

TI: And so it moved a couple blocks over.

TN: On Vignes Street and First Street. Oh, you haven't seen that yet?

TI: Yeah, maybe I was looking at something else.

TN: Oh, it's just, the church is just like the Japanese type of... it had a kawara, you know, the roof tiles.

TI: Yeah, I'll have to go back and, or go by and see this. So you were part of that effort to help raise the money and redevelop that.

TN: Yeah.

TI: So what did you learn working with -- [sneezes] excuse me -- working with the city during that time, and what were they trying to do with Little Tokyo during this time?

TN: Well, the city hall wanted to take over. They'd go into Little Tokyo and the only way you could do that was organize a group in Little Tokyo and fight the city. You know how it is. Because... then I was asked by a group to join the community, CRA, you know. So I helped them for a while. So we received funding from the government to clean up a lot of old houses. But now... it was a big job, though.

TI: And if that didn't happen, if this group didn't come together to organize and fight city hall in some ways, what would have happened to this neighborhood, do you think?

TN: Well, I think all the north side of First Street would be gone, just like we lost the other side where the police station is now, there used to be a Japanese Town there. And then... because the city wanted to keep on taking all the property as much as possible. I don't know the reason why, but there's no limit to it.

TI: So unless the community gets organized and fight them, they'll just keep taking more and more and more.

TN: Yeah. Bruce Kaji and that group. [Laughs]

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 22>

TI: So, Barbara, do you have any other questions?

BT: Well, I wonder about coming back to, or coming to Los Angeles and beginning a career as a lawyer. Were there very many other lawyers of color?

TN: Oh, yeah. There were quite a few lawyers. I wasn't a lawyer -- we set up a committee, opened up a committee office in Los Angeles, because we figured that --

BT: Oh, you mean the Tule Lake Defense Committee?

TN: Defense Committee. So I wasn't a lawyer until I passed the bar in 1956. Yeah, there were, Mr. Mitsuno was there, Mr. Mitsumori, he's still practicing here, and Mr. Aiso, Frank Chuman, who else? Oh, Tsurutani, there were about ten or so.

BT: Did you all work in sole practices?

TN: Well, most of them were sole practice.

BT: Why didn't you ever think of getting together as a group practice?

TN: You know how Japanese are, they never get together. [Laughs] Everybody wanted to be a general.

BT: But were you able to help each other or support each other?

TN: Oh, yeah, we helped each other.

BT: How?

TN: Well, we have our case, then we have... if it was involved, the other people would have attorney alone, then we'd consult with them and try to settle the case. Like Bobby Osaki, I knew him. It was hectic, though.

BT: Well, the practice of law in the '50s and the '60s was so different. And the courts were all pretty much white. Did you feel like there was discrimination in the bar or on the bench?

TN: No, I don't think so. After the war, they opened it up, yeah. They respected you. But very few people passed the bar in those days. They missed the opportunity to go to school, remember? Due to evacuation, all the people had to change their major or something like that. I came to Los Angeles because most of the renunciants were located in this southern district. We had renunciants all over the United States. I had committeemen in San Jose and San Francisco, Fresno, and Los Angeles, and Hawaii. There were a few in Hawaii. And they went up to Chicago, some remained at Seabrook Farms. Because we were able to make a deal with the Justice Department to close the camp and find a job for these kids to go to Seabrook to work until they were released. Mr. Collins would get on the telephone and negotiate all these things, all by telephone, tremendous.

BT: How big was the San Francisco office that Collins worked out of? How many staffers?

TN: Oh, it wasn't, it wasn't a big office. He was the sole practitioner.

BT: It was a sole practice?

TN: Yeah.

BT: How big was the support staff?

TN: Well, his... well, he had girls there, about three girls. Before that, he represented a lot of these people in the federal courts.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 23>

TI: And one that you mentioned earlier, that he worked on the Iva Toguri case.

TN: Yeah.

TI: Did you help him with that case?

TN: Oh, yeah, I helped him in connection to interviews in Japan, you know. We went to Tokyo to interview all these people because, to take a deposition of all these witnesses. And that was the time when, 1949, so we still had to get MacArthur's clearance to get in.

TI: Oh, so that was a very high profile case.

TN: Yeah, yeah.

TI: And how, I guess maybe I'm thinking, I think back to the media and how they sensationalized the whole story. I mean, what were some of the things that you guys had to prove in terms of her innocence?

TN: That we had to prove that she never made those broadcasts. Then we found out there were not one Tokyo Rose, there were about ten of them. And then we got information pertaining to the... and we found out that she was so pro-American that a lot of people in Japan advised her not to be pro-American, you know. You had to keep quiet in time of war in Japan. And that's the reason why the prisoner of war trusted her more than anything else. They wanted some, a female voice that they could trust, and she was the one that was elected. And a professor, Major Cousen from Australia, he was in the broadcast business, so he coached her and made her a top notch announcer.

TI: And yet, with that, she was convicted.

TN: Yeah, because the government, the only reason why this case occurred was Winchell and those people, they wanted to get those girls. Because she was more popular than... they were looking for her than the emperor. [Laughs]

TI: And so do you think it was more like political pressure?

TN: Yeah, political pressure. And Brundage, the newspaper fellow, he wanted to start this case. He would keep on urging the government to go after her. And she was cleared by the army, you know, right after the war, CIC. And Brundage is the one that forced the Justice Department to start this thing again. And we found out in Japan that he tried to get a lot of people to testify against her, make up a lot of things. And we found out this Brundage gave his suit to one guy to testify against her. So we got this guy in and took a deposition, and we got this and brought it back to the States. We were gonna say, "Put Brundage on the stand." The government would never put Brundage on the stand. He was the one that was motivating a lot of people. And people in Japan were starving that time, so a lot of people, to just get ten dollars a day on the trial, that was big money for those people that testified against her. Some people would refuse to come, Mitsushio and John Oki, they testified against her. What she said, "You lost all your ships, how are you gonna come home?" That was the thing they said. But we had... that trial, I sat through all that trial, but I thought we could have won that case if it wasn't for this Filipino guy, Ens. No, not Ens, Reyes. He gave a statement to the government, and he wanted to get out so he blamed her, see. And we didn't know that, and he would never tell us what statement he gave to the government. We put him on the stand and the government really killed them. And if it wasn't for that, I think we could have won the case.

TI: I'm sorry, so you put him on the stand, so what did he say on the stand that was so damaging?

TN: Well, he made a statement in favor of Iva when we put him on the stand. Then in the cross examination, they had a written statement from him already. So they keep on, "So and so, didn't you say this? Didn't you say this?" you know. Opposite things. So they discredited him, so they didn't know. That destroyed the case.

TI: So this was one of your witnesses that you thought was going to help you, but the government had this written, previous written statement that they used to discredit.

TN: Discredit him. But they tried to get a statement from Cousen, too, when he landed. Collins went in there and stopped it, cussed him down. [Laughs]

TI: So that must have been a difficult case to lose, because you had all this information, did this research, and you eventually...

TN: Then, you know, right after the war, there was the Axis Sally case, remember, the German lady? She was convicted. So it was pretty hard to win that case. Still the anti-Japanese feeling was very strong.

TI: Now, were you involved at all with the, later on, the pardon of her?

TN: No. I wasn't involved.

TI: Okay. 'Cause she was pardoned, I think it was President Ford.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 24>

TN: Mr. Collins died, you know.

TI: And when did Mr. Collins die?

TN: I don't know, I can't recall now. He was seventy-eight or something like that.

TI: And in thinking about when he died, I think more recently a lot more information has come out about all the work that he did. At the time of his death, did people understand how much he had done with the renunciants and things like that?

TN: I don't know whether they understood or not. But the work he did was tremendous.

TI: Now, do you have any regrets working with Mr. Collins?

TN: No, no. But I just, I didn't realize I would be stuck with it this long. It was very interesting. But once we started it, anything like that, I didn't want to be labeled as though I was a quitter, you know. I got these people involved and let them put their money out, and I figured, gee, we have to finish this thing, you know. So I give a lot of these committeemen a lot of credit for going around all over the United States to convince them of what we're doing. It takes so long.

TI: So they had to be patient, you guys had to keep working.

TN: Yeah.

BT: Yeah, we didn't have a chance to talk about this in this interview, but when you graduated from Cal in '39, then you told me before that you had taken a job with a strawberry co-op. What were you doing there?

TN: Oh, I was sort of taking care of the books and managing everything.

BT: Was the co-op, was there a lot of organizing work going on with the co-op?

TN: It was set up already. So they asked me... I wanted to go through law school, but, you know, we had a hard time financially those days. And my brother was going to Berkeley at that time, so it was hard for my father to finance that.

BT: Well, it struck me that your first job was with a co-op, which is, you know, it's all about organizing. And then you were involved with the Tule Lake Defense Committee, which was also an organizing task, and then redevelopment was a huge organizing task. So...

TN: You know, when I was asked to help the church, so I had the background in raising funds, so I helped these people. We helped a lot.

BT: The background in raising funds was from your experience with the Tule Lake Defense Committee?

TN: Yeah. Naturally you get pro and cons, you know. There'd be a lot of people talking bad about me, too. You got to expect those things.

TI: And what were those bad things, those criticisms of you?

TN: I was not doing anything to help them at all, you know. It took so long, you know, they want action right away. So you could see a human nature. And the camps, they said, "We don't want our citizenship back, we just want to get out of the camps." But once they get out, they want their citizenship back. They want everything. Take an inch, you give a mile. [Laughs]

TI: Well, Tex, thank you so much for doing this interview. This was an incredible history lesson for me. Thank you so much.

TN: Well, thank you. I hope a lot of people get some lesson from this.

TI: No, I think this is an incredibly important story.

TN: Well, yeah, you have to have a historical background in American history, what your Bill of Rights are. Because I had that background in Berkeley. I took courses in city government, state government, American history. And so it helped me a lot. I had to teach a lot of kids in Tule Lake what your rights are, you know. And although if we helped, one of these, if you have your citizenship, you have a right to fight back with your citizenship. Without your citizenship, you won't be able to fight back. A lot of people don't realize that until they lose it.

TI: Very good. So thank you. Thank you, Barbara.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.