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SF: And, around February, Executive Order 9066 was issued. Of course, most people didn't have any idea at that time, that 9066 was being signed by Roosevelt, is that right?

FM: That's right. And in the middle of February, what was prominent in the minds of the people in the community, was the fact that the so-called Tolan congressional committee was due to come out here and have hearings. And the presumption was these hearings were the critical events which would determine what was gonna' happen to the Japanese American community. So the focus of attention was on, "Organizing to rebut any arguments for..." you know, "forced migration out of the area of the Japanese population." That was the kind of attitude that existed in the latter part of February, when, as you say, according to the knowledge we now have, why, it was a forgone conclusion by February 6 as a matter of fact, that the evacuation was gonna' take place. We did not know that, the Japanese people did not know it.

SF: How did the community try to deal with the Tolan committee?

FM: The effort was to organize all the arguments in favor of, in support of the view that the Japanese Americans are a loyal population, they're not going to hurt the country. There were these stories of espionage and sabotage in Hawaii that were difficult to deal with, because people simply did not have any information as to what the facts were. But as I recall there was a man named Gullicksen who was Chief of Police in Honolulu, who had a statement in the newspaper sometime in February, to the effect that, to his knowledge there was no sabotage activity on the part of the Japanese American population in Hawaii. And we picked up on items of this kind, that is the Japanese community did, and tried to bring these things to the attention of the congressional leaders, or political leaders, that there was no basis to the charges of espionage, sabotage. Some of the things that were being reported we felt sure were wild stories. For example, The Seattle Times, sometime in December I think it was, carried a picture of a farming area north of Seattle here, where Japanese farmers were alleged to be. I know they had their farms there -- and the allegation was that they had cut out in a wheat field, or in a grass field, an arrow pointing to the Sandpoint Airfield, which was north of the city. And The Seattle Times then had this picture of an arrow cut into the field. Well, it was not an arrow cut into the field, it was some kind of a depression, looked like some kind of an arrow and it was allegedly pointing to the Sandpoint Airfield. And here this was on a Japanese American farm, and therefore evidence of sabotage. And we were of course terribly upset that stories of this kind were being spread in the newspapers. And that was part of the reaction of the Japanese American population.

But, we were caught in the circumstance where we didn't have enough hard information as to what in fact was true. For example, regarding sabotage and espionage in Hawaii, all kinds of allegations of that, especially coming from people like Secretary of the Navy Knox, who were prominent and authoritative persons, difficult to countermand. And therefore I think the Japanese American community, or the Japanese community was concerned with the question of how to deal with this type of news broadcasting and news publications that were coming out.

SF: Do you think that at that point, there was some uncertainty about whether there may have been some, say Isseis, or some Japanese nationals that may have done something like this, and no one really knew, and maybe the government had special information and...

FM: I think there was serious concern of that kind. In the background, at least of my thinking, was this fact; that all through the 1930s, the Japanese community not only here in Seattle but all along the Pacific Coast, and their newspapers, were essentially behind the kind of news reporting that came out of Japan. Well the 1930s, as you know, the period in which the military and the Nationalists in Japan were on the rise, and everything coming out of Japan tended to have this orientation of, Japan is justified in its Manchurian invasion, justified in its Nanking attack and so on. And the Issei population essentially favored that point of view very firmly, whereas the American newspapers and the American thinkers were condemning Japan for its nationalistic activity on the continent. Now on my part, and I think most Nisei who were thinkers, our feeling was that Japan was in the wrong. And we tried to argue with the Issei about this, but the Issei were very firmly convinced that Japan was in the right, and the United States was in the wrong about this. As a result, and unfortunately, there is really very little that is known about, talked about concerning that aspect of the Japanese community today.

Now you have to, this is a very complicated business. After all, you have to realize that the Issei were people who, here in the United States, had been seriously discriminated against. They had never gotten, they were not eligible for citizenship. They were excluded from participation in the political affairs of the country. Therefore, in a sense, you could hardly blame them for feeling that they had to be loyal to Japan, since that's the only country they had. So, this is the dilemma of the Japanese community, it's a product of the, in a sense, the prejudices which they faced. Therefore, if you ask, "What was the basis for their nationalistic orientation, Japanese nationalistic orientation during the 1930s," you'd have to say, "Well it was a consequence of the way the American population attacked them and discriminated against them, that they should think this way." Nevertheless, the reality was that there was this aspect of the community. And when the evacuation came, or the war came, I must say I had serious questions in my mind as to whether there could possibly be people who would continue to think as they had been through the 1930s, and try to support the Japanese military in whatever they were seeking to do. This is the kind of contradiction and dilemma that you get in history as a result of discrimination, prejudice, and so on. But that's a very long and difficult story to explain. Nevertheless, in response to your question, I would have to say that, yeah, we were not absolutely sure just exactly what to think was true of the Japanese community. Intuitively, I think we assumed that, you know, the Issei people here were not going to undermine their own security by behaving disloyally in any way. And they had never given any evidence of disloyal activity. Their mentality, however, was such that you had some skepticism as to what in fact they might potentially be capable of.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.