Densho Digital Archive - Takashi Hoshizaki Interview (denshovh-htakashi

<Begin Segment 22>

TI: Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and skip up to the "loyalty questionnaire." I mean, there are other things we can talk about Heart Mountain, but I want to make sure we, we cover this. So you, you sort of edged into a little bit about being drafted and, and that, but before we get there, in 1943 the government had a questionnaire. Do you remember that questionnaire and how you answered it? In particular, questions twenty-seven and twenty-eight.

TH: Yeah, twenty-seven, twenty-eight. I think (...) whichever one it was, I said yes, I'll be loyal to (...) United States. Then it says are you willing to serve in the army, you know, wherever sent, and (...) Someone had pointed out the form had, I think had the selective service symbol on it, so I said would I be volunteering if I said yes, so I said no, and so I became a "no-yes," or a "yes-no" boy.

TI: But explain that a little bit more, it was almost like you saw, like, it was almost a technicality or something? You, 'cause you didn't want to be, you didn't want to volunteer and that's why you said no? Is that what you said?

TH: Yeah. Well, volunteer or what would it really mean? Well, it goes back to Pomona, where you began to hear the older Niseis talking about that we should've, we should've contested the evacuation and so on, and so at that time I said, well, something's wrong. This isn't just straightforward. It looked like something funny was going on, and so as I, time went on and got to learn a little bit more and then the first time hearing about JACL, so I thought well, this whole thing is not right. The evacuation is not right. And in fact, I had written a letter to (my) homeroom of Belmont High School and stating, I says, "I think this evacuation thing's wrong," so on and so forth, and remember the teacher writing back, says, "We're very sorry you feel this way about it." I thought, gee, too bad I didn't make a copy of my letter and also kept the letter that they sent back.

TI: And this is your old high school?

TH: Yeah. So even then I had, I began to really have doubts in my mind and began to think, so when this draft thing came out I said this is crazy and... but especially then when they were talking about in, into a segregated (unit). They wouldn't let the (Nisei) go into the navy or into the air force, so I said no. My bottom line was, says I wouldn't go out from the camp, be drafted from the camp.

TI: Okay, so let me, let me see if I can summarize a little bit. So first there was this questionnaire that came out, and on one question -- this was probably twenty-seven -- you said no, which said essentially would you be willing to serve in the military, thinking that you didn't want to volunteer. And then later on you were sent a notice to report, essentially --

TH: For the physical.

TI: To report for a physical, and, and so tell me, when you got that, what happened? Describe what happened when you got --

TH: Oh, when I got that, I had more or less made up my mind that I wouldn't go, and so I just said okay, just sort of ignored the notice. And I guess maybe a week or two, maybe a week later the, they appeared on the steps of the barrack and, and I was (...) under arrest.