<Begin Segment 33>

BT: Well, I wanted to ask one last question about the renunciation, since that's been my focus.

MY: Renunciation.

BT: Right. And about the, kind of the shame and sense of stigma that --

MY: What?

BT: You know, a lot of the people who renounced feel a sense of shame and stigma about that, so I thought that perhaps you, as a former renunciant and a social scientist and an Asian American Studies professor, could maybe give us some insight into what that sense of shame and stigma is all about.

MY: My own reaction to that, I have no stigma, no shame. It was just something that happened. But many of those people put themselves as a target of that. Where there is no target, they make themselves a target. Does that make sense? There's an issue of "no-no." Me, I just look at it from a distance. You're making an issue out of "no-no," oh, you guys did, you're disloyal, etcetera. I got to put myself and say, what the hell she's trying to do? Well, these people, well, "she's talking to me personally," so they make it, they make the issue a personal issue where it doesn't have to be an issue. So I don't feel ashamed. They make, you make them feel ashamed by saying, "Oh, you're anti United States, you're anti this, you're anti that," and I think the people who talk about it make big issue of making them more ashamed of it, more trying to hide the issue. Because I never felt any guilt about this. It was a not... it was an understandable situation for those who signed "no-no" as just as well as those who make issue about it understand it. Just like the anti draft people from Heart Mountain, quite understandable from their position, quite understandable from the other position. And so it's, perhaps, my objective way of sociology that makes me do this, just as well as my little knowledge about psychology, self defense, etcetera.

BT: Well, and you were able to surround yourself with people who would not be critical of a decision like the renunciation or "no-no."

MY: Again, that is part of social, social conditioning of everybody. You surround yourself with likeminded, you do, I do, and I just happened to be amongst that group, perhaps a little bit more broad minded. Does that answer your question? So, and in a way I could not really understand why this question of guilt, feeling guilty, feeling ashamed, ever came about, because I don't think there was any reason for that.

BT: Well, I think a lot of the sense of people who renounced is that the so called "loyal" people were criticizing them for their decision, and they felt that there was a need for that to support the face of the Japanese American community as totally aligned with the U.S. government.

MY: That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is, well, what did they do to make, create this situation? Why did they even offer this questionnaire?

BT: Oh, you mean why did the government create the questionnaire? Right.

MY: So who is creating this? It's the government, not my "no-no." So my "no-no" was a reaction to what the government started, so I have no feeling of guilt. I didn't initiate this. But that has never been that clear cut. I don't think many of us thought through that question, which is not necessarily true of any situation. I mean, how many situations that we get involved in think through all the dynamics? Not the way the "no-no" was analyzed. I mean, that "no-no" question was analyzed with a fine magnifying glass, which really didn't exist, the points they bring out. It was created by the eye of the beholder. So the shame issue, I think the eye of the beholder put it on them, those other people, and they're minority, they've took, they took the message true to form hundred percent and they made themselves guilty.

BT: I think what's interesting is that the stigma has been around, or that sense of shame has been around for almost seventy years.

MY: For a long time.

BT: Right.

MY: Yeah, ever since that damn thing started, but the shame to me was never there. I had no shame. I'm the guy that renounced my Japanese citizenship.

BT: So do you have anything to say to others who renounced who have been keeping it a deep, dark secret?

MY: No, I have nothing to say. That's their life. If they were to ask me, yeah, I might answer a question, but I have no pat answer for them. It's a difficult question, why these people feel guilty, and they actually feel guilty. They actually are ashamed. There's no question about that. I don't question that. But my position, there's no need to be that way. It's not your fault. It's the government's fault. I don't know whether that answers your question.

TI: Good, so Morgan, we're done. Thank you so much.

MY: Thank you.

TI: This was a fabulous interview.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.