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BN: Do you remember anything about the so-called "loyalty questionnaire"? You're just a kid, obviously, but did you sense anything going on around that?

SM: I remember my father was involved in the questionnaire. I found out later I got a copy of his actual questionnaire, original, it was in his file. And it helped explain a lot of things about my father. For example, my father, I found out he demanded that the question be revised because he could not answer question 22. And because he knew English, he knew what it meant. And so the original portion that I have shows a stapled question on top of the original question because of his demand for a better question. And that question, by the way, was very simple. It says, "Do you have loyalty to the United States government?" period. No other qualification, nothing else. And he answered 'yes' and that was it. So that clearly shows he had the skills of understanding English, being able to not answer if he felt it was not correct, so that was interesting.

BN: Yes, interesting. Since you pulled the files, anything else that was interesting or that you learned from...

SM: Oh, yeah. Question, was it 21, 22?

BN: Twenty-seven and twenty-eight.

SM: Oh, 27 and 28. Question 27, would you be willing to join the military if asked? It was a question, would you be willing to join the Women's Auxiliary Corps? My father answered, "I am not a woman." [Laughs] I thought that was funny. It was right there on the original.

BN: That's funny. Many Issei banded together to get that changed, also. They did ask Issei men that initially.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.