<Begin Segment 30>

MN: Were you ever a JACL member?

HY: No, never.

MN: What do you think about the JACL's action during the war towards the draft resisters?

HY: I think, I think that was kind of appalling, the way they acted. That's no way to treat your people. Should have helped us, not trying to encourage us to, you know, do whatever they wanted us to do. You remember that Sergeant Kuroki? He came to Heart Mountain trying to recruit those guys. I wonder what he thought of his people incarcerated like that? That I could not stand.

MN: But Kuroki was never in camp.

HY: Yeah, he wasn't in camp, yeah. Well, he knew top people, they got him in the Air Force, see. That's how he got in. But Roosevelt shouldn't have, you know, this 9066, you know. He should have never done that, I think.

MN: Were you personally harassed by a JACL member?

HY: No. Because I didn't, I wasn't in contact with them.

MN: Now, if you had gone to camp, would you have still been a draft resister?

HY: I believe I would, yeah. Yeah.

MN: Or would you have gone one step further? Would you have ended up at Tule Lake?

HY: Yeah. They, you know, arrest me and I probably would have gone to Tule Lake, yeah. I'd be with the "no-no" boys.

MN: So you, were there thoughts ever of renouncing your United States citizenship? Did those thoughts ever go through your head?

HY: I thought about it, yeah. Once upon a time, yeah.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.