Densho Digital Archive - Jimi Yamaichi Interview

<Begin Segment 1>

TI: Okay. So today is January 26, 2011, we're in San Jose at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. And helping me with the interview is Steve Fugita, and on camera is Dana Hoshide, and my name is Tom Ikeda. And so, so today we're here with Jimi Yamaichi. And so Jimi, this is a follow-up interview. A little more than twelve years ago, Alice Ito interviewed you during the Tule Lake pilgrimage, and she did about an hour's worth.

And today what I want to do is to follow up by really looking at two major, I guess, achievements or things that you've been working on, the pilgrimage and the San Jose museum, and to use that as kind of a framework to kind of talk about your life and things that are important. So an example, let me start off. So earlier, or towards the end of last year, the museum opened up. And when I looked at the press releases, not only did they open up, but they celebrated your eighty-eighth birthday. So they wanted to celebrate your eighty-eighth birthday because of the tremendous contribution you made in the building of this new museum. And so I guess my first question is -- because I know you've put a lot of time and effort into the San Jose Museum here -- is why is this museum so important? Why is it important that people know the Japanese American story?

JY: Well, my belief, it's, the Japanese Museum is very important to me as well as to the Japanese community of San Jose. How we operated, why we all pulled together, do things together, I've been, shortest time I've spent on voluntary program is this museum because it came late, it was 1987 when we started. And I've been involved with the community on a volunteer basis for the last fifty, sixty years. And some organizations I've been with thirty-five years, thirty years, there's a lot of... but I felt that if I give my time, I like to give my time to the Japanese American community. See if we can help 'em along, work together, create a, more or less, community. That was my only... what would you say? Purpose of volunteering. 'Cause after you volunteer yourself, you volunteer to do things, and I enjoy it. Sure, sometimes there's a real low spot, like anything else, it gets really dragged down. But then again, you've got to pick yourself back up again and then move along.

TI: But when you think about your volunteering time, so you choose where you want to volunteer. And the museum is about remembering the past, something that happened. And when I go through the exhibits, there are, like, two main themes I see. One is what happened during World War II, but also the farming kind of side of the Japanese American community, Japanese community before the war. I guess the question is, why is it important to remember the past?

JY: I think as a whole, I have real fond memories. Sure, there's a lot of struggles during the Depression years, and a lot of hard work as a youngster. But then again, it was a challenge, I guess, for me to see what I can do to help the community gel together better. Because before the war, we were not gelling that well. I thought, as I was growing up there, in my younger years, my dad didn't drive too much. He drank so much that he didn't want to drive. So I used to take him around, since I was fourteen years old, I was driving the car for him as a chauffeur to go different places. He was with the church group, the Japanese Association, the sports program and so forth. And I go there and sit hours on end and hear them talk about this and that, but collecting money, it's always about money. And the outcome of the whole thing that really kind of turned me off was at the time, is when the San Jose Zebras was gonna go on a barnstorming tour up to Seattle area, Salt Lake and Denver, and they want to collect two thousand dollars to buy uniforms for the boys to travel. And that's in 1939 and 1940. I mean, two thousand dollars, you could have bought a Cadillac car, right? And today it's fifty thousand dollars as far as money's worth, concerned. And yet, there's only twenty guys, we collected two thousand dollars for twenty guys to put a full uniform on the guys. And what happened to other guys? Us farmers, we couldn't come into town to practice because we had to work on the farm. And there was only, the picture still hangs on the wall someplace, there's only two farmer's sons that's on the team out of twenty, the rest of 'em were all city boys.

TI: So do you think this was a divisive thing then? I mean...

JY: Yeah. To me, that was divisive. So I came back after the war, I said, "Let's see if we can change that." And I think the biggest thing that changed the whole thing, and I really worked on it, I was not on the ground floor, but when it was started, when I heard it was started, the CYS, they called it, Community Youth Service, San Jose Japanese American Community Youth Services, we called ourselves CYS. Everybody plays basketball, baseball, at the time we had all different sports we were playing, regardless which church, which organization, where you come from, come from the farm, come from the city, everybody has equal time to play. And then I really worked, I was with the group for about thirty-five years, helping them in different ways. So that kind of turned San Jose around where everybody was equal, regardless of where you come from. Like we have, say, a certain age group, we had four teams. Now, "You're a coach," "you're a coach," and so forth down the line, cannot say, "I want him, him, him." No. "One, two, three, four," "One, two, three, four," "One, two, three, four." You're number four one, you get the number four kids every time it go around, turn. So everybody gets equal kids, right?

<Begin Segment 2>

TI: This is really interesting. So like before the war, it seemed like there was a system where certain people got, in some ways, almost preferential treatment or got more.

JY: Yes.

TI: And then after the war, you promoted this idea of more equality. And I was kind of thinking about the camp experience where, where if that kind of aided in this transition. Because I'm thinking, before the war, there were some people who had more money and some people who didn't. But when they came to the camp, everyone had to eat the same food and eat in the same place. Do you kind of think that sense of equality was aided in the camps?

JY: No, that part of the camp equality as far as my experience as growing up in camp, my block, the Block 27, I lived in there. As you know, there's approximately about 250 to 300 people per block, depends on the way the buildings are chopped up. There was four families in our block that never ate in the mess hall. They bought half their food from the canteen. The canteen had anything you wanted. You name it, you got, the manager of the store lived in our block, Block 27, Tsujimura, and he would tell them, "Hey, sashimi's gonna come in. Tofu's gonna come in, beef's gonna come in. You want some?" My dad told him, says, "We eat what everybody else eat." In the meantime, you hear the kids talk about it, like this one family from Seattle -- I won't name the man's name, because I don't want to influence you -- but anyway, they lived on an end barrack room, and the kids on the far end there, it was a block manager's kids, block manager didn't have too much. He was on the, what you say, on the low income side. And everybody asked the kids' dad, said, "Can we eat what they're cooking?" They're on the last, hundred feet away, the smell, no ceiling right? The smell travels, and whatever they're cooking, chicken or eggs or bacon or ham, whatever it may be, on the stove, it smells good regardless of what it is. So the father, how the father's gonna tell the kids, "We don't have no money. We don't have enough money, like they must have more money that we could to go to the canteen and buy all this stuff." I mean, you hear those kind of things, 'cause he told my dad, says -- he was a Kibei -- said, in Japanese, "What can I tell my kids? What can I tell my kids? I don't have the money to -- I have a hard enough time buying clothes, let alone buying surplus food."

TI: But in thinking about before the war, wasn't it even more, more profound in terms of people who had money and property versus those who didn't? And it seemed like the camp maybe leveled the playing field a little bit towards that way. But you're saying even in camp, there was these distinct, almost classes.

JY: No, I think, I think it made a more profound difference after camp, because for myself, like in various areas, East San Jose area there, there were approximately fifty families, Japanese families renting land, farming. Out of fifty, there were four families that owned the land, out of fifty. So when we came back, we had a place to come back to. The rest of the families had no place to come back to. There were three families never came back to San Jose. They stayed back east. So it was to watch them and what they struggled to go through. We had a place to come back to. But then again, as a whole, as far as we're concerned here in San Jose, we didn't differentiate, because we've got a house, we've got a place to come back to. Those poor guys living out in the cold, what can we do to help you? Everybody was out to help each other out, get a job for them, hire them, use them for workers and so forth. I mean, so we tried to make life easier for them, too, to give 'em a job and so forth. I think in that respect, we felt that we all belonged together. We had to work together to help each other. Because, sure, we had a place to stay, but money-wise, we were low on money, too. I mean, to start up the farm, we've got to buy a tractor, buy trucks and so forth, 'cause that's another story entirely again. But we're struggling to get it going and they're struggling to have a place to stay.

TI: Sure. So everyone is struggling, but you had, it sounds like you had more than others.

<Begin Segment 3>

TI: So where did this sense of community or sharing come from? I mean, you could have gone the other way and said, "You know what? I have more and I'm gonna get more," and just go, go, go. But through your actions, you've been very generous sharing, volunteering. Where does that come from?

JY: Well, I think it comes from, come to Japantown, buy groceries and this and that. And then go to the church area there, here you have people walking around there, homeless people, actually. I was reading the, some of the reports, there were approximately three to four hundred people living at the church at one time.

TI: Right. So there's all these areas where they need help...

JY: Hostels, yeah.

TI: But I'm thinking of you personally, this value of helping others. Where did that value come from of realizing, "Okay, so I need to share what I have, I need to help, I need to volunteer." Where did that value come from?

JY: I think, not, at the time, at the point where I think I myself... I know I've talked about it before, I went to school, high school to be a carpenter. And then because the union didn't allow no Asians in the carpenters union, so I couldn't get a job because that way, I looked different. That's really, made me realize that as long as I look different, it's a challenge for me to change that. And then I came back in June of '46, and soon as I come back, one of the union halls was given my card, and they just kicked me out as fast as I went in. But I went back on my own myself to see if I can change it. And finally in mid-August, they said, "Jimi, okay, you go get a job in a union shop, we'll give you a card." That's when I said, "That's fair enough." So I went down the street and got a job at a union shop, they gave me, they said, "Okay, Jimi, you get your job, you come back and get your card, you'll be a union member." And from there, I didn't know at the time, but... I knew quite a bit, but lot of the Niseis, while they're in camp, they did construction work, right? Maintenance work and this and that, they learned how to do things pretty well. And they worked to join the carpenters union. Never had no experience previously except went to camp for four years, they come out, hey, I was able to help all those guys. There are four or five guys I knew personally, they all got a union card, they went out and got a journeyman's pay. I said, "Boy, I thought I did a real favor to a lot of guys to help them out." That's where I felt real good at the time.

TI: So let me make sure I understand this. So it's almost like when you were treated fairly, that changed you. That sense of being treated fairly, you, by that happening to you and the others who were in camp with the carpenters unit, that in some ways saw, to you, the value of this more equal treatment.

JY: Yeah. Because after that, I went to Los Angeles, I worked for a short time in Los Angeles, not enough work here. And I called two or three of my fellows that worked with me in camp, "Come and work with us." So those three lived different places, we jumped on the car and we used to go to work. At least those three guys got carpenters wages, all the experience was in camp, carpenter work, that was enough. I mean, the basic... and so I thought that's the way to go. As much as I can help people... I think by being bitter and sore all the time, it doesn't pay. It paid off. Lot of times, sure, when I was in business, it was hard, hardship. You're fighting obstacles constantly, but as many times there was lot of rewards come indirectly through being nice to people, being fair and square, I think, regardless of who they are.

I think the biggest time in my life that, when I really found out to be even square, regardless of who they are, I did this Great America, it's a park out there, you know. I'll just kind of give you backtrack, a job there, a friend of mine says, "There's a job for you if you want it at Great America." Okay. So it was 1974, I was on the road up to then. Then went to apply for a job, said, "Sure." That's what I did, and then, okay. So they gave me a job, and right away they gave me a job as a foreman to do all the trim work, the finish work, the doors and windows and all, many other things I have to do. And I was the only Japanese there working, and I was the foreman. So the hakujin guys would give me a bad time, oh, they really chewed me out, you know. Anything to make me miserable. I was the only guy with the name "Foreman." The rest of the guys was "assistant superintendent," "project this and that." These guys can have all that, I don't care. I'll do my job. I had about two hundred guys working under me during that job. And anyway, as time went along, the job was getting close to be finished, so end of 1975, the job, everybody got fired. Everybody got the walking papers. I got my, secretaries, everybody else. So next day, I went to see Al Larson, was the project manager. Says, "Hey, Al, says, we're not done yet. How you gonna finish this project?" Because they had to bring on the maintenance crew, and then the operations crew, and they were union, not union, and the construction part was union. And the construction division was part of Marriott corporation that was doing the job. So they couldn't have one part of the company union, one part of the company non-union. So the union guy says, "Either you be all union or you be non-union." So everybody was fired, no union guys on jobs were here, the so-called operational people would come on the project. Because Easter of that, '76, that's the day of opening. And talked about this and that, they all says, "Jimi, you got your contractor's license?" I says, "Yeah." "Then you got the job if you can finish this project."

TI: So that would be a non-union...

JY: Yeah. I'm the union, but I'm an outsider. I'm not part of the Marriott corporation, I'm an entirely divorced company working for --

[Interruption]

TI: So what we were talking about is, you're just talking about how after the construction, you were now going to be the contractor for the, more operational, the main --

JY: Yeah, operational. You know, right along as I did the job, I had to make a budget, I had to estimate the job and so forth. But my estimates were coming out pretty close according what I had, so much part of the money. It was a thirty-three million dollar project, and I had eight million of it myself. My department had eight million. But I was able to live within the eight million, I guess, maybe that's where Al Larson saw me. But anyway, I finished the project up and naturally they guys gave me a bad time, I just give them a bad time. "Forget you guys, I'm not gonna hire none of you guys." [Laughs] But I finished the job and opened up Easter Sunday. I think at the time, I was fair to everybody. Al Larson saw that, sure, we had, there was approximately four to five hundred men working at one time on the project there, and we're part of the organization to work, and I never made any fuss, I never made any, give 'em a bad time. Sure, I give 'em bad time as a construction schedule, but actually among the workers themselves, everybody was happy. So I think he saw that I was doing a fair job with everybody.

TI: So that's a good story that shows not only being fair is the right thing to do, it feels good, but it's also served you well in terms of your work experience. By being fair, that's helped other people see that and helped promote you.

JY: Yeah, that's the thing. Sure, I got, being Japanese, you get shot down lot of times in construction work, and it gets to be a big hassle, but then again, long as you're fair, I mean, sure you get mad at somebody, but you give 'em a square deal, they'll come back. I have no problem. So that's what my life was all about.

<Begin Segment 4>

TI: When you think about -- going back to the camp experience now -- inside the camp, the Japanese controlled lots of different areas in terms of the administration. How, how well were the Japanese about being fair in, like, job placements and just the running of the camp that they controlled? Do you think that they...

JY: Well, yeah, naturally a lot of people used their influence to hire different people to put them on the job, this and that. In that respect, I guess it was... I don't know. But like they said, one job per family, well, like our family, there was four of us working. There was nine of us, actually, four was capable of working and all four, they all got a job. But we applied for a job and got the job. So we didn't know, but at that time, so we're new in Tule Lake, we came from Heart Mountain to Tule Lake to look for a job. My sister got a job in the mess hall, my brother got a job in the social welfare, my other sister, I forget what she got. Anyway, we all went to work.

TI: So how did that work? I mean, how were you able to, your family able to get those jobs, and perhaps another family not? I mean, was there, how did that work?

JY: What you mean, how it worked?

TI: Well, so yeah, I mean, would your family do something differently so that they would get these jobs? Or I'm just trying to understand...

JY: I don't know how we came about all four of us got a job. Like my father says, just stay busy and stay out of trouble, you won't get in trouble. We're in a new place, Tule Lake, it's gonna be tough. All these different elements coming in from all different part of the country, so always good to be careful what you do. But just as long as you do your job, do it properly... I know they didn't tell me at the time, but after I got out of camp, they used to literally blow me over every time. Like when I put the jail, they didn't give me a hard time then, but after I left camp and talked to them, says, "Boy," says, "you were a bastard building the jail for our own people." But I can't help it, that was part of the deal. I mean, it's part of the job, administration wants it, and I just did what they wanted to do. "But you shouldn't have built the jail." But what the heck's the difference?

TI: Yeah, let me ask you that. So I understand during camp, you're, it's a job and you're doing it. And so after the camp, when people said that, did you think about that a little bit more? Or what do you think about it now that it's after camp and people ask you, "So Jimi, why'd you build the jail?"

JY: I just got to... well, it didn't bother me that much, really. It's all past and done with. They're just telling me the story how a lot of people were very angry with me because I did that. But they weren't angry with me when I made the barrack, I pulled the barracks over to build the stockade. See, before the stockade, it was a processing center, that's what it was. And then just turned out to be no use for it, so they created a stockade out of it. But, see, they didn't know that part of it, that I made the stockade indirectly. Because at the time, they never connected who did what. But jail, I built the jail in front of everybody, and that was more visible, I guess.

TI: Well, so when you do things like the stockade and the jail, again, thinking back, would you have done anything differently?

JY: Done differently?

TI: Yeah.

JY: No, I think part of the administration, our office was, Director Best's office was right next door, and he'll come in and talk to us. And like everybody else, we went and talked to him. And like the jail, Best called me in his office and asked me, "Hey, Jim," says, "we got to build a jail." My stock answer was, "You know, Mr. Best, I'd be a damn fool if I built a jail for my own people." He says, "Well, if you don't do it, somebody else gonna do it." You're up a tree, right? So okay, so I built the jail. But those kind of things, I guess, just being young and feisty, what the heck, I'll try anything.

TI: How about your crew? When you were building the jail or the stockade, did you ever have to talk to people on your crew because they said, "Hey, Jimi, why are we doing this?"

JY: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I said, I had about 250 guys working for me, had different crews. So I went around all the crews asking, "Hey, I've got to build this jail." The first thing they said, "Bakatare. Who in the hell is gonna build a jail for our own people?" But finally I got two brothers from Loomis area, they said, "Okay, we'll do it for you." So they never built a jail, concrete job, and they're a bunch of farmers, right? We're all, like myself, I didn't have that much experience. But we all put our heads together and we built the jail, you know. Crudely enough, but with the equipment we had, it's amazing we even built the jail.

SF: When did the jail go up, Jimi, and when did the stockade go up?

JY: The stockade went up first, real early, when I got there in '43. First part of '44, see, the stockade was mid-'44. Because at the time, they ran out of hostage for prisoner of war exchange with Japan. So the prisoner of war exchange were those Peruvians and Central American people, was brought to United States and they were sent to Japan for prisoner of war exchange. And then the last eight hundred refused to go, so they had to have more prisoner of war exchange. So next best was the processing center. And meantime, people were asking to be repatriated to Japan. So though that, we had to make a processing center. So we dragged four barracks, one barrack for women to sleep in, the other for men, then one was converted to a mess hall, another one was converted to a restroom and laundry room. And then that was, we drug the barracks over from the warehouse, in the meantime, we almost started the jail almost immediately. But mid-July, mid-summer, we started building the jail. And about four or five months, we were done with, the jail was built. But the processing center was, had no fence around it, it was just, there was a fence around it partially, it was in the army compound. And then so they figured they'd have to move a lot of people to, out of there. But meantime, when the first batch went to Japan, meantime, before that, all the Spanish-speaking Japanese was in there. So they looked at them and says, "Who are you? Where you come from?" Said, "We come from America." Said, "You're telling me America is exchanging American citizens for prisoner of war exchange?" Says, "No more prisoner of war exchange." So we saw the copy of the letter through the Spanish embassy, that there will be no more exchanges. Japan refused to make any more exchanges whatsoever. So that was the last, first and last ship that went to Japan from Tule Lake. Then all the building was standing there, meantime, all the riots started in '44, late '44, and they just brought in four towers from the farm area, put double fence around it, made a stockade out of it.

SF: So who was held mostly in the jail and who was held mostly in the stockade?

JY: That question comes up all the time. Just who's who, and I asked them jailed guys, that was in jail, I said, "What the heck you were in for?" Said, "I don't know." Then I asked the guys in the stockade, "What you were in the stockade for?" Says, "I don't know." Maybe they were, they signed up with the, certain organization, and then the other guys, they don't, but domestic violence or whatever it is. But they really didn't know. It just so happened one guy that I talked to, he helped me build the jail. And when I saw him on one of the pilgrimages, I says, "Hey, that's the guy who ran the jail job." He pointed at me and he told everybody, "I was the boss of the jail, jail crew. And I was, after I built the jail, I went into the jail." I don't know why, but since I was putting the jail, this youngster, he was only sixteen, seventeen years old, he was a few years younger than I was. So he was just laughing about it, but that's how it was. I could never tell you who, how they segregated. But the Hoshidan group, they were in the stockade, mostly. But the jail, I didn't know who. So the stockade used to cook the dinner for the jailbirds, so when the jailbirds goes into the stockade, all the stockade people were at one corner while they eat their lunch, then they go out and they come back in. They didn't mingle together, I don't know why, they were next door to each other. But it's odd how that worked. I could never, ever, lot of books, but I couldn't find out how they segregated 'em.

<Begin Segment 5>

TI: So, Jimi, about this time, you're what, twenty-three years old?

JY: Yeah, that's, see, about '44, it's the same time I was for draft evasion was March of '44. That's why that was the middle of the jail job in July, just as the jail job was started.

TI: Is when you got your draft notice.

JY: Yeah. I was tried, '44, March, I was ordered to report for draft.

TI: Okay, so I want to ask more about that, but before we go there, so you're a young man, you're twenty-two, twenty-three.

JY: Yeah, twenty-two, yeah, twenty-three.

TI: And when you did these jobs like moving the barracks or building the jail, who did you report to?

JY: There's a hakujin guy, a farmer, he himself, Roy Campbell was my boss. And eventually when all the segregation started coming in, he got pushed aside. They closed up other camps, and then actually, the camp was operated by the Indian Affairs department. Most of the head guys were from Indian Affairs, and I think that's where they had a, it was an awakening for them, is the fact that they thought we'd be like Indians, very placid people, but we weren't. We were more educated, we were more gung ho, we're in business, lot of people had more drive. And I think in that respect, they called it "riot," that's what caused the riot. Because they were forcing the administration for certain things, and pushing, and I think they got afraid of us, and that's where the riots started, the so-called "riot" in '44.

TI: And so is that when Roy Campbell...

JY: Yeah, when Campbell was the head. In the meantime, so they brought in a lot of the Indian Affairs people, then our staff, population from about two hundred exploded to 550 staff members. And then they went in... it was during the riot time, so they brought in outside carpenters, and they converted, oh, about ten or fifteen warehouses into small apartments.

TI: Oh, just for the additional staff?

JY: Just for the staff. 'Cause they had 550 staff. Meantime, 550 staff, they were really at each others' throat, too, because people that lived in warehouses, like living in barracks, they just had a little compartment-like, and they had to go outside for toilet and everything else, just like the barracks. And meantime, they had to eat in their given mess hall, whereas the other staff had a nicer mess hall, better food and this and that. So it was, it was really dog-eat-dog among the staff.

TI: Oh, that's interesting. So the administration had their own friction, their own divisions...

JY: Oh, terrible friction, yes. Terrible friction, yeah.

TI: I had never, yeah, this is interesting. And how did you see that? How did you know that that was going on?

JY: Because I moved over there. I was released from the camp site, then they asked me to stay behind and work for WRA to close the camps down.

TI: Oh, so this is later on.

JY: Later on. They know the camp's going to be closed March, the given day was March, the camp's going to be closed. So they had to have somebody there to help close the camp down. So...

TI: Okay, so I'm going to come back to that, because I want to talk about the closing of the camps. But I wanted to go back in terms of your supervision. So when, when they gave you a job like moving the barracks for the jail, how much independence did they give you? Was it pretty much, "Jimi, you go figure it out"? or were they constantly saying, "Do it this way, do it that way"?

JY: Yeah, they gave me pretty much independence. They issued me a car, I was the only evacuee that had a personal car. Every day it would change, though, because naturally the hakujin guys would get the better car. Some days I have a pickup, some days I have a car, oh, well. I give 'em transportation. They gave me free hand for most everything, even like when I had to make the dust control system, had to bring water into the camp there. I had to get up about six o'clock in the morning, turn the pumps on, get the water into the camp, and then six o'clock at night I had to turn the pumps off because the water stopped coming. I mean, I had a lot of extra work to do, so that's why I was not in the camp barrack itself that long. I'd be the first one to eat breakfast, then I'd be the last one to eat dinner when I'd get home. So, I don't know, it was just, it was an everyday job. Six days a week I was working, pushing it along.

<Begin Segment 6>

TI: So in general, were the other Japanese, were they appreciative of the work you did?

JY: I don't think half knew what I was doing. I don't know if I ever told you the story, but the water, this canal water, we had almost 20,000 people living there. And the well system was made for 15,000 people, and it was part of our job to watch the water intake into the camp, the sewers, the excess sewers and power and so forth. Electricity was okay, we can manage it. But the sewer, we couldn't take care of that, so they built an extra sewer plant later, but we just flood, hundreds of acres was just flooded out there, raw sewer out there. And then in the meantime, but the water, the water was made for 15,000 people, then we had 5,000 extra people, says, "Boy, we got to do something real fast." So we decided to bring in the canal water. There's a canal not too far from the camp site, we dig a ditch and brought it into the camp. And meantime, I ordered one carload of pipes to bring the water underground, because the sand, water'd just disappear. So I had enough water, pipe from the pumping station into the camp, just got into the camp area, and then from there was an open ditch. Then I think about eighteen-inch pipe, just full blast, water coming out there. By the time we get down to the far end, we lose it all. So every day, I switch water from seven wards. First ward, second ward, third ward, fourth, and so forth. Seven ward, every, seven days a week, the water would be running.

Anyway, I met this guy one day, he had a restaurant in San Francisco, still has a restaurant in San Francisco. And he saw me, he says, "I know you." Says, "I don't know you. Who are you?" I asked him. Japanese guy. He says, "I was a little boy, and I made a boat, little boat with a sail, I was going to let my boat sail on the river there." And the water never came because he was on Ward 7, he was way out in nowhere. And then he really chewed me out. He was kidding, you know, like after we're all grown up, in front of everybody. There was a bunch of guys, we all laughed about it. "Yeah," said, "This darn guy didn't give me no water, there's no water here. Here I worked so hard to put the boat together," and so forth. But there it is, and I got to know him, he came to one of the pilgrimages. Until then, he was just bitter about camp. And he came to camp, talked about it, talked about it, and he talked to other people, this and that. It was a real closure for him. He said he felt so good after he went to the pilgrimage. He says, "You know, Jim," he says, "I was only" -- he had a pretty good restaurant, and he still has it in San Francisco. Was to go back to Japan, was so tied up in knots. This is about twenty, thirty years later, he just couldn't get over it. And finally there was a closure for him.

TI: Good. We're going to get back to the pilgrimage a little bit later, too, I want to ask more about that.

JY: Yeah, these guys, that's how --

TI: But just finishing up the water story, I want to make sure I understand. So you'd move it every day.

JY: Yeah.

TI: And it was an open ditch. What did people use the water for?

JY: For dust control and for irrigating a victory garden or something, the shrubs or trees and this and that. Otherwise it was just losing, I mean, the pumps were running twenty-four, we were using over a million water gallons a day, and that was about the maximum the pumps could take. And we couldn't take any more after that, and we shut the water pressure down with everything. But we had to maintain so much pressure to have the fire hydrant had to have as much pressure in the system, otherwise it would be useless. Because back then, they didn't have what they have today on fire trucks, big pumps that pump the water. Mostly it was, mostly gravity flow type of deal.

TI: Okay, good.

<Begin Segment 7>

SF: So you were really active in construction at Tule Lake, but what about Heart Mountain? Did you do construction?

JY: Heart Mountain?

SF: Yeah.

JY: Yeah, I had... soon as I got there to Heart Mountain, I went to get a job as a junior engineer. I wanted to go to school, and then they look at my resume and they said, "Hey, you belong on the outside. You don't belong in the office." I said, "I want to work in the office." But anyway, they saw my resume, then they were looking for somebody to work on the canal. Well, what happened to the canal, back in the Depression years, they were making the Shoshone canal system to irrigate the whole Heart Mountain basin. And they drilled a hole through the walls of Shoshone canyon, came out, a big siphon pipe and then brought it out, and they finished it, I think, mid-'30s. '36, something like that, he said. And then turn the water on full blast and see how far they can go with this canal. Then there was one part that was lined with concrete, and then water disappeared. Great big gopher hole, the water just sank down and popped out five miles downstream there. So meantime, they didn't have no money, the WPA, so they just left it there. And then that's why the built the camp, so they hired a bunch of us, about twenty of us to go and fill the big hole, compact it, and line it with concrete. So in '42, yeah, '42, fall, we were there, we got it ready, and spring of '43 we went back and we lined the concrete in the canal. And it was in '43 that we could start irrigating the Heart Mountain basin. That's one of the jobs that very few people knew about. Even the local people didn't know about it. And I showed the photos I took, and showed them, and I told 'em exactly where it was. I never been back there, but I'm going back there in August to have that new interpretive center. So I'm signed up, I'll see if I can get a car and drive up to the canal and show them where the canal is.

Then I think a real freakish accident, too. We were building a garage at Heart Mountain, and I was on the roof there. It looks nice and dry, but it's so cold, the wood freezes. It looks dry, but I went on top of that, I slipped, I started slipping. And a guy named Yosh Shimizu, he was big, football player, I think JC Football. I come sliding down the roof, he reached out and just grabbed me, and grabbed me from my shoulder, the strap of the coveralls. Otherwise I would have went right down and been dead. So the other thing, too, when we start putting the roof on, and we have this hot tar, tar used to come in cans before, and it has to be pretty hot to pour it out of the cans, so we'd just throw it in the fire. And it's about ready now, so we get the can there, we get a claw hammer, hit the top and open it. Man, it was so hot inside, it blew in my face there. Whole face was covered in tar. But to show you how cold the air was, soon as it hit the air, it solidified. So it got on my face, but it didn't really burn my face. I had my glasses on, so I had tar all around my face. The Benzene was the cleaner they used to take the tar off, well, that was worse than the tar itself. but it's little things like that.

<Begin Segment 8>

TI: Well, so we should maybe just talk a little bit, so you initially were at Heart Mountain, went to Tule Lake. So why don't you describe why your family or how your family got from Heart Mountain to Tule Lake?

JY: I never asked my dad why he wanted to go Tule Lake. Because I signed "yes-yes" to leave the camp, I wanted to go to school, and I was accepted to Miami University in Ohio. And I was ready to go, and Dad says, "No," he says, "You can't go." And that was a big discussion, and my brother wrote to me, he says, "Well, why don't you go with the family, keep the family together?" I said, "Okay, so what do you suggest?" And that's why I went to Tule Lake, 'cause I was able to work outside of the camp because I was "yes-yes," and do whatever I have to do. But the rest of the family was stuck in camp. And my father took off and went to, wanted to go to Tule Lake, and that's how we went to Tule Lake.

TI: And so what did you have to do... I mean, so administratively-wise, did you just tell them that you wanted to keep the family together and that's why you were sent to Tule Lake? Or how did you work that out? Because otherwise, if you were a "yes-yes," they would probably have just left you there.

JY: Yes. I was of the age I could have broke away. But then again, I just told 'em, "I'm going to go to Tule Lake," that was it. I didn't have no money. Everything you give, it's the old system, you give to your parents, right? Sixteen dollars I made, I took a couple dollars for myself, and the rest, my father got the money. And then I don't know what he did with it, disbursed among the kids. But the first winter in Heart Mountain, it was cold. First time we were dressed like we are now and going to someplace thirty below zero, it's no picnic. And he was saying that one time, he spent over two thousand dollars buying clothing for us. There was eleven of us he had to clothe, right? So at the time, sure, things were cheap, but still only had one set of winter clothes and that's all. Everything was not wool, either. It was the best he could do to fit us up, yeah.

SF: Why did your dad want to go to Tule?

JY: Huh?

SF: Why did your dad want to go to Tule Lake?

JY: I never asked him. I never found out. I didn't have the nerve to ask him. So I just asked my mom one time, and she said she didn't really know why he wanted to go.

SF: So he just said, "We're gonna," he wanted to go?

JY: Yeah. We had the property in Berryessa and everything else, we had a place to go back to, but he still, I don't know why he really wanted to go to Tule Lake. Whether it may have been draftable age, my brother was draftable age, and my brother below me was draftable age. The three of us were draftable age, too. Whether that was it, I don't know. He never said to evade the draft or whatever it was.

SF: Did he talk about going back to Japan?

JY: Never... well, see, that was the biggest problem. Like in any, all the camp, was the same. We really never sat down as a family and talked to each other. At home, yes, we sat down and ate the breakfast together, lunch together, dinner together. But in camp, we'd eat our own, whatever we wanted to eat, go to our friends' or whatever it is. Or like me, I'll go to work early, I'll eat in the first shift, sometimes I'd eat with the workers, then come home. A lot of times I'd eat with the workers, too, because I get home late. So there's no chance for me to discuss any issue with the parents or my brother and sister.

SF: There were eleven sibs, right, all together?

JY: Yeah.

SF: So how did, how did the other eleven, other ten... it's a lot of younger kids, but how did the kids who were old enough to answer the "loyalty questionnaire," how did they, your brothers and sisters, answer that?

JY: Well, I think there was a lot of influence through the parents. My father had lot of influence, 'cause I know my sister stayed behind. She was married in Tule Lake, and then my oldest brother was in Tule Lake, the second one was in the army, the third one was my sister, then I came fourth, and my sister below me, she was not of age yet at the time, so she didn't sign. But, so I don't know. At the time, I think the parents really had a strong hold of us, that, "You should do this, you should do that," type of deal. I think that's what it was. 'Cause I don't think they knew I signed the way I did sign.

TI: But their influence was, "Keep the family together, let's all go to Tule Lake together."

JY: Yeah. The Issei parents, "I'm the boss, I'm the matriarch of the whole family, I'm gonna still tell you what to do, what not to do."

<Begin Segment 9>

TI: So let's move to something else that you talked about earlier. You mentioned in '44 getting a draft notice. It was halfway through the building of the jail. Did you talk to your father about, about that, about the draft notice?

JY: Yeah, I asked him about it. He's the only one really knew. And he says, "Well, you do what you want. You're old enough to know," says, "You do what you want to do." So, but there's so much elements that came into the picture at the time of my draft evasion of going or not going, 'cause I know my brother, when he came to Tule Lake before he was shipped overseas, and he told me how he was treated. You know, they took the guns away from 'em, gave 'em wooden guns. And then when President Roosevelt came, they corralled 'em in the corner with MP watching them with guns, facing them, you know. And then, too, I myself being, as I said before, a civic, history, I always looked forward to the day I can vote. Naturally, I knew I couldn't vote, but I asked the administrator, "You know, I'm twenty-one and I'd like to go and register to vote." He says, "Hell no, you ain't going no place." But I knew I couldn't vote, but still. Things like that kind of set my mind that, "What you gonna go fight for, really?" Be treated like my brother and not able to be American citizen? And then things like that, well, whether I can get in and out of camp, it didn't bother me that much, too much, but still, how my brother was treated. How my nephew, my second cousin, how he was treated. 'Cause his father was dying in Santa Anita, and they told him... at the time, no Japanese were allowed on the West Coast. After that they released, the commanding officers told my cousin, "If we let you go to California to go see your father, we have to send two escorts with you, and we can't afford to send two escorts with you, so you can't go." So they never saw their father alive again. When he saw his father, he was dead. Time he got to Heart Mountain, he spent five days and four nights on the train on the stretcher without no medication with stomach cancer. So when he got to Heart Mountain, he was just skin and bones.

TI: So you thought about all these injustices that were going on, and so you decided to say, to turn down the draft.

JY: That's right. I felt that if that's how we've been treated, I felt no sense me being treated that way just because I looked different.

TI: So did that change your work situation at camp? I mean, did you all of a sudden decide maybe to change?

JY: No, I was gone for a week and nobody missed me. [Laughs] Well, like my younger sister, she didn't know I even went. 'Cause we had three barracks, three rooms with eleven of us, so they give us two medium-sized rooms and one small room. So the boys all slept in one room and the girls slept in the other room with the parents. So we never really gelled together.

TI: So the time you were gone was that short? I didn't realize it was that short.

JY: Just one week. We left, I think, Thursday or Friday, and we stood in front of the judge Monday morning, and then the following Saturday, they finished the case, we were exonerated, and then the following... because we were the first ones to be taken over there, so we were the last ones to come home. But it was... Saturday, I think it was Monday by the time we came home.

<Begin Segment 10>

TI: So let me give some context, because your trial, your draft resistance trial, it's a very important one. 'Cause it was the only one where, as you say, Japanese Americans were exonerated. So your trial was, I believe, in the city of Eureka?

JY: Eureka.

TI: California. And there was a group of you, about how many?

JY: There was twenty-seven of us.

TI: Twenty-seven. And you stood trial for draft evasion. And during the trial, again, you said you were exonerated. But I read a book about this, I believe the judge's name was Judge Goodwin?

JY: Goodman.

TI: Goodman, Goodman. And can you tell me kind of what the court was like, the trial?

JY: Well, the court was, soon as we got there, well, the Monday morning, we stood in front of the judge, all twenty-seven of us, and the judge asked us, "What kind of condition you living under?" Said, "Well, we're under armed guards, fence all around us, and we have twenty-eight guard towers looking at us." "So you're not a free man?" Says, "Nope, we're not a free man." And then after a few other words, then we were all taken back to the jail. And Kawakita, I think was his name, he was one person that stood in place of all of us. He's the one that went back and forth to court. All of us stayed in the jail all of that whole week. And as a young kid, you're afraid, "What the hell's gonna happen to us?" Because we didn't know anything about the Heart Mountain resisters or anybody else, because there was no communication whatsoever. And here we sat there, and to this day, I don't know who my jail partner was. That's how much conversation we had. Anyway, meantime, the judge was told that the case would be draft evader, 'cause he didn't know that until he came there. And he heard about how Eureka was very... what do you say, tough on the Chinese. Told the Chinese, since they finished all the roads and bridges and so forth, they didn't want no more Chinese in Eureka, so they said, "If you don't leave Eureka by a certain day, we'll push you in the ocean or shoot you." And he read that story, so anyway, he made his brief up. Before that, there was a guy named Hill, who was our selected attorney, because the court's select attorney. He had our conviction all written out: "draft evader, broke the law, should be sent to prison." But Goodman says, "Wait a while." Says, "I haven't even heard the case. How could you write such a thing?" So he let him go and brought his own attorney, McGowan, in from San Francisco, and then he stood up for us.

And meantime, big case, the big point of it was that we're, first of all we're not a free citizen. There was no hearing whatsoever like you always heard. And meantime, the draft law stipulates only "free Americans could be drafted into the army." He says, "You're not free, you're behind barbed wire fence, that's what you told me." Said, "Yeah." "And plus, you're not given the due process of law as a citizen that you heard about many times." So, said, "You're exonerated. You can go back."

TI: Now, were you in the court when he said that?

JY: Yes. And so meantime, being the, knowing the local people are very hostile towards the "enemy," they classify him as the enemy because he's releasing the Japanese from the court hearing. So him and the, his court... what is it, recorder, is it?

TI: The clerk, I think?

JY: Whatever it is, this lady, and the court was in second floor, and they parked the car on the first, on the ground floor, had the engine running and all packed. When he made the report, handed the brief to the court clerk, he ran downstairs and got in the car and took off and went home to San Francisco. And it was about ten years ago, eight years ago, I went to Eureka to speak to the high school kids there, and then the lady that was the clerk to the judge came, too. And she remembered me. She was a few years older than I was. And we had a nice talk, you know. She says, "Yeah, it was one of those funny days. I was a young girl," well, she was just out of college, out of UC Boldt Hall. So she, it's interesting to hear her talk about her experience to us.

TI: And so when you're in the courtroom and you see the judge leave right after he gives the verdict and he leaves, what was the reaction in the courtroom? What happened after that?

JY: Well, they just rounded us up and marched us right back to the jail. The thing is, when I went back to see the court, the courtroom, courthouse still stands today. It's chopped up in pieces now, smaller courtroom, but the bench that went forward is still there yet. It's kind of an eerie feeling that you were standing there in front of the judge right there.

TI: Now, were you and the other men surprised that you were exonerated?

JY: Well, not really. We didn't know the works of the law, you know, after all, just a young kid there. But says, "The marshal will take you back to Tule Lake." Then we know we're free. We're not going to jail, right?

SF: Before the decision came up and you decided to resist, weren't you scared or, that you might be sent to prison?

JY: Well, the biggest problem at that time -- see, that was when Tule Lake was in big turmoil. '44, that's when the Hoshidan started getting stronger, and they were really using a lot of muscle tactics to recruit themselves. And so you're all by yourself, you can't talk to nobody because you don't know who they are, 'cause they're all strangers around here because they're from other part of the country besides who do you know? And really don't know nobody. So when I went to the gate to report in, in July, there's one guy that went to school with, another guy that worked with me, so I know two guys out of the twenty-seven. And then this guy I went to school with, his name is Tom Noda, he just passed away recently. "You're one of 'em, too?" I said, "Yeah." "Shit," he says, "a jail's a jail wherever you go. You stay here, go someplace else, that's still a jail." So that was his attitude. "Jail's a jail." "I guess so, Tom," and we all marched down to Eureka.

TI: And so when you got back, then you were just released and just back to work?

JY: Back to work, yeah. Back to work, went back to my construction job.

<Begin Segment 11>

TI: And how about you? Were you changed by this whole experience, thinking how close you were to...

JY: No, not really, no. We didn't walk out of the camp or anything, so we just went back to the same old routine again, nothing changes, right?

TI: But still, it seemed like this might be a life-altering experience of being close to serving time in a federal penitentiary.

JY: Well, we didn't know that, right? If we heard about what's happening in Heart Mountain or Minidoka or Colorado, it might be a different story, but we don't know anything about it besides the early court cases, we're ahead of Heart Mountain, we're ahead of...

TI: And so when, later on, when you found out that there were draft resisters in other camps and they served time, what did you think?

JY: I tell 'em, "You dumb bastard, you're worse than I am." I'm an honest guy, these guys are dishonest. Kidding each other. They tell me, "You had a good judge, we had a lousy judge," you know. But what else, you know, we're just kidding around, but I made a lot of good friends, that I went to several of the meetings with them. I was the only one out of the Tule Lake that would go to any of the functions, the draft resisters functions. We had one in Cheyenne, good portion of them showed up in Cheyenne.

TI: And how about the other draft resisters when they heard your story that you were a draft resister and the judge let you guys go? What was their reaction?

JY: They said, "You're just lucky." Well, you read the book, the Eric Muller book, right? How the other judges treated them. I mean, it was terrible. That was, today's law, I mean, they would have been off the bench right now.

TI: Okay, so you returned... or before we talk about your work, so twenty-seven men were tried for draft evasion. And so you were all issued draft notices at the same time, how many actually went into the service of that first group? Do you know how many actually went into the service?

JY: Everybody that... 'cause we never kept in touch. Then I never had the list for the longest time. One of the draft resisters from Heart Mountain, Tony... anyway, he was in Denver looking through the records, looking for his Cheyenne report. And he ran across my name, "Oh, Jimi Yamaichi." I was listed on that document. So he got everything to do with the Tule Lake case, he copied it for me and sent it to me. That's how I know who was on the list. That was about, oh, five, six years, seven years, ten years after we got out of camp. 'Cause I knew him at the Heart Mountain through work or something. Jack Tono, his name was. Jack Tono. And Jack sent it to me.

TI: That's good. But not so much the draft resisters, the ones who went into the military. Were there very many from Tule Lake that went in the military?

JY: No, nobody. Nobody went to military. That was a closed case. I haven't heard, not one, 'cause we were right in the administration building, I would have known about it, heard about it.

TI: So after, after they sent the draft notices to you and others, did they just stop doing that at Tule Lake?

JY: Yeah, because nobody showed up. Maybe somebody did show up, I don't know. Maybe they, middle of the night, took off and joined the army. That we don't know.

TI: But there were no more cases of draft evasion.

JY: No more cases. So I guess the draft board, 'cause the draft board changed to a local draft board. Because according to the law, we're supposed to maintain our old draft. I'm supposed to have my San Jose draft board give me my instructions, but according to that, we were changed to Alturas draft board. I have the whole documents.

TI: Yeah, it was fascinating when I read about this, and I heard about the Tule Lake draft resisters. That was really interesting.

SF: So since the community sort of changed their attitude about resisters, did your personal attitudes change about what you did over the years? You know, the '50s and the early '60s, the resisters thing really got big in the '90s.

JY: Well, yes, they did. Several of my friends there, one of, George Kurasaki passed on so I could say his name. But I didn't know he was a draft resister, but he didn't tell his family until six months before he died. The daughter, Janie, says, "My dad told me he was a draft resister." 'Cause I didn't think she knew. And I said, "Don't feel bad," says, "I was a draft resister myself, but I was exonerated. I didn't go to jail like your dad did." But many, I think that the saddest one is the Seattle case of Yosh Uchiyama... Yosh... shoot, I can't think of his name. Anyway, he was a draft resister from Heart Mountain, and went to McNeil Island. And his mom would come every week, once a week, it took her one day just to get up there on the bus, cross over on the ferry, from the ferry, get on to McNeil Island to go see her son. See her son one or two hours, that's it, and come home. And he was released, and then his mom told his friend that, "My son was released from jail." "Oh, your son was a draft dodger?" Says, "Yeah." Says, "We don't want you to come to our functions no more." She was exonerated -- not exonerated, she was more or less excommunicated from the organization. And then she committed suicide. She was so heartbroken, after struggling to go see her son every week, and then people told her, "Don't come to our organization no more," because her son's a draft...

TI: Now, was that, did you ever have that experience where you were, sort of felt that draft resisters were sort of ostracized or shunned by the community? Did you feel that?

JY: Well, I don't know. They don't tell me directly. Among themselves, they might say that I was a draft resister and so forth, but each one has their own choice of what they want to do, I guess. But I think, I think the harshest one is not being a draft resister, like a friend of mine, a very good friend of mine, he was drafted, went to Shelby, trained, and he was on the boat, and the war ended, and then there were the 442 guys that fought over there in Europe, says, "You can't call yourself 442, you didn't kill no Germans." I mean, what the hell. Says, "I was going in good faith. I was going overseas, I was on the boat already, I was going and the war ended, so what?" "Well, still, you didn't shoot nobody, so you're not..." things like that. People made harsh remarks like that. So I'm pretty sure they're making harsh remarks to me about it. Not to me directly, but behind me. So it's hard to say.

SF: Most people probably didn't know you were a resister though, right? Because if you came back to Tule within a week and started doing the normal stuff, then...

JY: Nobody knew. Nobody knew, because the Hoshidan was so... blanket the news, nothing like that came out. Only thing that came out was the local Eureka paper. And the guy gave me all the clippings of what, pretty much, Eureka paper. "They were freed," it's a fairly decent article, but I don't know, I misplaced it someplace. One of these days I'll find it. It wasn't all that bad, even a local paper.

<Begin Segment 12>

TI: So Jim, we're going to get going again, so the second hour. And something you mentioned earlier and I said we'd get back to it was the closing of Tule Lake and how you were there to help close it up. So can you talk about... I mean, you talked a little bit about at some point working for the WRA and moving out of the camp and into the administration area. So why don't you pick it up there and kind of talk about what you did?

JY: Yeah. I moved from the camp, from the barracks. In the meantime, my brother and all wasn't home, I think they were already gone. And the, Rickets was the head engineer at the time, and he asked me, "Well, how about a job here to help close the camp up?" We had to close our records and so forth. And meantime, my father wrote and says, "Stay there as long as you can," because we had no place to stay at the time. It's just temporary quarters, a small place. So that way they can alleviate the space. Okay, so anyway, so I took the job. It didn't pay very much, and so different things, we're taking care of the construction part, I was going through different records and this and that. And I was talking about the water pipe that I was looking for. And in the meantime, I ran across this bill of lading. And one car, pipe the size I was looking for, it was shipped, they paid for it, and I remember there was only one pipe in the car. So there was one carload, one pipe is one carload, right? So one carload of pipe, so someone siphoned it off on the way there. That's why I didn't have that pipe. I was wondering why the pipes don't come. Because the WRA has the highest, the number two rating as far as material that we need immediately. We're allowed to get, the army is number one, and the WRA was number two. So we can get most anything we want, like tires and gas and oil, we worked to get all that supplies, because we were classified as high priority. And that's why I was able to get the pipe, you just send a requisition in. And in the meantime, somebody stole the whole carload of pipes. Things like that I found out through records how they siphoned a lot of stuff.

But I think that the funniest part of my job there when I, when everybody left on March 20th, a couple days later, says, "Hey, Jim," says, "we got a job for you." "Okay, whatever it is." "You have to go through every barrack, every room, every toilet, everything, wherever people is, got to check that there's no dead body. And as you go, open every barrack." I went through every barrack, looking into beds, shaking, getting a stick and shaking everything out. And then odd how people leave their things. Some people wash their dishes, stack them up nicely, because they were bringing, they had to go get the food elsewhere someplace, because they had to walk maybe four or five blocks to get the food because there's nobody there. So they shut this mess hall down and they opened one, another. So everybody started to go along there. And some people washed it, some people just leave the bed as is, some people just walk off. Just as they ate it, they just walk right off the table. I mean, you know, how different people kept the place clean and some people took everything they had. Nothing in the room, they took the furniture and all. Dishes and blankets, everything else was gone. And some places, the only thing they couldn't take was the cots and mattress. But other than that, because the WRA told them, says, "You could take whatever you want." The trucks would take, so everybody made boxes and this and that. And towards the end, they would look for me and say, "Hey, Jim, we need lumber. We need lumber, plywood. So I'd give 'em all the, whatever we had, scraps, we'd give 'em to them and they made boxes. They packed everything up, much as they can, so many people from Tule Lake brought home a lot of things.

But I think in '44, I think it was '44, late '44, WRA wanted to get everything out of their government warehouse, and so they were delivering everything that was in the, you had anything stored in the government warehouse, we'll come to barracks in Tule Lake. And I know one guy had a store someplace, I don't know where, and so he had a lot of chinaware. He just left them because useless, couldn't sell it. And a lot of Imari ware, real fancy chinaware. And I had tons of that stuff come in. Meantime, he sold it for a nickel, a penny, a dollar or whatever it is, whatever he can get out of it. And one of my trips up there, I went to the dumps, and I seen this fine chinaware, a friend of mine found a sake cup, perfect shape, real nice. We asked the collector, said it's worth a fortune. In the meantime, the fairgrounds, they had a museum, and they show, this kind of china is Imari ware. We ate off of Imari ware china for mess hall, this and that. [Laughs] Says, "Hell, no. We ate those big old army dishes." Trying to explain to them, we can't tell the whole story to everybody. But I told that caretaker of that museum how that came about.

TI: And that was just leftover, I mean, left?

JY: It was just left behind. And then what was left behind, they just took it to the dumps. And there's one picture I'll show you, there's, it has a koi nobori, the carp, Boy's Day carp, the big carps flying all over Tule Lake area because they had 'em, they came into it, so got 'em for nothing, they just, well, put 'em up there. So you see one picture with all the kois flying around. Things like that, knowing, but anyway, so the meantime, this guy named Hathaway, I forgot his first name. Anyway, he worked for the Park Service. And he was kind of an archaeologist in a way and Park Service, and he says, "You know, the Japanese people are very meticulous." Says, "All the stuff that, china dishes and so forth, is nice and straight row. The barracks are all gone now, right? And kind of made me chuckle to myself. Says, "You know what happened?" Says, "The farmers didn't want the chinaware, so they just threw 'em out of the door. So the barracks are in a straight row, right?" So everything got thrown out. It just falls in a straight line. And he says, "Yeah, I guess so." But little things like that, I know, that happened. It's very interesting because most of the guys, I helped to clear up the records and this and that, and they're all different finagling. But I made more boxes and more crates for the staff to leave the camp site. So finally, I did that for about two or three months, they put a stop to that. The director Best says, "No more favoritism."

TI: You mean making boxes for...

JY: Boxes for the staff to leave. They're all leaving, right? There was about a couple hundred left behind. There's a picture of us, last two or three hundred that was there, I'm in the picture but there was about five or six of us Japanese stayed behind and helped close the records.

TI: So at this point, everyone's out...

JY: Everybody's out. The barracks are empty, and there's this one picture of the camp, overall picture, and then they said, "This is what the camp looked like?" I said, "No, that's after the camp closed." You look in the stockade, you could see all the trucks and different vehicles parked inside the stockade because the stockade was the only place that had fence clean around it. Things like that I can notice because knowing, I had a part in doing it.

<Begin Segment 13>

SF: So during this period, were you free to go, leave Tule?

JY: Yeah.

SF: So you were civilian?

JY: No, I'm a civilian now.

SF: So you were getting paid...

JY: Yeah, getting paid.

SF: So when, when could you leave Tule?

JY: Huh?

SF: When could you leave Tule Lake?

JY: It was the 22nd of February.

SF: They gave you a letter saying...

JY: Yeah, you were free. And then I looked at the Freedom of Information Act, the WRA record, I was, already had my free release in August of '45. But why they kept me to '46, I don't know. It says on there: "Jimi Yamaichi released."

SF: But you never got any kind of notification?

JY: No, never got notice about being left in August, but was held until February.

SF: So did you think, "How come they're keeping me and why is everybody else leaving?"

JY: Well, I don't know, see. Because of the fact that when I was in the front office there, I heard they were talking about, says, "Well, we don't want to keep, make another Indian reservation, so we've got to, everybody got to get out." So that's where they made that harsh date, November, all the other camps, and they kept Tule Lake. And so a lot of 'em are walking, leaving camp at the end, in Tule Lake. So they know how they, what they did, they picked up the menfolks and told 'em, "Well, you're a Hoshidan member or whatever, any kind of excuse, they grabbed 'em and they sent 'em to Fort Lincoln. And here the poor mama and the kids are standing all by themselves, so what else do they do? They gotta leave, right? They couldn't stay there, no breadwinner, no money, no nothing. So the wives, the mothers and children were left. But meantime, the father was all taken to Fort Lincoln. So that's how they emptied the camp out. And then some of them, I don't know, most, the majority of them went to Fort Lincoln, some went to Crystal City. Meantime, Lordsburg was closed, so they couldn't go to Lordsburg. But Fort Lincoln was the biggest collection. So three hundred at a time, they got on the train, took off.

TI: So can you describe the last group leaving Tule Lake? What was that like for the last people leaving?

JY: The last people leaving, I don't know if you talked about that once before, but by then, it's almost four years, no income, a lot of 'em, no income, zero. And then they came in with their shirt on their back, they're going out without the shirt on their back, just about. And I know I've said it once before, but knowing a lot of 'em couldn't afford after their father or loved one died, couldn't even afford an urn. And meantime, the urn will come to the camp site, and they go to the mess hall and Hills Brothers Coffee can, and transferred. And then poor mom, in order to sit through, whatever it is, you could see them clutching the coffee can like this as they walked out. That's all they had. A lot of 'em just so saddened, they couldn't care less what they brought with them. But that's one of the sad things about seeing these people leaving, walking out with a coffee can. I know what the coffee can was, the ashes of their loved ones. And nowhere to go, no money, no nothing. It's really, really sad because they're like, as a rule, in construction, we take a coffee, actually the smoke break, everybody smokes. And they'll say, Isseis will say, "Saki ga wakaranai de tsurai." "Our future's unknown, so it's very trying." Because they have no home, no nothing, they got to start from scratch, right?" You got to buy a car, blankets, pots and pans and this and that. Hearing that and seeing these people walking out with the coffee can in their hand, you know, really make you feel how lonely it was for them to leave as the last batch was being pulled out of there. 'Cause the last batches were, were taken by bus to Klamath Falls to get on the train. Before, the train used to come down, get a train of three hundred people. Why three hundred would be loaded on and they take off. But towards the end, there was not three hundred. They couldn't get three hundred together so they had to take 'em by bus. They would get on the bus and go to Klamath Falls. But at the time, 'cause I got a disturbing call when I was there working for WRA as a civilian. My father called and says, "We need a tractor." Once I knew that we needed a tractor, says, "I can't buy a tractor. Nobody'll sell me a tractor."

TI: Jimi, you told me that story earlier, so we'll... yeah...

JY: You remember that one?

TI: That one and the truck, yeah, they got a big truck later on. But I was thinking, when you were closing the camp down, a few years later, during sort of the, what we called the Red Scare, the Communists, that there was talk of actually having camps available for the Communists. And I think Tule Lake came up as a potential site.

JY: Yes, it did.

TI: And so I was wondering if there was any discussion when you were closing camps to keep certain things running or in place in case it had to be used as a camp again in the future.

JY: Yeah, well, they kept everything running. It was several years before the camp was, started to be dismantled. We were told that everything got to be, stay put, that's why they wanted to bring all the trucks, moving equipment into the stockade so they had the moving equipment all fenced in there. And the fence, none of the fences were touched. And when we were leaving, they actually locked the gate behind us and says, "A caretaker will take care from here on." The army was gone way before we did, I mean, the army was really, they were, I think in '45, mid-'45, they were released, so internal security was watching the gate. The gates were open for everybody. I think that's when all the pictures were taken. There's, a lot of pictures were taken after we left. Well, time we were leaving, people were taking picture with a camera. But most of us, we didn't do too much work. There was not much work. For me, I had my job pretty well done, and was helping the Caucasian workers pack up and leave and get on there, some got trailers, some packed up their cars and left. The hakujins that I worked with were real nice. I mean, I had some real good, made good friends with them.

TI: But you also earlier mentioned that when you lived over there, you also learned that there was also friction and divisions amongst the administration? So why would there be that kind of division or friction?

JY: Well, see, because the people that used to work for Indian Affairs, they all hung together. And they lived in the best living quarters. And then the people that was not with the Indian Affairs lived in the converted warehouses, barracks. And they ate in different mess hall, they didn't eat in the same mess hall. So thing like that, so they were not too happy. I mean, they were cussing each other all the time. Yeah, it's really, you could see the, you could almost slice it the way they were talking.

TI: And then earlier you mentioned, so when you finally left, you said they just closed the gates, locked the gates and you guys walked away.

JY: Walked away.

TI: So the barracks were all still there?

JY: Still, everything was intact. Everything was intact. Nothing was touched, nothing was torn down, nothing was moved, no. Nothing. It was as-is. And got on the bus and came home.

TI: And then, but who was then left there? I mean, did they have...

JY: They had just one guard, watchman just watching, that's all there was, people patrolling that area.

TI: And when you walked away from that, what did you think? I mean, here you had spent years of your life, and there used to hold 17-18,000 people there, and now you walk away and there's just one person watching this whole thing. Did you have any thoughts about that?

JY: Not really. I guess you're anxious to get home, just get away from all this. Because it was exactly four years to the day I left. I went in on Memorial Day of '42, and came out Memorial Day of '46. Actually, well, from February to Memorial Day 'cause I was working for the WRA, but still I was in the camp site. So I spent my four years in camp walking the areas there.

<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So I'm going to jump here now, because I want to now talk about the pilgrimages. And so tell me when the first time you went on a Tule Lake pilgrimage.

JY: First time was in '91, when I first went, I really cried. Really cried because... tears came out of my eyes, just rolled out. We talked to different people, see different people, and I happened to run across... her name was Hara, last name was... I forgot what her first name was. She's married to a Chinese, name was Wong, changed it to Wong. "I'm so and so Wong." Yeah, they were in our block, they were one of those very unfortunate people with very little money. It was really, you feel sorry for them. Anyway, when I met her they talked about old times, about Block 27 and about different people we knew, this and that. And she just had tears in her eyes seeing that. I just wondered what happened to them. Especially the ones that really was struggling. We knew they were struggling. It was the only time... so then I decided I should be out there and tell my story. Tell everybody it was no picnic, I don't care what the hell they say it was. Because at the time, it was mostly all the young generations was running the pilgrimage there, and they don't know. They didn't live it, we lived it.

TI: And so back in '91, how many Niseis or how many former prisoners --

JY: At the time, I think there were only about, the registration was three hundred something, and there were like eighty-something former Tule Lake. And after that, every year, it started getting bigger and then it started going the opposite direction. There was more former Tuleans than the Sanseis. And I think about the third or fourth, we took over completely the operation of the Tule Lake Pilgrimage. Mostly all former Tule Lake people. So it got to be we have to do it attitude, all of us. We should go out there and tell the people the story. So it was an eye-opener for me, that we have to. My wife and I says, "You got to do this."

TI: So I have to ask this question because I asked my parents, they were at Minidoka. And I asked them if they'd ever go back to a Minidoka pilgrimage, and they kind of look at me funny and says, "Why would we ever want to go back there?" I mean, did you get a lot of that from Niseis saying, "Why would we ever want to go back there, and why would you have a pilgrimage?"

JY: Yeah. Well, I think it isn't why we had to go back there, we should go back there and show the people where we lived for four years, how we lived for four years. It isn't damning the government, but it's because we look like what we looked like. That's the only reason why we're there, because it wasn't military necessity we had to move. All the books were written later on, was strictly political and personal, and they wanted the Japanese out of California, that's it. There was nothing military about it.

TI: But then you said earlier, the first time you went to the pilgrimage, it was mostly Sanseis.

JY: Yeah.

TI: And then about eighty Niseis. But then over the years, it flipped. It was mostly Niseis and fewer Sanseis. But if it's all Niseis, then you're just, you all know the story already, right?

JY: But the thing is, Niseis, what the Sanseis are leaving, the new group, the kids start, want to come, of the former camp people. Not Tule Lake, Poston, Colorado. And then all the camp people, kids started infiltrating and want to know, want to know what's happening. It isn't that Tule Lake is good or bad or different, they want to know how was it in camp, why their parents, just like Will Kaku, when they went a few years ago with his dad to Tule Lake, he went by himself, that's right. And he confronted his dad about certain things, and his dad answered him. Until then, he could never, he was at odds with his dad. Then for the first time Will found out what caused that. It was a camp experience that made him so indifferent, so bitter. Because personally he's a very friendly person, but to Will, to the family, is very cold, just like a clam. Doesn't say a word. I think those kind of things there, I ran across, like one of the pilgrimage, I was the resource person, 'cause I was a camp person there. And this father and son, the son could never along with the father. He could never understand his father's feeling and this and that. And so we sat and discussed the issue, talked about this and that, I gave a few pointers, this and that. Then the father opened up and then told the story about his growing up with his parents and Japanese camp life and so forth. Then his son said, "That's why that's different." So the next morning at breakfast time I stopped by and saw them, I said, "How you doing? How's your dad treating you?" Says, "Now I understand my dad. I really understand my dad, what he went through. It just stuck in his mind, and he just can't let that part of it go." So there's a lot of closures for a lot of people. And I think, when I see that, I think, really makes me happy

I think one of 'em there, that was really, talking about how these kids, these youngsters, five, six, seven eight years old, they don't know where money comes from. So they see somebody over there with something in their hand, whatever, shoes or baseball glove. They ask the parents for it, the parents says, "Well, we can't afford it, we can't buy it." "Why can't you buy it? Johnny's father buys it for him, why can't you buy it for me?" I mean, you know, with no money, you can't, how do you tell your kids, "We don't have the money"? "We're poor, they're richer than we are"? What do you do? Things like that... anyway, the husband and the wife, and then they had a daughter with them in our discussion group. And I was talking about this. Simultaneously, they didn't know each other in camp, they were still youngsters, four or five years old, they, maybe older, but must have been about six or seven, they went through that experience. And both of them started crying at the same time. Then they realized why the parents couldn't get what they wanted to get for us at the time. Both sides later on told me, "Yes, I wanted certain things and I could never get it. I was so mad at my parents," and the other side, girls said the same thing. And that's... and then the daughter says, "It's okay, it's all right, I'm here, but let your feeling out. You went through the suffering, and then you could never understand to this day why." When I told the story, boy, to me it was just shocking, somebody just bawl out crying. So it did some good.

TI: So the pilgrimages are a place for people to be able to share and open up their...

JY: Share, yeah. Because I never asked which camp they came from or anything, they were both in camp. So Tule Lake or not, I don't know. I didn't even care. Anyway, those kind of things are, I think, different.

<Begin Segment 15>

TI: So in 1991 was your first pilgrimage, and then shortly after that you started getting involved in helping to organize the other pilgrimages. When you think about that first pilgrimage, what kind of things did you want to change? What things were kind of missing for you and you wanted to add to the pilgrimage?

JY: The story, the life, the conditions, and the living among other Japanese, and the pressure that the children would put on their parents.

TI: So almost the filler, the stories behind it. So the Sanseis kind of knew what the camp was, but they didn't know the stories behind it.

JY: The story, yeah. I mean, they didn't know how much money their parents carried or brought into camp, or, you know, they didn't know a pair of shoes cost six dollars, and then, but that six dollars is almost half a month's paycheck. Could you spend a half a month's paycheck for a pair of shoes today? Or things like that, don't realize it. Because that sixteen dollars, that's all the income they had, right? And then four or five people got to depend on the sixteen dollars. You got to buy soap, you got to buy tissues, you got to buy towel, clothes and everything else with sixteen dollars.

TI: So how do you get that information across? I mean, so you have three hundred people, how do those stories, those everyday little details come out?

JY: Well, usually I try to interject as little bit here and there, especially on the bus. I give more detail on the bus, you know, because lot of people said, "Oh, you're lucky, you got Jim on your bus." Some of 'em might jump buses. And the last time I jumped onto a Seattle bus, and, "Oh, you got to come back again." I said, "Well..." anyway, like traveling up there or traveling back down, sometimes I just pick up certain things, certain areas there. It's just the way I feel like, sometimes I just keep, my wife says, "Keep your mouth shut." But people got to know about it.

TI: Well, and another thing that you tell stories, and I've been on this, is the walking tour at the pilgrimage, that you would just take a group and we'd just walk and you would talk. And so when did that start? Did that start right away?

JY: That started about second or third pilgrimage I went up there, yeah, I volunteered. I did a walking tour, and then first time, I only had a bus full, next time, I had too many guys. [Laughs] So, you know, it's just very interesting topic. I mean, I know the grounds, I walked the grounds many, many times back and forth, so, and I see different things, you hear different things.

<Begin Segment 16>

TI: You know, I'm curious, so you've done this for, I mean, 1991, so that's twenty years ago.

JY: Twenty years, yeah.

TI: Halfway through that, 9/11 happened, September 11, 2001, the terrorists attacked in Twin Towers and the Pentagon. How did that event come into play for the pilgrimage? Did that event or the circumstances ever come up?

JY: I think the event, I don't know if I told you, one time or another about the "Nosei" group, the hapa group. But they don't belong nowhere, so they call themselves "Noseis." And then too many Sanseis want to join that group, so it kind of fell apart because they said, "Noseis" would say, "You don't live our lives, you don't know what it means to be a hapa," right? "You're pureblood Japanese, and sure, you lost some of your rights and this and that, but still, inside of you, as you walk out of the door, you don't understand our feelings." And so it kind of fell apart. But anyway, I was sort of like their advisor to them. One of them asked me to be advisor, "Sure, I'll help you guys. Sure can." And they had the first meeting of the Muslim groups, and December the 7th, Pearl Harbor Day at San Francisco's Peace Plaza. And they asked different people to speak and then most of 'em refused. Majority of 'em, all of them refused. They asked me, I said, "Sure, I'll speak for you." So I spoke on the behalf of the Muslim people, not to judge the people by their looks like we were judged by our looks. That's the reason why we were put in the camp, and we were there for four years and so forth. And then few other times I spoke up for them, and they had a party one time, and there was a thousand people there. And they, the national Muslim organization gave me a plaque, peace plaque, and they stood up and gave me a standing ovation. I didn't do nothing. But he spoke up for us and made us happy because I would just tell you, "Don't worry. Sure, you look like a Muslim, but you're not... you're yourself. Be yourself, don't be afraid." So I think something like that makes you feel good that at least you've got your word across to tell the people, fight for it.

TI: And what similarities do you see the Muslims going through now that you had to go through as a Japanese American?

JY: Because they look like, Muslims look like the terrorists, right? They got beard, and now they don't wear them, before they used to have a lot of turbans, and the clothes, and the women wear their local clothes more so. I think just be like an American and look like an American and act like an American, then nobody can really pick on you. Because you're an American, you're born here. Just don't get all shook up because they're after you. Sure, they were after us, but how far they got? Sure, they talked, they're gonna ship us all over or kill us, all of us, so what? I think, I tell everybody, you got to know the culture of the people, their background, then you will never get mad at the people, I think. That's the problem. They didn't know our background, our Japanese American background, why we were treated the way we were. I think that's the only thing.

TI: So were you able to bring this connection also to the pilgrimage? You talked about this December 7th event, did it ever come to the Tule Lake pilgrimage?

JY: Yeah, I talked about that. And I talked with many students, upcoming DOR day, I'm supposed to be the speaker, so I'll bring that up. I'm gonna bring the plaque with me to show 'em, "See, this is proof that you don't have to march down the street, up and down." You just talk to people like you talk to everybody else and tell 'em, "Don't be afraid. You're just Americans like we are and anybody else are."

TI: Have Muslims come to the pilgrimage?

JY: Yeah, they come. There was always two or three of 'em always come every year.

TI: And when you talk with them, why do they say they're coming?

JY: No, they're willing to tell their stories, too, and hear our story. They'd like to hear our story. So up to now, they've been, we've been hearing their stories, so this year, Will wants me to talk about our story. So I'll just have, I can unload everything. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 17>

TI: You know, you're part of the committee, so you get to see the behind-the-scenes kind of planning, the work, the problems, the hassles. Over the twenty years that you've been involved, what have been some of the big challenges for the committee and putting on the pilgrimage?

JY: Well, to me, I don't know. There's... I think the challenge, I think we kind of lost our challenge because of the fact that people know what we do, they want to know, they want information, they come to the pilgrimage, and they voice their opinion or they voice their story, tell the story, or they want to know about certain things. They come there and then they get... because, you know, the pilgrimage, they never talk about baseball, football, who won the Super Bowl or anything else like that, it's just parents, what did our parents do? What did you have to eat, what did you do all day? They always, everybody's full of questions and you want to fill their voids in their life. That's all it is for me, I try and help fill the voids in their lives much as I can. And it isn't that I know it all, but I can speak up from experience. Because being involved with the administration, with so many people working together and that part of it. So I'm able to give better perspective than average. A lot of people worked in the mess hall, all they do is dish out food all day long. "Damn food, lousy cook." That's all they can talk about, lousy cooks. But hey, they only give you so much, and that's all you're gonna live with, right? I mean, you got to tell the story. They didn't have an order, listing order, so many chickens, so many beef and this and that. "Here it is, guys, you got it, you make it." So you got to tell the facts of life. I think then once they hear that, then they can understand, "Well, my mom says she didn't like to eat this and that." Like us in Tule Lake, we had peanut butter 365-odd days of the year, sitting in the middle of the table every day. I get, just looking at it, you get tired of looking at it, right? You don't want to put it on the bread or nothing because you see it every day. But things like that, certain things like our parents disliked this, disliked that, then they hear about it and now they know why they dislike it because you see it every day, every day, every day. That's those kind of stories there that's daily life type of deal.

TI: How about stories about the planning committee, though? When you had to plan the pilgrimage, behind the scenes, were there some difficulties?

JY: Well, yeah, behind the scenes it's tough sometimes, the discussion. A lot of it is financial, because how many people will get scholarship to go there free or partial scholarship. But we've been very fortunate, we've been balancing our books for how long, people donate enough money. But, so behind the scenes, yes, the logistics of, the topics that we've been bringing up. We're still, intergenerational thing is the number one thing. We've got to have intergenerational meeting to give the people a chance to talk about it. And then there's other logistics like the cemetery, shall we go to the camp site or shall we go to Linkville, or the bus route, how should... so I let them handle as much as they can, and they want to change the bus routes, fine, see how it works. It doesn't work, well, we have to change it again, go back to some of the old fashioned ways. Some of the older guys would like to go back to the old way, how I used to do it. So, "Well," I says, "you guys decide. Tell me and I'll work with you, whatever I can." But get to the point where twenty years is a long time. [Laughs] Getting to... I says, "Well, 2012, in another year I'll be ninety, and oh, I don't want to be doing it again," but who knows? If I'm physically able, well, I'll be doing it to tell the youngsters the story. I think they got to know.

<Begin Segment 18>

TI: A few years ago there was an incident where someone shot the windows of the buses?

JY: Yeah.

TI: How did the committee handle that? What did you guys talk about?

JY: Well, we didn't make a big deal of it, we just said, well, one of the, I think three buses or four buses got shot, and they only said two buses got shot. And nobody was in it, this and that. And then said, from the following year, says, "The police department will put a patrolman out there, and don't worry about it." The Klamath Falls people was very, very good about, right away, they says, "We'll have guards out there." So the drivers said they'll be more careful where they parked the bus. The precaution there has been taken, so, and nobody even asked about it after that. There's, one window was shattered all the way through, actually, because it was shattered all the way through, the bus cannot be, travel. They got to change the glass because that safety glass, they came home.

TI: So there was an actual hole in the...

JY: That's right, hole, yeah.

TI: I've talked to you a little bit about this before, and one of the things that you really worked hard at was really getting the locals involved with the pilgrimage and reaching out to the local population there? Can you talk a little bit about that?

JY: Well, reaching out, I don't know. I think the experience of Tule Lake pilgrimage has been so well received. I think to reach out to people is no problem. I mean, we have more that we have to, we have to even shut our quota off. We'd like to shut it off at three hundred --

TI: Well, not reaching out to the community, I mean reaching out to the Klamath Falls community.

JY: Oh, up there at Klamath Falls there? Well, yes, what we've done, we've changed... we're always at the community level, says, we got to be, we've got to leave more money behind at Tule Lake. It's a town that's suffering. And so let's have, before, we used to bring a box lunch from the... last time you went, we had box lunch, we ate box lunch. Said, "Let's buy our lunch in Tule Lake." So we had the restaurant come in a couple times. Then one year, the fire department was having a deal there, and they have a barbeque for the, whatever it was that was happening there. Says, "Can we join you guys and have our lunch? We'll buy the lunch from you guys." "Okay, that'd be all right." And then for the last three or four years now, they cook our lunch for us now. They have a barbeque, the fire department has a barbeque for us, so that much money, we'd leave behind. You know, you figure it's ten dollars, twelve dollars apiece for three hundred. That's a pretty chunk of change, you know. It's guaranteed money. So we are trying to get them warmed up, and then logistically, the people are changing. The older guys are dying away, and they're selling off the property and new people are coming in, the new blood into the system. And the other thing, too, what made it real nice for us was Cindy Wright, who's in charge of the fairgrounds, she'll open the place up for us, the bus would make a pit stop and so forth and use the facilities. And then she opened the eyes to many of the local people: we're just as good, we'll pay our share, if we use the facility we leave money behind, we don't use it freely. So, and then I spent the first ten years, I went up there I don't know how many times. One year I went up there ten times to Tule Lake. I catch hell every time, but just keep going back and back. It's like going to the union hall. I know you'll catch hell, but I still go back. And they just shoot me down, but it's okay. "Okay, so that's what you feel, but I can't change your mind." That's all you can say. What else can you say, but this is what happened. They give you all kind of song and dance, but still, they just keep going back and talk to them. So I think that's the only way. Then, too, I talked to you earlier, was eight years, the time we started working on the NPS project, right? Eight years...

TI: This is the National Park Service.

JY: National Park Service.

TI: To get them to recognize the...

JY: Like Stephanie Toothman from your area, Seattle, I mean, she was real good. And John Jarvis, I think they're the ones that once we got the National Historic Site nailed down, then they, I think they went to work after that, said, "See, it's worth saving it." And then I think we used to have meetings about once a month or so up there, Oakland, and talked to different people. And many, many hours up there. But it was just consistently, not to be demanding, "What can we do next? What can we do next?" constantly.

<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So while you were doing this, so you're spending lots of time, what's your vision? I mean, what, what facility or presence do you see in the future?

JY: Well, my vision, that's, one of the park ranger asked me, says, "Oh, it's a pipe dream, but it'll never happen." Anyway, "Tell me about it." I said, "Oh, I personally would like to see an interpretive center built up at Tule Lake, and build a hotel up there on top of the hill." And we have some tremendous amount of natural resource, we've got the lava beds, we have the wildlife preserve, we have Captain Jack's Stronghold, we have Tule Lake camp site, and we have Crater Lake. We have all these beautiful areas there, they could start, make the home here, and we'd have buses going out all, every day to all these sites and have five points of interest that they can go around and see and learn of all the different things and the history of the area. That's my pipe dream which will never happen, but to get an interpretive center, it'd be real nice. But the traffic's not there like Manzanar. We don't have the traffic. So how much could we do? So I'm collecting stuff gradually, we sent a truckload up there already, right now, of artifacts, stuff.

TI: And if you had an interpretive center at Tule Lake, where would you site it or where would you locate that interpretive center?

JY: I would like to put it, you know the high point of Tule Lake camp site, you know where the cemetery, just beyond the cemetery is a high spot there. I'd like to be on top of there so they can see the whole camp site from there. That's the most visual part that you could see how big the camp was at one time. That's, that's where I'd like to put it, right there. Buy that piece of land and put it -- right now we're down by the jail, that's the only place that we have, the federal government owns, on top of the hill there.

TI: And you mentioned the jail, so that's one of the last kind of standing structures. In the future, what would you like to happen to that?

JY: We'd like to preserve it and have it part of the bus tour around the camp site, the jail, stockade, and part of the army... if we can restore part of the army camp there, 'cause most of 'em, about sixty-five percent of the barracks are still standing there. Then we had the big potato shed down below there, packing house is still there. So the different things are still around that physically you could see. And then the first rec. hall for the staff, rec. hall is still standing there about ready to fall down. That's up for sale right now. Hopefully they can buy that, I don't know whether they're gonna do that now. But, so there's a nice tour that we can make out of the whole thing, either bus or... bus drive is beautiful. And go in the foot of Castle Rock.

TI: But what's interesting is you're thinking bigger than just the Tule Lake camp, you're thinking of those other four attractions and really trying to...

JY: Yeah. See, one day they go lava beds, see the lava beds, go see the lava beds there. One day they can go to wildlife, see all the wildlife that's out there, and then Captain Jack, how he struggled to hold the Indians away, then go to Crater Lake, right? I mean, you know, all within several hours. Crater Lake would be the furthest one away, but that's, one day trip you can make it out and back.

TI: So let's go to the future, say 2042. So it's the 100th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066, and they have a facility, interpretive center there. What should the key message be when a boy or girl walks through there on the 100th anniversary? What kind of messages should they understand?

JY: I think it'd be the history of the Great American Story of all the trials and tribulation of all the nationalities that has come to the United States, every one of 'em. I don't care if they're Irish, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, they all struggled once they came here, and all the struggles, and we're still here together. And I think we should be joyous that we came this far and still, yes, we had a civil war, but that was another thing, but we're really able to talk to each other. And look at the Congress, look at how, today, the ways the cross section has changed so much. Look at the nationality that's in the, look at the President today, Obama, never thought there would be a black man being President in my lifetime. But here, 2010 you have... and so far, I think things has changed, and I think we should be proud that we came this far that we can still, sure, we don't get along well in certain areas, but that's only human being. If we get on well, something's wrong. We have clashes, we can't help it. I think it's an American story that we just keep on pushing. Not to say "them Japs" or "them Italians," whatever it is, it's the American story. Sure, it happened to the Japanese, it was a bad experience, yes. But it's an American story, that's the way I look at it. Don't look at it that the government did wrong to us. Things that happened, like the slavery happened, right? And Civil War happens, they kill their own buddies. But that's the American story.

TI: So through the Japanese American experience, make it an American story.

JY: Yeah.

<Begin Segment 20>

TI: But still thinking 2042, which is still a ways off, what do you think the Japanese American community will look like? I mean, you've been involved with the community, very actively volunteering for decades with some of these institutions, and so you've seen the changes. So we're 2011, so thirty more years, what does the community look like in thirty years?

JY: I think we'll have a hard time finding out who's who, I mean, which nationality you belong to. Like the people from the European country today, they been here in the country 250 years. Look how well they are mixed today. Lot of people don't know what backgrounds is now, and that's only two hundred years. It's another fifty years, I think, that'll be like the Japanese people. I would say 75 percent, maybe 80 percent be mixed over. And like our family, I have four kids, only one is married to a Japanese. So there it is. Their offsprings comes up, and well, that's more power to them.

TI: So is that going to be harder for the Japanese American story to be told when it's all sort of mixed like that? What do you think's gonna happen?

JY: I think like right now they're researching the slavery. They're going back to Africa to look for their forefathers, and then I think it'd be in the same situation. The Japanese American kids will have a hard time tracing back. But we had to have a place like this to leave the tracks behind so they can come back to this track here and look for it and see how it was at 2010, what we did in 2010 here, or it's 2011 now, that we are, that museum to preserve our heritage, the Japanese American heritage. And if you want to look for your grandparents, great-great grandparents, there it is, their story. It might not be like yours, but general idea is here, you can find it. Look at the library, look at the many books, there's almost a thousand books been written since 1942 about Japanese Americans. That's only about half of it, right? There must be how much more, don't you think? There's a lot of books been written about Japanese Americans, so there it is. We ourselves should be proud that people are willing to write books about us. I mean, it shows you that the power of the Japanese American, that people are willing to sit down and do the research, sure, it's second, third party, but still, they're writing the story as they see it. The struggles, what they made, made their lives out of, how they come about and so forth. And I think that's what the whole thing is to leave that lineage, not to cut it off, leave the lineage ongoing, keep on going.

TI: Good.

<Begin Segment 21>

TI: Thinking, going back to the pilgrimage, going in the future, what do you think will happen to the pilgrimage? How will that change? Same thing in terms of thirty years from now, will, do you see the pilgrimage still happening? And what will it look like in thirty years?

JY: Well, I think the next five, ten years will tell you the story of what it's going to be. It'll be dying away, or if it doesn't die in the next ten years, then it'll survive, it'll keep on going. The kids will take over and run with it, I'm pretty sure. But I think we left good enough seed behind but planted a tree, the tree's growing, and it's got a good root right now. I think, I personally think they'll keep it going. I mean, people like Glen, he's talking about reunions, but once he found out, goes to a Tule Lake pilgrimage and finds out the story and what happens and this and that, sure, it's a different camp, but still, the confinement's the same, the mess halls are still the same, the army's still the same, the security system is still the same. And travel, they couldn't travel, there's all, everything is still the same. That way there, those kind of guys will probably go that way and say, "Hey, let's see what Tule Lake's doing." Reunion guys getting tired of looking at each other. Like Heart Mountain reunion, they said they're gonna give it up. They still had it because they want to see their friends, but eventually they all died away. But Tule Lake, I think, it isn't the friends, it's the story they're going for. That's all it is, is story. The history that went with it, I think, we'll keep it alive. Well, look at Rosicrucian Museum. That stuff is old, and for years, but people still go to the Rosicrucian to see how the Egyptians live, right? I think same thing in the Tule Lake pilgrimage is how they survived the war and things. I think that might be the, to me, might be the strongest thing. They want to keep on knowing, because there's a lot of people still around, three, four hundred people still want to know what's going on.

TI: Okay, good.

<Begin Segment 22>

TI: So I mean, here's the last question I have written down, and this is something that I've been thinking a lot about the last couple years. This year is the seventieth anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. And back in 1941, '42, the U.S. government was really concerned that there were people in the Japanese and Japanese American community who were perhaps more loyal to Japan than the United States. And it seems in the last couple years I'm hearing more stories that perhaps are a little more frank about their pro-Japan sort of sentiments during, before the war, and even during the war. I'm wondering what you know or what you think about in terms of, I mean, were there people in the community who were very loyal to Japan during this time, and were some of these concerns real in terms of the people being more loyal to Japan?

JY: Well, I think the cap was put on that part for sure. Maybe when the war started, yes. There might have been quite a few who were very loyal. But when the, 1952, when they were able to get naturalized, then they were at peace with themselves. Like my father was real happy, now he could say, "This was the fruit of my labor. All these years, and now I own the land. I can sign my name on the land." I think that was a closure of, I would say 99 percent of people. Anybody that had any doubts, and you look back among your friends, your parents' friends, how many of 'em went back to Japan even to visit, I mean, before the war? Not too many of 'em. There were, said, "We got to make our home here. This is where we are, no sense going back and looking at what we left. What we left, we left." But I think, I would say that just thinking about the cross section of the area I lived in, Berryessa, I think 99.9 percent was pro-American. The fifty family that was living there, I would say majority of 'em didn't want to go back to Japan. They want to stay here, "This is our home. Our kids are here, our base is here. Sure, we don't own nothing, but still, our family's here." And then, "Why put our kids through the suffering that we went through to start all over again?"

And so I think in that respect, and they were allowed to get citizenship, I said before, I think that really, like my mom, I told you the story of how she struggled to get her citizenship because certain examiners are tougher than others. And one day I was, went home, and my mom was, had a piece of paper, reading it, and like most of the moms, don't read English at all, right? Most of them are all Japanese. The father understands English a little bit, but mom, her English is poor, zero almost. She was mumbling away, I said, "That sounds like Gettysburg Address. 'Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers...'" "Yeah, yeah." She shakes her head, "Yeah." "Hey, Mom, you mean to tell me he wants you to learn that?" Says, "Yeah, I've got to memorize that Gettysburg Address." Said, "What else you got to learn?" "The Preamble." She got to recite the Preamble. "What else you got to learn?" "I got to learn the ten amendments," before she get her citizenship. But she's bound and determined she's gonna learn and read, she got to recite the Preamble and recite the Gettysburg Address and write down the four, ten amendment to the Constitution. And then she got it. Here it is she couldn't read or write English but this is how bound and determined Isseis were. But that determination, I think they were so proud of themselves to get the citizenship, I think any change of thoughts, I think they just really just turned 'em right over.

TI: And so you said, like, 99.9 percent were, wanted to be loyal.

JY: Yeah, I would say.

TI: What about that .1 percent, though?

JY: Well, they... like traveling around the world working for Selectron, you talk to the people in the other countries and talk to people here, this and that, and then they still had a cloudy feeling, they want to go back. And then so I asked a lot of 'em that came to America and they went back, and said, "Would you go back to America?" Says, yeah, if they had a chance to go, they'll go back again. Says, "Now I'll live there." The majority of 'em that I talked to. Says, "I came back for a reason, taking care of the parents," or some reason that's beyond their control, so they're there. But other than that, they'll come back. So I think some guys just superficial, just, "Oh, yeah, to hell with the United States." But truly inside, they think you can't beat United States. I don't care where you go. I've been around the world many times. It's got everything. You got your freedom -- the big thing is the freedom.

<Begin Segment 23>

SF: So in 1944 when the Hoshidan, the dissident groups were active at Tule Lake, all of that probably was due to their treatment that they had gotten, being thrown into camp and to be otherwise insulted and degraded by the war and the questioning and all of that, caused that. Is that what your observation is?

JY: Well, I don't think so. Yes, lot of 'em were treated badly, but then again, lot of it was brought upon themselves. Lot of 'em were Kibeis and they were in Japan. Instilled in certain things, that you got to honor the emperor and this and that. And you look at the records, majority of the so-called leaders of the Hoshidan was Kibeis, majority of them. There were very, very few Niseis. Well, I don't know if you have a Kibei brother or sister in your family or uncle or auntie that's a Kibei.

SF: My mom was a Kibei.

JY: You have, then you compare that with your parents. You talk to them, even today, if they were alive today, when you talk to them, one of 'em say, "This is black," and, "This is white." Now, this big a thing, they make gray out of it. Let's see if we can compromise. This side is, the one says white, he'll come over 75 percent, then he will never move. He says, "It's got to be this way." The Kibei will stand his ground. He will not move. But the Nisei will move over to him as close as he can, but he could never get 'em together. Okay, now Hoshidan, the structure of the Hoshidan was, you got to backtrack and see it yourself. When the Kibeis all came to the United States before the war, right? Some of 'em came after the war, majority of 'em came before the war, they graduated high school. Most of 'em graduated high school and came back to the United States. Now, by the time they graduated high school, they're pretty well instilled how the emperor is the person. He's the god of everything, right? That's Japan way. Everything's emperor. Now, if you get a person of that thinking, like myself, I never been to Japan. After war, yeah, I've been, but before the war, never been to Japan, I don't know what the heck it's all about. And they come and try to tell me something like that, "The emperor's number one, the emperor."

Well, to satisfy their own mind, so what they did -- I don't know if you heard this before or not -- but they'll go over to the bathroom, brush their teeth along side of you. "Hey, you got to join the Hoshidan." Or if you're not there, say you're too young to understand, say your father's there, he'll go to your father, lunchtime, "Your kids should join the Hoshidan, it's good. We're gonna go to Japan. Japan is gonna win the war." He sits down for dinner, he sits there, "Yeah your son should join the Hoshidan." Go to shower, he's there alongside in the shower you are, right? Everybody's assigned the people to talk to. The girls got assigned, she goes to the toilet, she goes to the toilet. She goes to the mess hall, she goes to the mess hall. Sits across them, just sit there. To get rid of 'em, said, "Oh, urusai. Okay, I'll join." That's why the word "coercion" is used very, very strong. They were coerced. Right? You probably read that word over and over. Yeah, they were coerced. The biggest problem to me, the way now I look at it is look back and the condition it was, like the renunciation, the WRA pushed to prove that there are a bunch of disloyal guys that renounced their citizenship, ship 'em back to Japan. They never even came from Japan, but they want to ship 'em back to Japan. The first go around they only got three, four hundred, nothing happened. Nothing happened. I'm pretty sure, I mean, I have no proof, but knowing the WRA, knowing the staff and knowing what they were pushing for, or the outside that was pushing for, said, "We got to do something. We passed a law, and nothing happened. Four hundred, that's nothing. There's 120,000 'Japs' out there. We got to twist 'em around and get 'em around." So the Hoshidan was in full force then. Were really in power. They were giving the administration a bad time. So I think some way or other, they finagled and turned them around, promised them something, I don't know. I don't know, I don't think I'm right or wrong, I don't know. But this is what happened to me, when I saw all this happening, the Hoshidan people started going around to different people like Steve, says, "Hey Steve, you got to renounce your citizenship. America's not going to win the war, we're gonna win the war, I'm going to Japan, you come with me," and so forth. And just same way, the tactic they used to join the Hoshidan. They eat and sleep with you twenty-four hours a day. And so gradually they got four thousand of 'em signed up. "We got the number we wanted." Bingo. Next day they put three hundred of the Hoshidan guys and sent 'em to Fort Lincoln. Another week later, another three hundred got shipped to Fort Lincoln.

TI: So it's almost like the administration used the Hoshidan to, to... it was like, in both the Hoshidan and in the administration's best interests to get a lot of people to renounce their citizenship?

JY: That's coerced, that's the word, that "coerce" was used. That's why Wayne Collins used the word "coerce." Who coerced? The WRA coerced the Hoshidan. But they can't prove it, but they were coerced.

TI: So it sounds like there a core Hoshidan, which was maybe more pro-Japan, but there was this other larger group that more coerced to go along with that.

JY: The odd part of the whole thing, this is a fact, that the main ringleader, top lieutenants of the Hoshidan, when the gates were opened, they walked out.

TI: I don't understand that. Say that again? Which gate?

JY: They didn't renounce their citizenship. They were "yes-yes," and they were, they didn't sign the repatriation paper to go to Japan.

TI: Oh, so when...

JY: When the gates were opened --

TI: At Tule Lake, they just walked off.

JY: Walked out.

TI: I see. And so the people...

JY: Like my dad, he just walked right when the gates were opened, he walked right out of the gate. 'Cause he didn't sign nothing, just... but anyway, that was 1945, so spring of '45, he left.

SF: When you talk about the coercion of the Hoshidan to the other people, was that, like, kind of physical threat or was it just trying to talk you into it?

JY: No, it's just mental, mental. Suppose somebody said, cross you three times a day, take a shower with you, go to crapper with you... I mean, eventually it'd get to you, right? To get him off our back. I mean, somebody that's... I don't know, it could be anybody. "Come on, Steve, you know." Every so often inject, "Hey, you should join." Talk about something else, "Hey, you should join. You should sign your renunciation paper." I mean, somebody do that every day, three times a day, four times, five times, six times a day. Three times for meal, people go in the shower, morning time, brush your teeth, nighttime you brush your teeth.

SF: Were there cases where some hot-tempered Nisei guys would, "Get out of here or I'll beat you up"?

JY: Huh?

SF: "Get out of here, get out of my face?"

JY: You say, get out of your face, then somebody else come along. Then Michael comes, "Hey, Steve, how are you guys doing? How about joining our group? We got a good group out there." He says, "Mike, get the heck out of here," then get Pete over here. By that time, you're up to here, right? So, you know, that's why I didn't stay around the house too long, the barracks too long. I worked six days a week, six to six, and then when I get back in, but... so you don't live it, you don't understand it.

TI: Yeah, that's why I'm really curious because I think it's, you were there and you observed all that.

<Begin Segment 24>

TI: I mean, so in your opinion, I mean, were there people in Tule Lake who potentially could pose a threat to the United States? I mean, were they, were there some people that were perhaps dangerous?

JY: What was that again?

TI: So were there people at Tule Lake who could pose a threat to the United States? I mean, were there some people who were potentially dangerous?

JY: No. That's the part that they were very, very careful. There was three, four of 'em worked in our office, they were all shaved heads, right? But they'd never talk about it at work. They'd never talk bad at work, and never one time, they ever made a threat that, "We're gonna kill all the administration people." Nor, never. There was a big, big flag, I think it must have been about 8x10 flag, middle of camp. That flag was never desecrated. So they know where they belong, they know exactly how far they can go, so the intimidation was used individually. You have four thousand of 'em, four thousand, you get another four thousand, right? They're gonna get half of it anyway, right? There's two thousand, two thousand goes out into it.

TI: So you're saying that they weren't really a threat, they were... I'm not quite...

JY: No. Yeah, no threat. Just verbal abuse. Verbally, verbally, verbally, verbally. Not really say, "Hey, you're a damn fool," or that. "You should, it's good. We're gonna win this war, you should go back with us to Japan. There's no, nothing wrong with it." Said, "I lived there for ten years to twenty years, it was real good. I had a good life." Because you figure if he had, or his uncle, whatever it is, there was five kids in the family and one of 'em went back to Japan. Okay, grandma, uncle, auntie, who's supporting your one child over there? Well, you need ten dollars or twenty dollars. Okay, that's easy to give 'em, write a check for twenty or thirty dollars, send it back to Japan. It blows up three hundred times, right? So the kids lived a good life. He wanted a pair of shoe, his grandpa or grandma, uncle or auntie writes home, "Hey, your child needs a new shoe," so he would get some money. But meantime, the four other brothers and sisters suffering. It was the Depression years, was struggling to make a buck. Even make a dime it was a struggle. So he lived, for the majority of 'em, I wouldn't say all of 'em, but the majority of 'em lived a pretty good life in Japan. I have one, my sister. To this day, she's different. She was there only for eight, nine years, but just looking at that alone, you can tell.

TI: Yeah, and this is why it's hard for me or confusing, because for those Niseis who were in Japan, so you mentioned how, so they got sort of the education about the emperor and the importance, and so when they were in the camps, I mean, there's this combination of being treated really badly, I mean, being thrown in camps, not doing anything wrong. I mean, that's going to want to turn you against the U.S. government, and then plus you have this sort of Japanese influence. And so I'm trying to get a sense of the balance in terms of where people were in terms of how they felt about, about their treatment. Is it, were they angry because of how they were treated, or were they more angry because they were more for Japan? I mean, that's what I'm trying to understand.

JY: I think they were more for Japan. They were, all they could remember, the good life they had in Japan. Okay. The parents are supporting one over there, and over here they got to support five, right? So, to support one, it's easy to send money to one, and it'll keep her or his mouth shut. And the other thing, too, when they broke away from their family, they're eighteen, they break away from the family, so they sign "no-no," "The heck with you guys, I'm going to go back to Japan where my life was a lot easier than here." They can't speak the language, they can't understand the language, they can't understand the customs. So they got a chance to break away from the family, so they broke away. Now, there's no more money, right? You can't speak English, you can't get a job. They don't want to do menial work, they don't want to keep the boiler tender, wash dishes or waitress or whatever it is. They don't want to do that because that's too menial. So financially they're hurting, so they figure, they go back to Japan, live with Uncle, "He treated me good. Or my grandparents. So I'm going back to live with my uncle." And this side here, "Hell no, we're not going to go back to Japan." That was the big conflict. "We struggled through the Depression here, we came this far, we're doing good, why should we have to go back to Japan?"

SF: Did people realize how bad Japan was economically at that point?

JY: Well, it wasn't like anything else, there's an emperor that will never die. He's the holy man of the whole Japan. As long as emperor don't say anything, "we're okay, we're in good shape." I mean, you know, the mentality, like one of the guys I think you interviewed, the kamikaze pilot, never went there. He says, he had no qualms about going to war, die a kamikaze pilot. He didn't have no qualms. That's how strongly, to this day, he still, he talks about that, right? He says, "I was all ready to go," says, "I wasn't ever thinking about coming back. I was going to die with the bomb on the belly." So that's how much instillment they have. They start 'em small, so they, you know, gradually build that strong, would you say, tie to the emperor. "We'd die for the emperor." Right? That's what he said.

TI: Yeah, and that's what I'm trying to understand, because I'm hearing some of that stories about how powerful that pull is.

JY: Yeah, yeah. So same thing, the Kibei, the power of the, living over there, that the life was pretty good. Can't beat it.

TI: And for the Isseis, I mean, the Isseis were there and got all that, but then they lived, most of them lived in the United States for decades. And so it's, again, probably confusing there, too, in terms of where their --

JY: Yeah, well, lot of Isseis, I know all the Isseis that I had direct contact with, none of 'em ever said that they want to go back to Japan. Only one was the Kibeis, said, "These guys don't know what good life is about." That's what they tell you. Because they had a good life, let's face it. One out of five, right?

TI: And generally they were the ones most recently in Japan also.

JY: That's right, yeah.

TI: Because even the Isseis --

JY: Up to date. They were really up to date. Like my sister, she wanted this, she wanted that, we didn't know about it. We were kids, didn't know. She got everything, we found that out when she came back to the United States. "Why can't I get it?" "Why can't I get it?" "What can't I get this thing?" "Jiichan got it for me."

SF: But did the Kibeis feel abandoned by their parents? I mean, say, they were over there with the grandparents or their uncle or aunt? Like my uncle, he felt resentment because he was sent over there and kept over there and not with the family. Was that the case with your sister?

JY: That part there, I don't know too much. I mean, I haven't... well, I'm just trying to think of the Kibeis that I know. I don't know. They had... with the Kibeis, a lot of 'em that had internal problem in the family, like a lot of Kibeis are, the oldest one in the family, the first son, the first daughter was sent back to Japan. When they came back, they were the first one, they were the oldest, so they got the land in their name, right? 'Cause Issei could not have the land in their name so it was in their child's name. And then when the parents passed on, the land, they inherited this 30, 40 acres of land here, he's, Roy, he's the oldest, he's a Kibei. Not saying he's Kibei, he's the oldest, so the land is in Roy's name. Now, the war comes along, Roy says, "Hey, that's my land, this is my name." Lot of families really, I know three or four family I know, that the oldest brother took everything with him, rest of the brothers and sisters didn't get nothing out of the deal. So that split the family. So I was telling one family, says, "When we get together, reunion, we have about 120 of us get together for reunion." And this guy says, "If I get two guys together, I'd be lucky. And we have eight kids, eight brothers and sisters, eight siblings." So that's how badly they're split up. So there's that good and bad and everything, but that's another story. But coercion. That word "coercion," that's where Wayne Collins used very strong, "coerced." They were coerced.

TI: I think we have a wrap. [Laughs] Thanks, Jimi.