<Begin Segment 26>

TI: At some point you decided to return to the United States, so about what time was this, what year was this?

JM: This was in fifty, '56? No, not '56...

TI: I have early '50s.

JM: Yeah, early '50s. The reason that was, one of my best friend, now, that was in the camp over here, well, he wanted to come to America, too, but he went to the consulate and they said, "You can't, you get your papers back unless you join the air force," and so to him, he was Nisei born, so he went in the air force and stayed in the air force three years and came back and went to Cal Poly and he got his citizen paper back right away.

TI: Okay, because, because he was in Japan also during the war?

JM: During the war.

TI: And so somehow he lost his citizenship?

JM: No, no, the parents tore it up, said Japan won the war, see, but he says, "No, America did." "No, Japan did." So when they went back, their passport was all taken away.

TI: Oh, so they renounced their citizenship?

JM: Renounced, yeah, they renounced their citizen.

TI: I see, okay. But in your case, you never had renounced your citizenship.

JM: No.

TI: So in your case, what happened? This is early '50s, so you wanted to come back to United States. Your best friend had already come back...

JM: Well no, he was still, he was still in the military, but he was gonna come back, and then in my case, all I had to do was get the papers from Oregon. And that time my sister was already here in America already, so she went to, wrote to Hood River and got my birth certificate and sent that and there was no problem at all.

TI: So they, you were just, you showed that, you got some kind of, of entry papers or passport that enabled you --

JM: Yeah, and the passport too, so they said, "Carry this all the time, just in case if you get in trouble, something. Just take out the passport and you'll be okay."

SF: So did you want to come back to America right after the war ended and it just became stronger as the years...

JM: Well, it was just, right after the war ended everybody had a tough time and we didn't know what to do and everything, but my sister, she came back with her friend, and so my sister says, "Yeah, America is real nice. Why don't you come back, too?" in the letter. So I says, well, okay, in that case that I would come back to America, so when I came back to America they were in Salt Lake City, so I stayed there in Salt Lake City for a while.

TI: When you, when you came back to get your, to, to come back to get papers, were you ever questioned about your time in Japan and, and was that any...

JM: No.

TI: So no problems about that?

JM: No, it was no problems with that.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.