<Begin Segment 16>

TI: Let's see, anything else? Any other memories about just general Tule Lake that you wanted to talk about before we move on to the "loyalty questionnaire" and things like that?

JT: I know in Tule Lake that eventually they got around to passing out this "loyalty" papers. I read in the article that you sent me, Barbara, about this man that's supposed to be the "troublemaker number one." Well, I don't know, I've talked to probably six or seven people that was in Block 42, and nobody remembers him. And the story went that he moved from Seattle to Gridley and started truck farming in Gridley, and nobody remembers that, either. We had one person that resembles his name, his name was Masaru Yoshikawa, but he was a very quiet person. He was Kibei, but he was a very quiet person and he never went out of his way to antagonize anybody. So I know it wasn't him, but he was the only person that had the name, as far as I know, of Masaru, the "number one troublemaker" in Block 42.

TI: Well, let me, yeah, let me just sort of summarize a little bit to give some background. So at some point, a questionnaire came out, and it was used for things like leave clearance in terms of if you answered a certain way, then possibly you could leave the camps and go to work and things like that. So it was used for several purposes. But you as well as the other adults were asked to fill this form out. And it was very controversial. It was confusing in many cases. And you talked about the "number one troublemaker," in Block 42, there were people who refused to fill out the questionnaire, and it was written up that possibly this "number one troublemaker" was the one who organized people not to sign this. And I think that's what you're referring to.

JT: Yeah, well, you know, my memory says that we never had a meeting, let alone if this "troublemaker number one" was in our block, we never had a meeting saying that we shouldn't sign this particular paper. Everybody, I think, made up their own mind, and pretty much we didn't discuss it too often, but we did, some people said, "I'm not signing it," and the other guys says, "I don't think I'm going to sign either." But we never had an organized meeting saying that, "Hey, we're not gonna sign this thing." Or somebody trying to say, "Don't sign it." We never had that. My reason for not signing was I was a prisoner. I never did anything wrong, I wasn't convicted. If I was charged with something and I had a trial and I was convicted that I did this, whatever it was, and sentenced to jail, that's fine. But I wasn't charged with anything other than the fact that the government looked at us as Japanese, we would help Japan rather than help the United States. That was all something that wasn't proven, we weren't charged with anything, so I said, "As far as I'm a prisoner, I'm not signing anything. Send me home to Gridley, and then show me the paperwork and I'll gladly sign it."

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