Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Jack Y. Kunitomi Interview II
Narrator: Jack Y. Kunitomi
Interviewer: Martha Nakagawa
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: October 26, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-kyoshisuke-04-0011

<Begin Segment 11>

MN: Okay, so you're in Heart Mountain where there's this huge movement by the Fair Play Committee. You joined the army. Did you volunteer or...

JK: No. I was -- excuse me -- I was married. In fact, the second draft took married people with children. I had another brother-in-law that had two, he was drafted that second time around. And oh my gosh, we thought that was unfair because the first draft, they didn't take any married people.

[Interruption]

MN: I'm a little surprised that they were drafting married men.

JK: Yes. The second time around.

MN: You couldn't get a deferment?

JK: No, they didn't ask.

MN: So when you were going out of camp, did the other people who were, let's say with the Fair Play Committee, did they harass you?

JK: No, not really.

MN: Where did you go to get your physical?

JK: Camp Blanding, Florida.

MN: Oh, that's where you did basic training.

JK: Yes.

MN: Do you remember what year and what month you got into your basic training?

JK: July 7, 1943... '43?

MN: Well, you went to Tule Lake in '43, right? So it'd have to be '44.

JK: '44.

MN: So Camp Blanding, Florida. Now, when you crossed the Mason-Dixon line, is this the first time you saw the "whites only," "blacks only" section?

JK: Yes.

MN: Which section did you use?

JK: Well, we knew before, because we, you hear so much about that.

MN: What did you think about that?

JK: Well, I don't know. It's a lifestyle, I guess. You can't fuss with that too much or you get kicked yourself.

[Interruption]

MN: So did you do basic training in a segregated unit?

JK: Our battalion was all Japanese, but the other groups were Caucasian. But we were, our company was mixed. No, I take that back. One thing I could never go around with was a boy who was half. He had curly hair, big nostrils, big lips, and yet he was in our company. And I said, "Hey, look." So he stayed in our company, and I'm sorry I never followed up and inquired what had ever happened to him. Kingi was his name, K-I-N-G-I. And I said, oh, god. I should have followed up on that.

MN: Was he dark-skinned?

JK: No, not dark.

MN: Now when you were at Camp Blanding, did you get a chance to travel to Arkansas and go to the Jerome or Rohwer camps?

JK: No, no.

MN: I think you mentioned there was a fight one time that broke out between the Niseis and the Caucasians.

JK: Well, this happened before we got there. From what I hear, the ones that were training, retraining, they've done that before because they were in the army long time. So they had a difference of opinion. And these Nisei boys were two or three years in the army already doing the same thing the newcomers there were doing. And yet they were being picked on.

MN: So by the time you came, did the policy change?

JK: Oh, yes.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.