<Begin Segment 18>

MN: I'm gonna go back to your, well, you're still in Chicago, okay? You're in Chicago, you tell your friend you're not going into the army. How did you get back to Denver?

HY: I took that cattle car. [Laughs] I couldn't get the, that overnight Zephyr. It didn't run that day, that night, no. I hopped onto this, what they call a cattle car. Slowly go through Kansas and, you know, Nebraska, all around there, Iowa. And took me quite a while. Gee whiz, go back home. And when I went home, for about couple of months, nothing happened. And I got a job and worked, and that morning, that morning, one morning, I'd hear a knock. I opened the door, and here's a great big old marshal, U.S. marshal standing there. You could see the badge, "U.S. marshal" and all that, you know. [Laughs] And he said, he said, "You know why I'm here don't you?" He didn't have to tell me, you know. I said, "Yes." Said, "You ready to go?" Said, "Yeah, ready to go." And we walked to the county jail. And we're walking, he asked me all kind of question and all, why I don't want to go.

MN: And what did you tell him?

HY: I told him, you know, "What would you do if you were kicked out of your home like that?"

MN: What did he say?

HY: He said, you know, "If I listen to you any longer, I might be sympathizing with you." [Laughs] So he said, "Good luck to you."

MN: So you didn't get handcuffed, you guys just walked together...

HY: No, he says he's supposed to handcuff me, but he says, "I'm not gonna handcuff you."

MN: And this is about two or three months after you came back from Chicago and you were back in Denver, and you were working in a garage?

HY: Yeah, uh-huh.

MN: Now, when you were put into the Denver County Jail, who was in there with you?

HY: From Amache group was in there. Around twenty guys were there.

MN: How did they react to you?

HY: Not too good. I was surprised, you know. Said, "What's wrong?" you know. "I'm your brother, and how come you guys don't accept me?" But there was one guy, his name was Yoshi Kubo, he was, he was spokesman, I believe, their bunch. And he was asking me all kind of question, this and that. And I got to where, ah-ha, they thought I was an informant or something like that. And I didn't, I didn't blame 'em for that, because they don't know me and I don't know them, huh? So, until my mom brought the musubi, you know, then the whole thing changed. [Laughs] The whole thing changed, man. I was the king of the what-do-you-call. [Laughs]

MN: So you got accepted by them. Now tell me, before you got there, there was also, the Amache group had visitors from JACL. And is that why they thought you were also an informant?

HY: Yeah, they were harassed many a time before me. I don't know who they... Masaoka or somebody, I don't know.

MN: Joe Grant Masaoka and Min Yasui?

HY: Uh-huh, those guys.

MN: Because that's when Noboru got put into solitary confinement, isn't that right?

HY: Right, right, Nob. Nob was in there, too, when I went there.

MN: Uh-huh. So they got interrogated, and then that's... right after, you came in, right?

HY: Right.

MN: So that's why they thought you were an informant.

HY: I didn't blame 'em. I didn't blame 'em at all.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.