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TI: So let's talk about that, so the three of you are in stockade. How did that come about? What were the circumstances?

MY: I don't remember the... well, I'm assuming that Al and I were, so to say, picked up for the stockade at the same time, and that same time happened to be one day when the camp was essentially told to get into your unit and stay there until further notice, and then as I recall, from one side of the camp the military came with a list of people and the administration came from the other side, and they picked up all the people on that list. And my brother's name and my name was on that list. Why, we don't know. When, we don't know. Of all the "no-nos" we were, there's all, only thing I could say.

TI: Now was there any, I'm trying to think of, yeah, it, it always puzzles. You never know. I mean, we've been looking at the records and we're trying to figure out you and your brother were selected. Were there any, like groups that you were involved with, that the two of you and other people were also picked up?

MY: No. Al and I were, if anything, he had his own group and I had my own group, and our group did not really mix too, we did not integrate in any way. Except one of the, Wayne's brother was also with Al's group, but I think that was about the only contact between the two groups, my friend Wayne and his brother, Al was in another group. Beyond that, politically, not politically, socially or culturally there was no contact between Al's group and my group.

TI: And so really, then, the connection was because you were brothers and then the family. I mean, your father, you, and Al were picked up, so was there something about, then, the family unit?

MY: No, you're assuming certain things. When I was picked up only thing I knew was I was picked up. I had no idea where my dad was, nor where Al was, until we were taken into a room and at that point Al was in the room, or came into the room, I forgot the sequence. And then we were, about the size of this room, perhaps, packed with people who were picked up for, at that point, or that day and evening. And that was the beginning of the stockade experience for us, or for me, let's put it, because after the whole thing I knew a friend of mine who had been in the original stockade way before our stockade was built. Our stockade was built, I'm not quite sure, sometime in the, this is '43, so it must have been '42 perhaps, before our stockade was built.

TI: So late...

MY: Before the two barracks and the kitchen, the toilet. That was not there originally.

BT: And it seems to have been put together sometime in November '43.

MY: November, so I know of a friend who was in the original stockade, and he was, he had been released before this stockade had been built. And okay, the reason he was picked up is his family had kept a Japanese record, a 78 record in Japanese. That was enough for the military to pick up the members of this family unit, and he happened to be home when his parents were not home, so he was picked up. [Laughs] But, as I say, we were picked up after this unit was built, but we were, after picked up placed in a room and with no idea why anybody was picked up. All we knew, we were in the room, and just talking amongst each other, and in time one logical question was, can I go to the bathroom? So we tell the guard we had to go. "That's your business, not our business," was the soldier's response, so we kept on going like this [rocks back and forth]. Then discussions of what to do, and then somehow the discussion terminated for me when my name -- oh, all this time names were being called out, so we were wondering what was happening to them -- so that issue of going to the bathroom was forgotten because of this issue. And then in time, in time my name came up and I was taken from average lit room to another room, fairly bright, not too bright, average, I would say, and held there for, I don't know for how long. No kind of discussion took place.

TI: And in this second room who else was there? So you're...

MY: I was the only one, in the middle of the room with about, I would say two, three soldiers. And I don't remember the kind of discussion we had until, again, my name was called -- obviously, I was the only one -- and the two soldiers took me by the shoulder, took me to another room, completely dark, and they sat me down in a chair and left alone for a while. Completely dark, and then a light went on from top of my head, and if you're aware of the, when a light goes on in a dark room and only light is here, there's nothing you can see out beyond the circle of the light. In other words, a classic description of a third degree. And then as the light went on voices came on. I don't remember what kind of question, but at that point my response to the whole situation was complete blackout of memory. I don't remember a thing after I heard some kind of voice come on in this dark room with the light on top of me to the point where I was standing next to my cot in the stockade barrack.

TI: Although you can't remember the questions and things, do you, can you remember a feeling of what it was, of what...

MY: No. It was just what the hell's happening kind of reaction, really, if I recall anything. I don't recall anything.

TI: And it's just blacked out?

MY: It was a complete blackout. A friend of mine tried to do an interview, did an interview. I'm a full chapter in John Tateishi's book, and John was telling me, five years or six years later after he wrote the book, "Morgan, you know you have a complete blackout in memory?" I said, "No, I don't. As far as I know I remember everything around my life." "Well, you know what the hell happened after the blackout," I mean, "after the third degree?" "No." And he says, "I tried to get you to try to remember that sequence four or five times in that interview coming from different approaches during a different time period, and you could not recall anything." That's about all I can answer. I don't remember a damn thing.

TI: From your background as a social scientist and social worker, if one of your clients or someone you were interviewing told you this story, what would you think as a professional in terms of what happened during that time?

MY: Well, I'd say this is the body protecting itself. The mind protects the whole body by just blotting out the unpleasant aspect of one's life. But it has to be pretty severe for the mind to do this, but I'm aware, after reading some psychology books and trying to teach psychology, sociology, so I could say something severe must've happened. I don't know. But I can say that my brother, who could talk about it, said he was physically beaten, so I said hell, I must've been beaten, too. I'm assuming this. I don't know.

TI: And do any of these memories ever leak out in dreams? Like, I mean, since that time, it's been many years.

MY: No, there's been nothing that...

TI: Just nothing. No flashbacks or anything?

MY: No flashback of any kind of this period. So it couldn't have been that severe. [Laughs] That's all I can say. I could laugh about it at this point.

TI: And so the next memory you have is you're next to your bed, you said?

MY: I was standing by my cot in this large barrack, twenty, I think it's twenty by a hundred, classic barrack, and it was all lined up with some two hundred plus inmates of the stockade at that point. And there was a pile of blankets, three blankets, I think, on this cot, mattress and cot, next to two other people.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.