<Begin Segment 14>

MN: Now in 1943, the government passed out the so-called "loyalty questionnaire." Was this an issue within your family?

IH: No, you know, the parents never discussed with us, but I understand later that it was a big issue, very controversial.

MN: While your family was in camp, did your parents ever say, "Let's go back to Japan"? IH: No. I think they pretty much cut their ties with Japan. Although they did have, I know my father's case, he does have some members of his family that still lived in Japan, of course. But I think if he had the opportunity, which he never did, he would have loved to come back.

MN: But you're talking about going back just to visit?

IH: Yeah.

MN: Now I know you were still a teenager, but do you recall or have you attended any of the Fair Play Committee meetings?

IH: No. Those were pretty much for the older boys. Although I understand they had, certain mess halls, they'd have these meetings.

MN: Now once the government started to draft the Japanese Americans from camp, did you see a lot more, did you see like memorial services in camp?

IH: Yeah, because some were killed.

MN: Did you attend any of those? Did you know people personally that were killed?

IH: Yeah.

MN: How did that make you feel?

IH: Well, you're always saddened to hear about the death of a young man that you knew. I guess even at that age, the importance of loyalty to the country and dying for your country and this sort of thing, and the fact that these young men that were taken from the camps where they should not have been, and they willingly went to fight for the United States. The significance of that, I didn't really appreciate at that time. But they were, I did respect them a great deal because they're going off to war. Now whether they were volunteers or whether they were draftees didn't matter. I know my father wrote something that... they had a public ceremony for certain ones who were drafted and leaving, speeches and all that. And my father wrote something in the newspaper, the Heart Mountain Sentinel about, "You're doing a great thing representing that." All of us were very proud of them, very encouraged.

MN: I'm going to change the subject on you now and ask you about... now, like in Manzanar, there were a lot of teenagers wearing the zoot suits. Was that common in Heart Mountain?

IH: Not zoot suits, but I remember the pants used to be... certain guys used to wear those tight pants.

MN: They were big in the bottom.

IH: Great pants, yeah.

MN: Was there a lot of gang problems at Heart Mountain?

IH: There were, but not really violent gangs, but tough guys. And there's some rivalries, but nothing, nothing approaching really violent acts.

MN: Did you ever get into fights with them?

IH: No, but I did get slugged one time just walking down the road. This guy came up to me and he said, "What in the blank-blank-blank are you looking at?" I don't know. I wasn't really trying to provoke him or anything. And he slugged me, and down I went. I guess, I guess he was looking for somebody that he could show some authority to, I guess. I didn't think much of it.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.