<Begin Segment 8>

SY: And your father, was he a member of the Hoshidan?

GN: He was.

SY: And can you talk a little bit about what that was?

GN: He, what I remember is he kind of avoided going to a lot of those meetings, and so when my brother was born, Toshi was born --

SY: He was born at Tule?

GN: Yeah. That was an excuse for him to not attend the meetings, and I noticed that in one of the documents that I got from the National Archives, he had sent a letter to the WRA that he's dropping out of the Hoshidan, and so they acknowledged that in the letter.

SY: Can you sort of just describe -- I'm sure this in retrospect, but what the Hoshidan, or even at the time, what the Hoshidan was like? Or what the organization, what the purpose of the organization was.

GN: I think it was like a pro-Japan type of organization. I mean, I never attended any of those meetings so I don't know what it was like, but that is my impression.

SY: Right. And your father putting you into Japanese school was in support of the Hoshidan?

GN: I think so. And I had a bouzu haircut.

SY: Is that, is it bald with a, what is the bouzu, bald?

GN: Just bald. They shave, shave your head.

SY: And then you wore the, did you wear the headband?

GN: The headband, it was only in the morning when you did the group jogging. They call it the wasshoi. That's the only time you wore the headband.

SY: And that was a disciplinary thing, the jogging, or the wasshoi?

GN: Yeah, and then what happened is that you do that before the sun comes up and then when the sun does come up you, everybody gets into attention and bow toward the sun. That was part of the ritual that took place.

SY: And was it everything from adults to children, or just the children in school did this?

GN: Well, the adults would be the teachers or the ones who's kind of leading the group.

SY: And your, so you, maybe give me an idea of what your idea would be like, then, in school.

GN: One of the things is that we all had to stand at attention when the teacher would enter the classroom and we would all bow to the teacher, so it was highly disciplined.

SY: And that's where you learned Japanese, or were you speaking Japanese at home before that?

GN: I spoke Japanese at home, yeah, before that.

SY: So what were some of the subjects? They taught everything in Japanese?

GN: Yes.

SY: And what kinds of things, do you remember what you learned?

GN: Japanese history, and the books that we used were, like, pre-World War II books, and education in Japan is nationalized. It was very pro-military, tend to be very nationalistic toward Japan. And I still have those books at home. But even at that age I recognized the indoctrination that was taking place, and so it could be from that experience I have an aversion toward indoctrination, whether it's nationalism or religion. I tend to detect those things right away.

SY: It's interesting because it seems to me that, from your mother's description, you were a little bit of a rebellious child. Would you describe yourself that way?

GN: I think I was 'til maybe I was about ten years old.

SY: But the Hoshidan experience was strict and you followed all the rules.

GN: Well, Hoshidan, I think, was strictly for adults. Our activities just kind of centered around what you did at school, but of course, once the school, you get out of school during the day, we're out there speaking English to each other and playing football.

SY: I see, so was there, did you feel a separation from the other kids who were English-speaking, went to the regular schools, and the ones who went to...

GN: Well, one of the things is that the camp was segregated. You had, those who went to the American schools were at another part of the camp, so it was separated in that way. I think it was done on purpose, so the, I guess the way did it was the "no-nos" were separated from the rest.

SY: The rest of the population. And it's sort of odd that the government allowed this at the time. Do you, I mean, looking back, was that something that the, do you know, did the government sanction?

GN: Yeah, I don't know what the regulation was at that time relative to that, but I do know that there were WRA patrol cars that would come early in the morning and they would arrest the adult leaders of the ones that were organizing and leading the group jogging, the wasshoi. And then also I remember, early in the morning when class started, that they came to arrest the teacher that was teaching us.

SY: Wow. That's amazing. And you don't, I mean, did you ever hear why that was happening, or do you have any idea why that was happening?

GN: The sense was that because the type of subject that were, were...

SY: Were being taught.

GN: Taught, yeah.

SY: But at the same time they continued to teach it, right? It was kind of an odd...

GN: Yeah.

SY: 'Cause they certainly allowed these schools. And your, I mean, was there a, did you get a feeling in camp of this, this strict Hoshidan kind of movement in camp, or was that just outside of your experience?

GN: Well you could tell because of the adults being active in that kind of organization, and then for us as kids going to Japanese school and what is being taught there.

SY: And just, so all the information, or all that you know about the Hoshidan, did that come later, what you know about what they were trying to do in terms of sort of causing a little bit of, talking to other people about trying to join Hoshidan and that kind of thing?

GN: Well, because of my age --

SY: At the time.

GN: -- I wasn't directly affected by that.

SY: Right, so you somehow --

GN: There wasn't any kind of interaction.

SY: You were, didn't experience it yourself, right?

GN: No.

SY: Right, okay.

GN: But what was interesting is that my father didn't have a bald haircut.

SY: Right.

GN: And when I read a book by, I can't remember his first name, but Kiyota, who, he said he got beaten, he was in Tule Lake, I guess, because I think he was a "no-no," but because he didn't have a bald haircut that he was beaten by some of the, the extreme activists.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.