Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Thomas Shigekuni Interview
Narrator: Thomas Shigekuni
Interviewer: Martha Nakagawa
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: August 31, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-sthomas-01-0014

<Begin Segment 14>

MN: You got into another argument with your teacher, Margaret L. Hopcraft, when they started to draft the Niseis from camp. Can you share with me that story?

TS: I said, "We're not Americans. You can't draft us in camp. If we're Americans we wouldn't be here in this confined place."

MN: And what did she say?

TS: She says, "You don't understand. You're just nothing but a child. You don't understand." Okay, I'm a child. No sense arguing with her, so...

MN: And you were a teenager, and how did you feel about seeing these drafted Nisei leaving camp?

TS: What was that again?

MN: How did you, how did it make you feel seeing these Niseis leaving camp after they were drafted?

TS: Oh, I thought (it was horrible). I used to see 'em off to the 442nd, (...) I said, "We're prisoners. How can you be drafting prisoners? You put us in camp and you expect these guys to go out and die?" And they're all going to the 442nd.

MN: Did you know that there were draft resisters at Amache?

TS: There must've been. I think they went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

MN: How did you feel about the draft resistors?

TS: I thought they were doing the right thing, although later on I volunteered for the service in the Korean War. I must've been crazy.

MN: But you've, you went when you were free person, not when you were in camp.

TS: (Yes), I was a free person, right.

MN: Now, in camp, junior high school, you also wrote an essay and that included your thoughts about the JACL, the Japanese American Citizens League. Do you remember what you wrote about them?

TS: I don't remember, but I thought, (...) Mike Masaoka (...) was the head of JACL -- I said, "He's pandering to the whites." That was my feeling. He was just trying to make friends.

MN: Now, you were still fourteen or fifteen years old when the "loyalty questionnaire" came out. Did this become an issue in your family?

TS: No, we never talked about it.

MN: 'Cause you didn't have to sign it?

TS: No, I didn't.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.