<Begin Segment 20>

MN: Well, from 1948 to 1954, Mr. Edmund Zane, he tried to help you, Mr. Zane.

TN: Yes, Zane.

MN: How much did you help Mr. Zane?

TN: That time, he wasn't in yet. Kataoka, living in Los Angeles, we become a good friend, communicate, and we was working.

MN: To try to clear the DB Boys' names?

TN: Yes. That thing, he really involved heavy.

MN: He was not successful.

TN: Huh?

MN: He was not successful.

TN: No.

MN: You know, when your daughter started to date Paul, Mr. Paul Minerich...

TN: I don't know, ask him. [Laughs]

MN: Well, when she started to date him, you were against it.

TN: Yeah.

MN: Why were you against her dating a hakujin?

TN: He, Lisa, sat down here, I said, "No. No way." [Laughs]

MN: Why?

TN: Well, like I speak far ago, how much Japanese people, colored people here, you know.

MN: They're pushed out?

TN: Yeah. Discrimination. I don't like it. But I didn't say my army record, no.

MN: But you told Paul before you told Lisa about your army imprisonment.

TN: Yes. But after he married, after he become a lawyer, then, "I show you something," and he saw my court martial stuff.

MN: Now, why did you decide to tell Paul?

TN: But soon as... well, I had to tell why I... even my wife don't know nothing. I better tell. This is the time to tell, so I told. He saw the paper and he say he's gonna work. [Laughs]

MN: How did you feel when Paul said he's gonna help to try to clear the DB Boys' names? How did you feel?

TN: Feel clear. Feels light.

MN: Were you happy that Paul was gonna help you?

TN: Oh, yes. He helped hundred percent. I trusted him hundred percent. All the DB Boys was depending on him. He practically worked for nothing, all this work.

PM: You know, Martha, when my wife was a young girl, she would go to picnics, and they would call themselves the DB Boys, but no one ever questioned, "Well, who are the DB Boys?" So she grew up with this whole group that they would get together, but she never knew the story. Right, Dad? I mean, you would get together for picnics with the DB Boys. Even when Lisa and your daughter Susie were little, but no one knew who the DB Boys were.

MN: It was just a group, then.

PM: Yeah, just a group of friends.

TN: He's the one put the DB name, Disciplinary Barracks.

PM: Who put the name? Not me.

TN: You? I thought you.

PM: No. That name had been, for some time, I think they called themselves that.

TN: Anyway --

MN: Isn't that a military term? Disciplinary Barracks Boys? That's a military term, right?

PM: Not that I'm aware of. If it is, that's news to me.

MN: That was just my assumption. So we don't know the origin of why they're called the Fort McClellan Disciplinary Barrack Boys?

PM: It's never been clear to me whether that name originated from the Fort Leavenworth days or the Fort McClellan days, who started it, and how it came to stick. I just assumed that it's just one of those things that just developed over time because these guys did make a point to stay together after they were released from prison and they went on about their lives. They continued to get together again ever year with their families and so forth to keep the association alive.

MN: Now, Mr. Nomiyama, when Paul started to work on this, was it very hard to get other DB Boys to come into the group?

TN: Especially northern part, they're not interested. So I thought, "Okay." And when he start telling me that, "I'm gonna work for you," and whoever comes, he says he gonna take care. So one day, I told everybody, "We're not gonna force you, you volunteer to join me here." So all the southern California, they joined me and Paul worked.

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