<Begin Segment 20>

MN: Okay, tell me about the day they took you to court.

HY: Beg your pardon?

MN: Tell me about the day they took you to court from county jail.

HY: Oh. Yeah, like I said, This sheriff, not sheriff, what they call 'em? What do they call this... United States...

MN: Marshal?

HY: Marshal, marshal, yeah. This one morning I was ready to go to work, and I hear a knock at the door, eight o'clock, no, about seven-thirty. And I open the door and here's this great big old guy with a U.S. marshal badge hanging. He said, he asked me if you were so-and-so, Harry Yoshikawa. I told him, "Yeah." And asked me, "You know why I'm here for, don't you?" I told him, "Yeah." He asked me, "Are you ready?" "Yeah, I'm ready." He says, "Let's go." And we walked to the, we walked to the county, not rode.

MN: Now, what I'm asking you is, when you were in, okay, you're in jail now, right? So from jail, they took you to the courthouse for your trial. Tell me about that when you went to trial. Did they handcuff you out?

HY: I believe they did, yeah.

MN: What did they handcuff you with?

HY: Handcuff and... I think it was, my partner was Hiro Yamauchi. Handcuff and a... I don't know if they put the leg, leg iron, but we were handcuffed, I believe. I can't remember too good, the trial.

MN: How did you get to the court? They take you in a truck or car?

HY: Bus-like, yeah. County bus.

MN: You said you were in jail for six months?

HY: About six months.

MN: And did you have a change of clothes or did you, were you wearing the same clothes?

HY: Same clothes.

MN: So when you went to trial before the court, before the judge, you're wearing the same clothes? You're wearing the same clothes that you were wearing for six months?

HY: [Nods]

MN: Did you shave? Did they let you shave?

HY: Oh, yeah, we shaved, yeah, brushed our teeth. Yeah, we did all that.

MN: Did you have an attorney?

HY: Uh-huh.

MN: Was this a public defender?

HY: I don't know who that... we all chipped in, you know, so much.

MN: How much did you chip in?

HY: I think it was under a hundred bucks, I think, each.

MN: And did you meet with him before the trial?

HY: I don't recall. What we did was, see, we had to write why we refused, you know, our case history, and I guess we gave it to him, each one of us.

MN: Do you remember --

HY: Because each one, the sentence was different. Some guys, some... it was our group, six months, uh-huh, maybe year and a half, and I got two years. They gave me two years. Maybe I talked back to the judge, maybe.

MN: Do you remember your lawyer's name?

HY: Gee, can't remember. Can't remember a thing.

MN: Were you tried as a group or individually?

HY: Individually. They put us on the stand, you know.

MN: And what happened?

HY: Asked us why we don't want to go, you know, bear arms. Told 'em if they take me back to where I was, give me back what I had, then I'll bear arms. But otherwise, no. And besides that, I'm a 4-C, and I'm not qualified for the draft anyway. And he says, "Well, in time of war, we can draft 'enemy aliens,' too." [Laughs] They always got some kind of answer, you know.

MN: You said you got two-year sentence.

HY: Uh-huh.

MN: How come everybody didn't get the same sentence?

HY: I don't know. They, individually, you know, whatever he's feels like, he'd slap it on you. Six months... two years and six months of parole. So I had to, even though I came out, I had to report to the parole board each month.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.