<Begin Segment 18>

TI: Well, at this point what was your reaction, were you shocked that they actually did it?

HM: Yeah. I thought they would back off. [Laughs] I thought for sure they would back off because it was within the terms of what the term paper should be. It was relevant to everything that the Constitution stood for. All the arguments I had in there about the blacks' treatment in the South, and our treatment, and all this kind of stuff. It was very relevant. I, I had researched the material quite thoroughly. Unfortunately I didn't keep a copy of it. I wish I had because it, it was kind of an interesting paper.

TI: Well so after the, the initial shock wore off. What were you feeling, realizing that you were kicked out of school?

HM: Well I, I didn't want to go tell my parents. I told my brother that they kicked me out. He said, "What are you gonna do now?" So I said, "Well I'm gonna keep going to school. I'm going to keep attending classes."

TI: But, well, going back to not telling your parents. What was it because you were afraid of their reaction that they'd get mad at you or were you, what were you feeling about regarding your parents?

HM: At that point? I thought first of all they wouldn't understand. That was part of the problem. Secondly, you know, it's... we're in the camp anyway. And we, as a teenager in the camp we were kind of independent because we weren't dependent upon our parents for the meals and anything else. So we just went home to sleep and sometimes if they want to sleep at our place, well I'd sleep at somebody else's place. (Narrator note: misstated sentence) And so this, this feeling about the, the family as a group, kind of disintegrated in the camp. I was taking extreme liberties because of the things that were available in the camp. So it made me a little bit more independent than I would have been. And the fact that I was doing the Salt Lake City Tribune thing, I was making more money than the people that had normal jobs and it, made me kind of different. I, I, I felt different, I was more independent. I couldn't care less. And I didn't feel that it was necessary for me to tell my parents. And I thought they wouldn't understand, and they wouldn't approve of it anyway. [Laughs] So I didn't tell them.

TI: So after this happened, you said that you, in the morning, would still wake up and pretend to go to school, what...

HM: Yeah, I did go to school. Physically I was in school. I had a... I took carpentry my sophomore year. It was a woodworking and carpentry class combined. And the guy's name was Kutkowski and he was a Polish-German guy. And anyway I... they were building this gym, the school gym. Now this, this is about the third year of the high school and about the time they build a gym because they didn't have a gym until that time, they were building the thing. And I went to Kutkowski and I said... and Richard, the son was also in the same class. In fact when we started the sophomore year, Richard was one of the members of my core class. Thomas Light and Richard Kutkowski and myself were in the same class. So I got to know Richard quite well and that was the same time I was taking carpentry from his dad. So Mr. Kutkowski knew me quite well. In fact one time he said to me, "I don't know if it's better for you guys to be in this kind of camp or take the kind of treatment that we got when, in World War I." And so I asked him, "Well what happened in World War I?" He said, "Well every day we used to have a fight after school. Because these kids would beat up on us because we were Polish German. And in one time period" -- I think the battle of the Marne, or whatever. one of the big battles in World War I -- "the neighborhood came on a Sunday and they swarmed the house and they painted the house yellow and purple," he said. And he said, "My dad couldn't get a job. We were literally living on potatoes and bread and stuff like that." He said it was a rough time, he said.

TI: Was he an individual that also, like Mrs. Pollock volunteered to come into the camps?

HM: Yes. Yes.

TI: And so he, he was very sympathetic to what was going on.

HM: And the fact that he had a kid the same age that was attending high school. And Richard was a very nice person. And anyway, so I went to Kutkowski and I said, "I'll help you build your gym. I'll learn something. And if it gets too cold I'll go into the library and study." And he says, "I don't know if I should do this. This is against the school regulations to have you on the campus when you've been expelled." So I says, "Why don't you look the other way." So anyway that's what we did. That was the arrangement we had. [Laughs]

TI: Well during this period did you ever run into the principal or...

HM: Oh yeah. [Laughs]

TI: And what was the, what was their reactions when they saw you?

HM: Mr. Light he said well, he asked me how I was doing, what am I doing during the regular school time and all this kind of stuff. And I said, "I'm studying on my own." He said, "Oh, that's good, that's good," he says.

TI: What was he thinking, that you would during your senior year come back to school and finish up? Was that his thought?

HM: Well maybe that's what he thought. Maybe just one semester in abeyance and I would come back and reapply, that's what he felt I guess.

TI: How about Miss Amerman, did you ever come across her during this period?

HM: Well, in fact the last interview I had with her, or last conversation I had with her, I told her she was making a big mistake. And she told me I was making a big mistake, and we both agreed to that, I guess on our own personal viewpoints. But we didn't go back and try to rectify the process. That was it. So anyway, the school librarian got to know me very well at that point. Because it, when it was too cold I didn't want to work out on the gym project so I would take haven in the warm library. And I was studying all the things that I wanted to study. And I was waiting for the time when they were going to release us from camp. And that was in the spring of 1945. And the war was still going on at that point. But because of the Endo case, Endo versus United States, they had to let us go. December '44 after the election process was finished and Roosevelt got reelected, they decided to do the writ of habeas corpus for Mitsue Endo. This was filed in 1942, by the way, and the Supreme Court didn't work on it 'til December of 1944, and they said that (they) had no right to keep these people in the camp. So we were waiting for the release orders and then I was waiting for my 16th birthday so that I could get out of the camp. Because they wouldn't let individuals less than sixteen go out on their own. So, that was what I was waiting for.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.