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TI: Going back to the JACL, you were there all the way through April. You talked about in January how you did things like helping with alien registration, the pink book, and the tetanus shots. At some point the JACL had to decide how much to cooperate with the government. Did you, were you part of that? Did you see that discussion happen?

JH: I think we had good leadership, because I don't know about the other communities, but the president, the executive board, every week they went to get the latest information. They were way ahead of the newspapers. And when 9066 came out, that didn't mean anything. It just says, "We're gonna kick you out of the state." Well, it was first half of the state, then some of the people were given privilege to go move inland. They move inland and then the whole state had to go in and they have to give their cars away. That's the tragedy. Whereas we stayed and somehow we could get so-called -- like I say, I was lucky.

TI: But within the JACL, you talk about the San Jose leadership, which was strong, but then I'm wondering how much influence did, like Mike Masaoka, have? He was the president of the whole, or the national secretary.

JH: Prior to that he had just graduated from Salt Lake, Brigham Young University, and why he came to the West Coast I don't know, but I have the opinion that he was on a crusade to keep the Japanese status quo, because most of 'em were farmers and they contributed to the economy and this and that. So he would go to the Rotarians and the grange and all those guys and says, "Why don't you give these Japanese a Chinaman's chance?" And nobody listened. They wouldn't listen to him. Well, they'd listen, but they wouldn't take sides. By the same token, this political unrest, like competitive farmers, "Oh, get rid of them. We can clean up," this kind of thing. And the funny part of it is those guys that were told to plant to the spring crops, they planted it, but April or May they evacuated, from then on the culture savvy wasn't there. It was a disaster.

TI: Because the crops got ruined?

JH: They don't know when to irrigate, they don't know when to fertilize, they don't know how to hoe weeds. They think it's come... oh man.

TI: But I'm wondering, kind of the relationship between, like Masunaga and Masaoka, I mean in terms of, because you said Masunaga was going every week so he was kind of in the know.

JH: There was, that's where Shig was very diplomatic. He didn't take sides. He didn't say, "Don't do this, don't do that." He'd just listen. That guy, for, let's see, how old was he? I was twenty-one. He must've been thirty. That's a young age for, have the responsibility. And we were covering everybody from Palo Alto to Gilroy. In other words, we were available if they came up, and by golly they did, because evacuation registration says, "From here to here, you go to San Jose State gym and register. If you don't, the sheriff will come after you." [Laughs] So I guess they came.

TI: And so Shig was just a, so you listened, but in some ways he probably had a lot of knowledge and could've made, maybe, good decisions.

JH: Well, the dominating factor was when evacuation registration became official. I said to Shig, "What are you gonna do?" And he says, "You know, John, I have an infant daughter, but I'm gonna make the government take me where they want me to go." Meaning he's gonna go, not voluntarily. He could've, he could've loaded up his truck and go to Timbuktu or wherever like some people did. No, he was gonna stay in the community. I think a lot had to do with when the community accused us of being, buttering up somebody so that we'd come off easy. And by golly, he went with us.

TI: So I live in Seattle and up there, there were some controversy with the JACL where they said some of the leadership of the JACL turned in names to the FBI. Was that a similar situation down here, that the community accused them of doing anything like that?

JH: No.

TI: 'Cause I know in Los Angeles they did the same, they had the same accusations, so I was just curious.

JH: Let's see, here again, going into detail, we were manning the office and Aiko, Aiko Jio, said, "John, there's a man that wants to talk to you." So I answered the phone and it was my future son-in-law. He says, "My dad got taken by the FBI." So the president and the executive secretary says, "Go over there right away and see if they need any help." So I went over there and, naturally, her husband's gone and she's a single parent of five children. She was strong. But I said, "Can I help you in any way?" She says, "Let's lay low for now."

TI: So this is Mrs. Omori?

JH: Yeah.

TI: Okay.

JH: And I forget whether it was that time or the next visit, she wrote me a note in Japanese, and I took it home to my dad and he read it to me. And he says, "She says, 'I can't sleep. I can't eat. I'm awfully upset.'" But me, meaning Yoneo-san, "when you come and visit my daughter, don't tell her anything about her problems. Just pretend like nothing." That was her words to me. And later on they got communication that the father was in Sharp Park. That's a, I don't know what it is, but anyway, that's were all the so-called FBI (prisoners) were taken. There was one person got taken, just a common farmer. For some reason he took his World War I draft card along. He showed to (them). "Yeah, go home." [Laughs] My dad had the same thing, but they didn't pick him up. Now, Mr. Omori was a wealthy strawberry grower, but they picked him up, why we don't know. To this day, we don't know.

TI: And so it sounds like in San Jose you didn't have as much friction with the rest of the community. I know, again Seattle, there was, especially with some of the Issei and the JACL, there was sometimes --

JH: If there was any resentment it was underground. It didn't come out in the open. There again, I think the president and the executive board going into San Francisco and getting the latest data and coming back, even before the newspapers got it, that helped an awful lot.

TI: Yeah, just having that information.

JH: Beg pardon?

TI: Just having information.

JH: Yeah, that's right. "This is what happened." They would say, "This is what happened." Then, "Oh, that's right?" Next week, "Yeah, remember what I said last week? Well then this happened." So it goes, there's a continuity there.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.