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TI: So then it was only later then, so moving to 1944, when they started drafting them, that's when some of the men at Minidoka started saying no to that and started resisting.

VI: Right. So said no before.

TI: And so were there some OTs that decided to resist the draft?

VI: Yeah.

TI: And tell me, like, about how many. And at Minidoka, did that cause tensions?

VI: I don't know. Because by that time I was in Minneapolis.

TI: Oh, that's right. Because you graduated from high school and you were still too young to be drafted.

VI: I was seventeen when I went.

TI: You were seventeen, and you graduated from high school and you went to Minneapolis. And you're saying that the draft notices, which were kind of the summer of '44, you weren't around to see that.

VI: See, Mom was still in camp, so she remembers saying goodbye to the people who went to 442 or volunteered, and goodbye to the people that went to McNeil. Because some of her friends...

TI: Were also kind of...

VI: Or some of Bako's friends were.

TI: So although you weren't there, going back to the OTs, just roughly how many of them were draft resisters?

VI: Well, we had Mas Kawako, Nobi Omoto, Nag Ando, so about four of them.

TI: Well, you mentioned the first one, Mas Kawako, he was like one of the early leaders of the OTs, right? You mentioned him as someone who was kind of, felt like one of the leaders of the group.

VI: No, he was never really a...

TI: Oh, okay.

VI: He was very opinionated. And then the Akutsus went.

TI: Now, were the Akutsus part of the OTs?

VI: No. They were, I think the same block, but they were never part of the OTs.

TI: And so all of this happened, and did you hear any stories of, kind of, what it was like in camp for the men who decided to resist in the OTs? I mean, did you ever talk with any of them about what happened to them?

VI: For the people that...

TI: Went to McNeil Island.

VI: No. I have never heard one story from anybody of what happened at McNeil Island. I've never questioned them, they've never told me. I've always wanted to know what kind of facilities, how they were treated, all that, but none of them, none of them talk about it. Even Pancho.

TI: Who was a really good friend of yours.

VI: Pancho was a good friend of Bako's too. They never talk about it like we talk about going into camp. Food was lousy, we got treated bad. I'm sure they weren't treated very well at McNeil, but they never talked about it. The thing that really struck me, as I mentioned, that remember we had a big basketball tournament.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.