<Begin Segment 32>

TI: But you have, so you're associated with a group, the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, and they are created an interpretive center. Will, will this be an opportunity to do this, to really merge -- or not maybe merge, but to be able to tell the story of the Heart Mountain resisters vis-a vis the, the larger body? Is this gonna be a part of that?

TH: I think so, and I think by bringing the resister (story) in, I think basically we should think more as a civil rights movement, or a civil rights thrust to (...) get us out of camp (...). We're just sitting in camp not really taking any legal action as a whole. But (...) what was her name, Endo, then brought it up. What was... I've forgotten the term, (writ of habeus corpus) but then when the courts decided yes, Endo did have a point and (...) the court went (in) her favor, then that's when the camps were suddenly dissolved. So this is the type of thing that I think we should point out, that this is really, the (resistance) was really a means of bringing a civil rights wrong into court. And, but tied in with that, we have those who served and really brought the American public around and recognize wow, here are these guys who were put in the concentration camp and then really did a great job, I mean, great sacrifice. Reading some of those stories, you go wow. It's really something. But Senator Inouye, (...) when someone asked him, "What, what would you do?" And he said, well he was, he thought that he would really have to think about that. And many of the Hawaiians had no idea that we were in camp. But I think as the story evolves, that Heart Mountain (now) has the (Heart Mountain Wyoming) Foundation, the learning center has a real opportunity to point out what was happening in, within the Japanese population and what decisions had to be made. And we also had, not only the resisters, we call 'em, and those who served, we then have the renunciants, and you look at the family stories of the renunciants. You say, well, wait, the family wanted to stay together, they're (going to) ship the dad back to Japan so the family says, "Alright, we're (going to) go and become part of the renunciants." Nothing to do with the children, the Japanese Americans' loyalty to the United States. So all this total story has to be at least pointed out.

TI: So, so this makes sense, what you just articulated. Is there, is there resistance from including some of these other stories into the overall... like when you do a, the learning center, for instance, and would there be resistance to perhaps adding or making sure that story of the resisters is there or the renunciants are there? I mean, what's it like right now in terms of what you see?

TH: I think in some cases there probably is... that the resisters may be looked upon in disfavor because of the fact that we refused to go and then... but I think it's there and so one has to be careful that we first, that if (we) encounter the problem then I think we have to be careful, explaining the story so that it's not something that's really black and white (but) has all the nuances there. And far as the, I would call it the civil rights movement, like Kiyoshi Okamoto, where he was coming from. And I think the end of the story in camp was the resisters, which then was hopefully to take the whole thing into court, and I think people forget that. We focus more on the resisters. Here are these guys, you know, just didn't want to go into the army. I'd say no, that was, we were sort of the pawn in that, bringing the civil rights (...) story into the courts.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.