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TI: Okay, so Bacon, we're gonna start the second section, and what we had talked about the first hour was kinda your early childhood all the way up to Heart Mountain, so let's talk about when you first arrive at Heart Mountain. What, what did you see? What was it like?

BS: Well, it's a big place with all these barracks, these tarpaper barracks. It, I didn't know what to think of it. First time I'd been to a place like that. We had this room of twenty feet by twenty-four feet for our family of seven. I guess we accepted it at that time, but when I think about it it's, I have a different feeling. But anyway, when we got there we accepted what was given to us. Within my family or even within my friends, I didn't hear complaining, and so we just accepted the situation and it's amazing that we didn't protest or have marches or all that kind of thing. And, and luckily I guess, we were the one that were put into the camp.

TI: I'm sorry, say that one more time. You, luckily you were? Or, I didn't quite get it.

BS: Well, luckily that the Japanese race was put into the camp. I think if it were maybe some other race maybe there would have been a different reaction. I think we just went, we obeyed, we thought that what was happening was legal and so...

TI: So that's kind of an interesting comment. So it's almost like the Japanese were maybe the only group that would've gone, would've allowed this to happen, that other groups would've kind of stopped it, or not gone along with it, you think?

BS: I don't know. Other groups may have protested, destroyed the place, set the place on fire or something like that.

TI: Well, think back, 1942, I think of America, United States being a very different place, too, that pretty much a lot of people, there was maybe a larger respect for the government or authority back then than today. Or do you, do you think that the Japanese were in particular more, as a group, to go along with, with things like this?

BS: I think Americans in general at that period of time obeyed the government and thought that whatever it did was correct. It wasn't until much later that they started to question what the government did, and people --

TI: Right, and so that's why I was thinking, when you made your comment that, that the Japanese, luckily it was the Japanese because they would go along with it, I was just wondering if you thought other groups would have done something differently back in 1942. Like for instance, you grew up with a lot of Mexicans, Mexican Americans. How do you think they would've handled the situation?

BS: I don't know. Depending upon their leaders, I guess, how they led the people. Maybe they would've gone along, too. I'm not sure, but it seems that maybe some of the group would have protested and, and maybe tried to burn the place down or rushed the armed guards or something like that -- which did happen at the Tule Lake camp and somewhat at the Manzanar camp, but it never did happen at Heart Mountain. I mean, there were small protest, but not large enough and not publicized.

TI: And so why do you think there was differences in the different camps? You mentioned Tule Lake and Manzanar and then you were at Heart Mountain, why some camps and not others? There were ten of them and there were only a few instances of sort of protest like this.

BS: Well, I think, I don't what to fault the Kibeis, but I think within that group there were probably a few who were anti-U.S. and would have done something radical, but I guess that's due to the questionnaires we had that they were segregated into the Tule Lake camp, and so who were left at Heart Mountain were mostly the peaceful type. But, although there were a few protestor within the Heart Mountain camp, they were not, what they did was not publicized. I mean, we had people who threatened to leave the camp and, just to test the authority, but those kind of actions were not publicized. It was through later research, looking at the administrative papers that those things happened were brought to light.

TI: So this brings up an interesting kind of issue or question for communities when something like this happens. So, 'cause I think you, you've said this already, that what happened to the Japanese and Japanese American community was an injustice. It wasn't needed. It wasn't necessary. And yet when something like this happens, what should the appropriate response be? I mean, should there be protests or should the community sort of go along peacefully? I mean, there is kind of this, this split in terms of some people saying, "Well, no, we should protest, fight it," versus others, "Well, no, we just have to make the best of the situation and, and go peacefully." I mean, what's your, your sense of what, of what happened or what should have happened?

BS: We should have protested more vigorously at the time. I think, looking back at the records, we could have maybe stopped the evacuation into the camp. Because during February when President Roosevelt signed the executive order, there was feelings that perhaps we shouldn't have been, we didn't need to be sent to the camps. It was, looks like the pressure from outside group, you know the white farmers and the people who wanted to take over the Japanese business or people who just wanted the Japanese out of the West Coast, they pressured the authority into getting this executive order signed.

TI: And so your feelings are if, at that point, if more Japanese Americans had protested and raised their voices, the whole, the camp situation wouldn't have happened? It could've been avoided.

BS: I think so.

TI: But so, and now, going into the camps, now that the camps have happened, there were these disturbances or these protests at, at Manzanar and Tule Lake, were those good things? Now that you're in the camp, what do you think about that? Do you think more of those things should've happened also? 'Cause here you're saying it's good to have, if we had protested before the camps it may have stopped it, but now that you're in the camps, should there have been more protests also inside the camps?

BS: Well, like at Heart Mountain there should've been. I don't know too much about what happened at Tule Lake because there was pro Japan groups within there. We didn't have that kind of group at Heart Mountain. I think at Heart Mountain we had groups that protested the unconstitutionality of the camp and I think if the actions of what they did were more publicized, then we could've gotten better results.

TI: So more organization like, I think you're referring to the Fair Play Committee that was organized in Heart Mountain that, sometimes they're associated with the, the resistance to the draft, but as you, as you mentioned, I think if you look at what they wrote it was more about the, trying to regain their rights as U.S. citizens. It was what they were, it was more of a civil rights action in terms of their, of what they thought.

BS: Right. Well just, just before the Fair Play Committee was formed there was another group called the Congress of American Citizens or some group, something like that. It was formed to protest the unconstitutionality of the camp. If that group was more publicized then maybe some action would have been taken. And even the draft resistance, I think the word "draft" in there gives a negative connotation to what they were trying to do, but essentially they were trying to right a wrong of what the government did and maybe if they were successful something could have been done at that time. Although it was, by the time they started doing things it was 1944.

TI: Okay, good.

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