<Begin Segment 21>

MN: When this renunciation issue came up, was it a heated discussion in your family?

YK: No, it was more of a campwide thing, that everyone should protest and say that, "Here's the U.S. government again trying to (do it to me), so we need to protest back." And so this was one of the means of protesting the conditions in the camp.

MN: So was your father and your brothers out there with the hachimaki and, "Wasshoi, wasshoi?"

YK: My brothers, yeah, they would... and it wasn't all Hoshidan. Everybody went out for morning exercises, and they would have what they called rajio taisho, so they all do their exercises, then they would, at the end, sort of, "Wasshoi, wasshoi," and snake dance around the block. So that was an every morning thing. Of course, the military thought that this was a danger, but they didn't stop (it).

MN: I know you were on the younger side, but did you go and join them?

YK: No. So us younger kids, we had our own little, we had our own pretend exercise, running around the block. But we didn't have any sports, no basketball courts, no baseball, nothing. So we had our own little football, just among ourselves, three on three on the dirt, sand. But that was about it.

MN: And when the army started to round up the Hoshidan people, and your father and two brothers were also taken away, were you there when they came to take away your brothers and father?

YK: Yeah. They were both notified they had that, you had to be ready to go in the next day or two.

MN: What was going through your mind when all this was going on?

YK: Well, of course, seeing everybody who had protected the baby of the family, 'cause I was the youngest of six sons, were all disappearing. So it was pretty traumatic.

MN: Was your mother able to communicate with your father?

YK: Well, she tried, but even the ones written in English were very severely edited. Everything was blocked out, and I'm sure the Japanese language wasn't every word delivered.

MN: How did your life change after the government started to clamp down and round up these people?

YK: Well, I guess it didn't change that much. I still was going to Japanese school and still spending time with my buddy friends. So the only kind of a pleasant thing that we had was on Saturday night when they would have, what do they call it? The Songs of the Week, and so we'd listen in and see which songs were rated in the Hit Parade. And we then learned the words to the songs and each Saturday night we'd hear Frank Sinatra and others singing and see which ones were number one or number two and so forth. So that was one of the few things we had.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.