Densho Digital Archive - Minoru Kiyota Interview (denshovh-kminoru-01-0008)

<Begin Segment 8>

[Ed. note: This transcript has been edited by the narrator]

TL: Did you graduate from high school before evacuation?

MK: No. I was still a junior when war broke out. (...) Because I was in Japan, my American education was delayed a bit.

TL: How...?

MK: So I graduated from high school over here, at Tule Lake.

TL: Okay. Let's see. Could -- do you remember how you reacted to the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

MK: (Yes.) When I saw the headlines, and newspaper boys shouted, "Japs bomb Pearl Harbor," I thought they were blaming me and I thought that I was responsible, too. (...) (Because I am an American but also a Japanese.)

TL: What stands out to you about the evacuation process?

MK: Huh?

TL: What stands out to you about the evacuation, when your family had to prepare to go to Tanforan?

Linda Keenan: Your main memory of that.

MK: Oh, my memory. Well, I think my mother did a good job cleaning up the house, selling things which she couldn't bring. And I kind of felt sorry for her because she could only bring what she could carry and all that. (But there is something that is important, something that goes beyond material issues.) Gradually it dawned on me that (evacuation was based on) sheer discrimination, only confining the Japanese Americans -- not the German Americans, not the Italian Americans. (...) That's how I felt.

AI: Did you discuss this idea of -- regarding the racial prejudice, with anybody else at that time?

MK: You can't, because there was this (House) Un-American Activity Committee. (...)

Linda Keenan: The House Un-American.

MK: Yeah. And if you -- if someone reported to the committee, (you'll be) apprehended. Okay? Now, I don't know how you girls think about the JACL. But at that time, the JACL leaders told the Japanese Americans that they should report any anti-American activities of their parents to the FBI. They told the Japanese Americans that they should -- that the government should keep their parents hostage and have the Japanese American form a suicide squad to fight against the Japanese. You probably didn't know about this. You knew about it? Okay, good. Now, I had my education in Japan. I just couldn't do (what the JACL leaders of that time told us to do).