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TI: There's one meeting that I read about, and I wanted to see if you knew about this. I think it was February 1942, so right, I think right before Executive Order 9066 was signed. They had a big JACL meeting in San Francisco where kind of people from different chapters all came to San Francisco. I think Mike Masaoka was there, and they talked about what should happen. Do you remember that meeting, when they held that meeting?
JH: No.
TI: Okay.
JH: I wasn't in the office then. There was one suggestion -- I don't know who the hell made it -- the suggestion was made to confine all our alien parents in a given place so that we Nisei will behave. In other words, the parents would be hostage. That was presented to the Western Defense Command, and they said that's not democratic. Well, what the hell's democratic if you're gonna throw the citizens in camp? [Laughs] But that's what they said.
TI: Interesting. So it was like back and forth, just trying to negotiate with the Western Defense Command?
JH: This incident in Seattle I don't know, but there was an incident in Sacramento where he spoke out of turn, meaning, "It's your patriotic duty," or something like that. And I, when there's all this tension, I don't think he should've said that, but...
TI: Yeah. No, it was really a difficult time in the community. I mean, a lot of uncertainty, and people didn't know what's gonna happen.
JH: Well, you know, when you're in a tension somebody's gonna light the fuse, and that's what happened. There was a case, two Nisei GIs, I don't know where they were stationed, but they wanted to tell us their experience of what happened immediately after Pearl Harbor. I think they were Kibei, the way their dialect sounded. And the president says, "No, I don't think so." It's off limits. I mean, what the military did is no concern of ours, so he politely told 'em, "Thank you very much."
TI: Because they wanted to kind of complain, or have a complaint about how they were treated? Or just... I still don't understand exactly. So they wanted to just say how they were mistreated so people would understand or hear that?
JH: What's this question?
TI: So my question is, so the two men who wanted to speak, they just wanted to, like, complain?
JH: No, it's not a complaint. From what I understand -- of course, this is a rumor -- but their firearms were taken away from 'em and their rank was stripped. That's the rumor I heard. Most of my friends were already in the Midwest. Prior to forming of the 442, most of my friends were --
TI: But why did, but why did they want to speak, though, these two men?
JH: Money, I guess.
TI: Okay.
JH: Well, there again, the president was smart enough to not even let it go that far. And he didn't even have a college degree, but he had money. [Laughs]
<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.