<Begin Segment 17>

TI: And where did the family come into the considerations? Did you think about the family as a unit?

MY: Well, the family did not come into it any more than in the answer of renouncing my Japanese citizenship. It was my own decision. My family would act in their own way to their own interest, wherever that went. And that way was they were gonna retire to Japan, and I had no problem with that.

TI: And what was the reaction of your parents, your brother, to your decision?

MY: I suppose in a way they were happy with it -- I'm just assuming this question, answer -- that I would essentially be a Nihonjin.

TI: It's interesting, when you said that you had this twinkle in your eye like you could almost see your parents or something.

MY: Yeah, because they were going to return, they sent us for the Japanese education, and in a way they were hoping that we would be Japanese where here I was giving every sign of becoming a Japanese. So I think in a way they were happy with it.

TI: Earlier you mentioned that you had discussions with friends about this issue. As a group, did they all do the same thing or did people take different paths on this one?

MY: There was a general tendency for "no-no." There was not a very clear cut "no-no" to all of us, sort of a muddled "no-no."

TI: When I look at the kind of general statistics about the number of people who said "yes-yes" versus "no-no," a large majority went "yes-yes." I mean, there were fewer people --

MY: A huge majority.

TI: Yeah, a few, very few people...

MY: Less than five percent, as I recall.

TI: So "no-no," so when you decided to go "no-no" was there reactions from others around you that, that predominantly were saying "yes-yes"? Was there any repercussions of your decision?

MY: I never shared my "no-no" with anybody. It was a rather private affair, which I did not feel the need to share with, very personal kind of decision. Just like renouncing my Japanese citizenship was a very personal, it was an answer to myself rather than to anybody.

TI: Okay. And so people really didn't know until the family just disappeared or left with the others, probably, to go to Tule Lake.

MY: Well, all I could say to this question was I did my own thing, and what others thought about what I did I really didn't care. I didn't even think about what they thought about me. It was a personal issue, my value, my judgment.

TI: Okay, so tell me what happens next. So you say "no-no." I guess we should establish, so what did the rest of the family, so you had your parents and your older brother, what did --

MY: Life did not change at all. Life maintained its status quo within the prison called Tule Lake.

TI: Well actually, let me back up a little bit about the leave clearance form because, was it clear to you and others what the purpose of this form was? I mean, it's --

MY: The purpose of the form was not clear. The title of the form does not say what all the questions were. The question had no relevance to the title, so it was a confusing thing, and I had no thoughts of leaving camp, so it was not an issue.

TI: Right, because it was labeled "leave clearance," so the assumption would be this is to be able to leave Topaz, but the...

MY: But as I said, the application for, or signing of the paper had no relevance to my lifestyle at that point. Lifestyle would be, I'm in a prison, I will continue being in a prison until something happens.

TI: Okay, and so when you signed it "no-no" versus "yes-yes," were there, were any consequences ever described to you in terms of, you do this, this will happen, versus if you do this, this will happen?

MY: Yes, I remember I was asked to come to interview by, I'm not quite sure whether it was one or two Caucasians and I don't remember whether they military uniform or not, but there were, the questions asked by the two Caucasians whether you really mean what you're doing, are you aware of the ramifications of this, etcetera, etcetera, along that line. And I answered what to me was the logical way of answering those questions, according to my two answers.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.