<Begin Segment 6>

TI: And after you signed up and went back home, what did your mother and father say?

DI: Well, they anticipated that. In fact, in most homes very quietly they must have said, shikata ga nai. They anticipated this. And naturally no mother or father would want to see their sons leave and possibly not return, but they sensed the mission and, I think, approved.

BK: Given your mother had lost her citizenship upon marrying your father, with that in your mind did that enter your mind as Japanese Americans were classified as enemy aliens at that time in terms of what would happen to you, what would happen to Japanese Americans?

DI: Well, knowing that and having that in the back of my mind, that's why I was angry that this event very likely could have shattered all of my dreams of the future. But when the opportunity was presented to us to sign up and volunteer, I think I reached a conclusion that many others reached that this was the opportunity we have been waiting for possibly to be able to demonstrate once and for all that we are Americans, unhyphenated Americans. So that's why over 85 percent of the eligible men in Hawaii volunteered.

TI: You were upset that your dreams were sort of upset in terms of, because of the war, the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor. Tell me, what were some your dreams?

DI: Well, I wanted to be a physician, a surgeon to be precise. I wanted to be part of the mainstream of the United States, raise a family, and have a practice. You know, these are dreams, but then when this war came around, I could see a future made up of a segregation of good Americans and bad Americans. And knowing what had happened in '22 and '24, I thought, I could just imagine what was in stock for us.

TI: And earlier you had mentioned you had anger towards the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor. Did you also have anger toward the American government as a young man because of sort of this segregation happening?

DI: No, not much. I think one should remember the times and should recall that early immigrants, my grandparents and my parents, came from a society and a background that's quite different from today. They, for the most part, were not successes in their communities. If they were, they wouldn't be here. They would have stayed back there. Why should they want to move out to a strange land not knowing what is in the future? And where they came from, for centuries they had lived a life of classes, above oppressing the ones below. That was part of the life, samurai and those below that, the rich and the poor. So it was just transferring the head man from a yellow man to a white man. And so you found Japanese workers to be rather docile and "Hai, hai, hai." And in fact, in many cases some of the plantation workers looked upon their new bosses to be much more liberal and understanding than the bosses in Japan. So the part of life was that you don't condemn your bosses.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.