<Begin Segment 2>

[Translated from Japanese]

I2: Segregation wasn't clear. The government built a segregation center, but it was actually not a segregation center.

TY: That's right. It caused tragedies. People like Mr. Kai emphasized this point. We chose to go back to Japan, and we needed to be segregated and be with people who also decided to go back to Japan. He questioned why he needed to live with people who were loyal to the U.S. government. He knew it was a problem and requested to be segregated again. He requested to be moved to another facility. Representatives from each block formed a committee to negotiate with the authority. In addition, many parents complained and claimed they used to receive plenty of milk and afternoon snacks for their children, but they were not getting enough in Tule Lake. We were also requesting improvements for us.

I1: The WRA was against the segregation or sending the disloyal to Tule Lake until the end. Based on documents, Mr. Myer kept arguing that this should have been done before sending Japanese Americans to camps when the army proposed the segregation idea. This was the same point you made. Why didn't they do it at the beginning? The government had exactly the same information they previously had. He strongly argued about why the government kept pushing the WRA to administer the questionnaire while they hadn't done it before incarceration. There was an issue with the incarceration policy to start with. Incarceration of Japanese Americans wasn't the original plan. The government simply wanted to remove Japanese Americans from the coast and send them inland. The government realized that they did not have any place to accept mass-removed people and rushed to build the structures and camps. It required a huge amount of money and work. The government was moving toward releasing Japanese Americans from the camps, but they needed to separate the loyal and the disloyal. It seems like the government tried to fix a previous mistake and pressured the WRA. They bulldozed the pass for the plan at the end.

TY: I respect what the United States stood for. The United States treated us, a minority race, unequally during the war, but I still consider the States as a kind-hearted nation. I have never wanted to speak negatively of the States. There are many good things about the country. Japanese were gathered in one place, and disagreement among us became very clear. Arguments about loyalty and disloyalty came up among those Japanese people. That made it difficult for the camp authority to control...

I1: They made the very decision to incarcerate the Japanese Americans.

TY: And Japanese Americans kept creating many issues and disagreements among us. The authority didn't want to take sides and gradually started to keep a distance and not to work on the issues.

I1: Were you angry at the Japanese Americans more than at the United States when you were active in the Houkoku youth group?

TY: The problem was among the Japanese Americans. Japanese Americans were asked where their loyalty lies, and we answered. We expressed whether we were loyal to the United States or to Japan. You are supposed to act upon your beliefs. The U.S. government should have respected that. But when we were sent to Tule Lake, people who were loyal to the United States were still in the camp. They refused to leave Tule Lake, and the WRA didn't do anything about it. It didn't make any sense. Why did we have to be labeled as disloyal and sent to Tule Lake for segregation? It didn't matter where we were sent to if we lived together. It would not have been a problem if the government, at an early stage, had made Tule Lake the place designated for people who were loyal to Japan. The name segregation center itself is a lie. Tule Lake segregation center did not send the loyal away. They did not administer the questionnaire, did they?

I1: Maybe it was because there were many people who did not return? Or they just wanted to stay there...

TY: That might be part of it. The Tule Lake incident happened because there were loyal people remaining at the camp.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright (c) 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.