<Begin Segment 12>

PM: So when you turned left, you didn't know what was gonna happen. So there was a lot of concern about that. And so... lot of things not making sense to me, from what I understood your story to be, Dad. And so, to me, it's not creating the correct impression about what's going on in your mind and what you were concerned about. Do you understand what I'm saying?

TN: What I'm thinking, principle of democracy.

PM: Well, yeah...

TN: That's it. That's the thing I'd like to give my life. If they didn't like that, I don't give my life. That's what I'm trying to say.

PM: Yeah. But, see, I don't understand that. Because on the one hand, you're in the army before Pearl Harbor. After Pearl Harbor, they intern all the Japanese people. So after you went into the army, things changed quite a bit.

TN: Yes, I know.

PM: So, now, all of a sudden, things are different.

TN: Not to me.

PM: But you don't care about the internment. You don't care about Pearl Harbor.

TN: I care, but... I care, that's why. It's rooted.

PM: That's not what you said.

TN: No, it's all the... what I'm saying, it's not chopped off, it's all there.

PM: Okay, listen to me. Listen to me. When you went into the army, when you went into the army, Pearl Harbor had not happened yet.

TN: No. No.

PM: Two days after you went into the army, Pearl Harbor happened.

TN: Yes.

PM: That would seem to me that it would be an important event. Was that important to you?

TN: Yes, very important.

PM: Very important?

TN: Yes.

PM: The country of your family has now attacked the United States, for goodness sakes.

TN: Yes.

PM: Okay. So, several months after that, the President issues an order saying that all of the people on the West Coast that are Japanese have to go into camps.

TN: Yeah.

PM: Was that important to you?

TN: Yes, important.

PM: Well, okay.

TN: Very important.

PM: All right.

TN: Because you have a citizenship. You have a right. You have a house, business, everything. Within a week, you have to go, very important.

PM: And these are Japanese people.

TN: Yes.

PM: You're Japanese.

TN: Yes.

PM: Your brother, your older brother, Don Hiraku, he has a wife at that time, right?

TN: Yes, yes.

PM: He has to go into the camp. His wife is in the camp. So you have family members in the camp.

TN: Yes.

PM: That would seem like that would be important also.

TN: Very important.

PM: You were thinking about that, too.

TN: Of course. It's all connected, I said.

PM: Fine.

TN: It's not chopped off.

PM: Okay. So, you're now asking, the army is asking you to continue your training, and they're asking you to fight for the country that Japan has now attacked, and the country that now has put the Japanese people in the camp.

TN: Yes.

PM: So, that must have caused you some concern in your mind.

TN: Of course.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.