<Begin Segment 27>

TI: So describe some of the activities you had to do as a ten-year-old. You mentioned shaving your head. What else in Japanese school? What else did you have to do?

MK: Sing all the military song, parade, march, do all the military exercises, and learn, go to propaganda schools, to a point where... when, you know when the kamikaze started and everybody kept saying, "If you were in Japan, how many of you would be willing to ride a kamikaze?" [Raises hand]

TI: So everyone raised their hand.

MK: Yeah. "Tennouheika no tame." First in line, I wanna be first in line. Got to that point. It's amazing. You know, when I think about it, it's amazing what people can do to you if you get in the right environment. And I can, I see these propaganda movies, how people change, and I thought yeah, I went through that. I know what it's like, how you can get so influenced.

TI: Well especially if you're ten years old, too.

MK: Ten years old, yes. You're so gullible to anything that happens. I was raised to go back to Japan. I was willing to go back to Japan. I was willing to die.

TI: And during that time, what was your thinking about the people who didn't want to go back to Japan? So you, you mentioned two factions. There was the group that wanted to go back to Japan and those who were gonna stay.

MK: Those that was staying was really, they wanted to stay because they had obligations here or they had families still here, and they really didn't want to go to Japan, but they answered that "no-no" or "no-yes," so they were in Tule Lake. So they really had no desire to go back to Japan. So these were the ones that said, "No, I'm not going Japan," so the ones that, there was a bigger bunch that said, "Yes, we are going Japan."

TI: So how was it in your thinking?

MK: Me?

TI: Yeah, you were part of the larger group that was gonna go back to Japan.

MK: Yes, with my father.

TI: Did, did, were... what was told to you, or how did you think about the other group?

MK: Well, like I said, what propaganda does to you... I was willing to go back to Japan. He told me, "Go back to Japan." "Yes." Ten years old, I was ready to go back. Until the war ended. Until that point, yes, I was ready to go back to Japan. I was willing to sacrifice my life if necessary. Maybe this had something to do, maybe nothing, but I had been in Japan, been living there for a little while. I saw what Japan was like, and I like what I saw over there. So now when it came time, "You want to go back to Japan or you want to stay in United States?" I been mistreated since, I been treated like, been put in that train, left to fend for myself, and the way we were treated, there's nothing for me to be in the United States for. Being ten years old, "Yeah, I'm willing to go back to Japan." If I got to, ride a ship, a plane and go into, sacrifice myself, "Sure, I'll go."

TI: You talked about how there were some people in Tule Lake that were even more, more militant than your father. How would you know that people were even more militant? What, what would... how would you know?

MK: The way they treated you. Everything... there's some, there's some leniency, you know, you do things. They don't push it to the point where it has to be a exact certain way. With others it has to be exact or it's no good. You had to redo it over and over and over. In a sense, my grandfather was like that. The line had to be straight. It had to be exact straight. If it's not exactly straight, it's not good. He's, he was that way in his sense, which is really a tradition of Japanese. That's why Japan is the way Japan is, right?

TI: So there were some men who, who really tried to get that across, that the lines had to be, or everything had to be done just right.

MK: Exact. Right.

TI: And if it weren't, what, what happened?

MK: Redo it.

TI: And to many who had not been to Japan, it was hard for them, probably, to understand.

MK: Yes, it's hard to understand this.

TI: So was it hard for them? I mean, did they, were they... what's the right word? I guess, disciplined if they didn't do it just right?

MK: It is, yeah, it is a discipline that you learn in life, I guess, when you're young. And this is what, I think, in our society, United States, where we don't have that, in that we'll say... leniency. We'll look at leniency, and you accept something less than perfect, whereas in Japanese tradition a lot of cases, especially in the bushidou methods, unless it's perfect, it's not right. Not good enough.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.