<Begin Segment 7>

TI: There was, inside the camp, there was an incident. This was a few months, or just, actually, a couple months after you were there, and it was a protest by the Japanese and Japanese Americans. What had happened was there was a man that was beat up in his barrack and so the internal police, they were holding two men and the rest of the, or a lot of the Japanese protested that and it was called, not really a riot, but there was a protest and then a strike in camp. Do you recall any of that? It was a pretty dramatic kind of moment at Poston because the project director was out at the time so they had an interim or acting director who was less experienced, and so it was kind of a touchy moment in terms of should they call in the MPs to, to sort of stop everything or should they talk with the people, and I was wondering if you recall that at all. It was in November of '42.

CH: I'm sure I must have some memory of that, but from here...

TI: Yeah, it was kind of interesting because you, because amongst the staff there was quite a bit of discussion, trying to decide which, how they should handle the situation. And luckily what happened was they, they sat down and talked with people and eventually the administration released the two fellows and then everything went back to normal, so I was just curious if you remember that.

CH: Well, if I try to live through it some might come back, but from right here, no.

TI: Okay. There was another situation. They had everyone in camp fill out this questionnaire and it was called an Application for Leave Clearance. It was a questionnaire so that if they filled it out some people could then leave camp. I think internally people called it the "loyalty questionnaire," and there were two questions on there about whether or not people would serve in the military and how they felt about the emperor of Japan which were sort of controversial. So some people answered "no-no", meaning that they're, that they didn't want to serve for the United States and they didn't want to turn away from the emperor of Japan and some people answered "yes-yes" where they said they would serve for the U.S. military and they would turn away from the emperor or didn't have anything to do with the emperor. Do you recall that, that questionnaire? In your book you talked about you help interview the people who actually had to fill out the questionnaire and you helped them make sure that they understood the questions and how to answer.

CH: At that point I probably did. I used to... let's see, I do believe it was a tricky situation, wasn't that clear to the people if they needed to answer, how...

TI: Okay, that's, and so what I'm doing, I'm just kind of walking through and anything that you can remember is what I'm looking for. During this time, your parents were in Chicago and I believe there was an illness in the family, because that's why you left Poston, to go back to Chicago to live for, I think, a couple years. Do you remember, do you remember that, going back to Chicago?

CH: Well, I know I went back to Chicago, but the why and where, if I went back to live with my parents or did I live somewhere else... whole gap of years in there that I don't remember.

TI: Yeah, so what, in your book you talk about how, so you were at Poston for about a year and then you went back to Chicago for, let's see, it'd be '42, '43, for another two years in Chicago, and then at the end of the war, so right after the war ended, November 1945, you returned to Poston. And that was to, in some ways, I think, to get together with your husband, or your husband to be. Do you remember going back to Poston? He was the education director.

CH: I'm trying to think of the chronology of it. I have to apply my mind to get any real memories. From here I don't remember when or how come.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.