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Then comes September of 1944... no, I'm sorry. In January of 1943, almost one year after we were incarcerated, the government, the federal government decided that they wanted to find out how many people in these camps -- and there were ten camps at that time, located two in California, one east of Los Angeles, and one in Tule Lake, which was about 50 miles south of Klamath Falls, Oregon. And so there were two here and then there was one in New Mexico, and one in Colorado, Arkansas, and so on, and the Midwestern states. And so there were ten of these camps, and there were a hundred and twenty thousand plus people who were incarcerated based on Executive Order 9066, which was passed by President Roosevelt on February 19, 1942.

And so the government wanted to find out if, how many people would be willing to serve in the U.S. Army. We knew that it had to be the army because they won't let Japanese Americans serve in the navy, and I don't think they had an air force at that time, but it was the U.S. Army that they wanted to see if they would be willing to serve in it. So they devised the "loyalty questionnaire" to find out, and that was the intent. So all those who were seventeen years and over, men and women, had to answer these questions. I understand there were about fifty questions altogether, but there were two questions that really covered the "loyalty" part that raised quite a dilemma for many people who had to answer these questions. So I'd like to read the two questions, question number 27 and 28 became the famous questions to check their loyalty. And it was very loaded questions, and question number 27 said, "Are you willing to serve in armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?" Now, if you were a young mother with kids, how could they, if they were responsible parents, how could they answer this "yes and serve on combat duty wherever ordered"? And also a father who had young kids yet, and was responsible for the family, how would he be willing to, or be able to answer this "on combat duty wherever ordered"? Now, it's true, later on, they did change the one for the women to say "in the nurse's corps" or "women's corps" or something to that effect, but still, it meant going away from their family in doing that kind of work. And so there was a lot of rumors about how to answer this question, and I remember rumors that this was one way that the United States was going to try to get rid of us by sending us all to combat duty. So there was a lot of questions as to how to answer that question.

Question number 28, "would you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attacks by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor or any other foreign government, power, or organization." Many people who lived in the United States were born in the United States, had no idea who the Japanese emperor was. Of course, our parents knew because they were born in Japan and immigrated legally to the United States. But so if you answer this "yes," then that means that at one time you had sworn allegiance to the Japanese emperor, and now you're swearing allegiance to the United States. And besides, our parents were Japanese citizens, born in Japan, they were forbidden by American alien land law in 1924 where they could not become American citizens even though they wanted to, and they could not own property. So it again became a dilemma, because like my parents, if they answered it "yes," then they would be a person without a country. Because in those days, the Japanese emperor was the leader of Japan at that time. So there was a lot of questions that happened, were occurring.

Now, remember I said that my two brothers and a lot of those who got educations in Japan were being harassed by the Japanese government to become Japanese, to join the Japanese army or navy, Japanese military. But they refused because they were American citizens, so my brother at that time, my oldest brother, was twenty-two, so he was very irritated because he fought so hard in Japan to prove his American citizenship, and then came back in 1939, and in 1942, with Executive Order 9066 that President Roosevelt signed, it had no difference as to whether you are an American citizen or not, and it just meant everyone, regardless of citizenship would be put into these so-called camps. So my brother was very irritated by this because, after all, we were citizens, and we shouldn't be put into jail, In fact, we shouldn't have been asked to file a "loyalty questionnaire" when we were put into jail regardless. And so he, in Topaz, he went around the mess halls and talked to the people trying to answer these two questions in the negative, "no-no," or don't answer them at all as a form of protest for what the U.S. government did to us U.S. citizens. So he went around to all the mess halls and so on, and I remember going to a lot of, during that period, and in fact, later on I realized that the FBI got a hold of him and evidently had to find out why he was doing, taking part in this kind of an activity. But with all this controversy, then, there were a lot of mess hall meetings and so on as to how people should answer these two questions especially, and a lot of 'em would break up families, relatives and so on, because some would say, "Yes, we're American citizens, so we will vote yes or answer yes and serve our country." Others would say, "No, for the treatment we receive, and regardless of, because of the injustices as American citizens, we must protest this action by the government and answer no." So there was a lot of that, some fathers would say, "I have to vote no because I will be without a country if I didn't, but you as an American citizen, if you want to vote yes, you do what you think is right," and so on. So there was that kind of answer, but a lot of them had to try to convince brothers and sisters, relatives, cousins, they all began, all over the ten camps, they were at these mess halls and meetings and tried to find out how to answer these two questions.

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