Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Jim M. Tanimoto Interview
Narrator: Jim M. Tanimoto
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda (primary); Barbara Takei (secondary)
Location: Gridley, California
Date: December 10, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-tjim-01-0017

<Begin Segment 17>

BT: Can we back up a little bit, and what your recollections are when you first heard of and saw that "loyalty questionnaire."

JT: I know that each block, they dropped these forms off at the block office. And the residents of that block were supposed to go over there and pick up the form and sign it "yes" or "no" or whatever they wanted to do. There were some people in our block that did sign, but there was a lot of people in our block that wouldn't sign. They wouldn't sign "yes" or "no," they just refused to sign, period. And I think every day or every other day there was somebody from the WRA office that would come in and pick up the form, and the first day probably, maybe whoever it was that signed in our block. 'Cause there was about, well, the picture says there's over thirty people that didn't sign, and we were sorted out and carted away to county jail.

TI: But Jim, before that, I mean, what was the reaction of the administration? Did they, were there any steps before carting you off? Did they, like, warnings or other things that happened before that?

JT: Well, there was some pressure, I don't know if it was warnings or not, but there was some pressure that we should sign "yes" or "no." Regardless of if it was "yes," that was fine, if it was "no," it was fine. But they wanted it signed, and we wouldn't sign. So one evening, after dinner, our block was surrounded by military police. They had rifles with bayonets on them, and they surrounded our whole block. And we were having dinner when they did this, and as we came out the door, there was a soldier, there was a soldier standing by the door, and he directed us to... if we were young and... I think we had to be, in his eyes, draft age. They weren't picking on, like, my parents or anything, they were talking about the younger guys. And the soldier says, "Get over there, get over there," as we came out of the mess hall after dinner. And finally, when everybody got out of the mess hall, the mess hall was empty, the soldiers went in there and looked around, convinced himself there was nobody else in there, so then he came out and told us, "Okay you guys, count off, one, two." So we counted off one, two, and he says, "Okay, the ones over here, twos over there." And we ended up, I don't know which number I was, but we ended up in Klamath Falls and Alturas.

TI: So one group, like the ones went to one place, and the twos went to the other place, Klamath Falls and Alturas.

JT: Yeah. I don't know which group went where, but that's the way they separated them.

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