Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: George Fugami Interview
Narrator: George Fugami
Interviewer: Dee Goto
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: June 15, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-fgeorge-01-0019

<Begin Segment 19>

DG: Okay. Now, right up to the time you were going to leave, there was something to do with military service or something.

GF: Oh, yes. See, at my age, I was a little older than the other kids, and I would be called into the army because I had dual citizenship. You got to have dual citizenship to go to Japanese school so I had to... they had to take me -- see, my uncle, he was, he was helping out on military, people that go into the army. He used to take them to the places where they supposed to be sent to. So he told me too, "George, I think you better go, otherwise, you have to go into the army." I didn't mind that in a way, but well, how can I be loyal to the United States? I have United States citizenship and I have to stay in Japan? I didn't know if the war is going to start or not, but I didn't want to go into the army. I didn't have no desire to go into the army so that's the reason why I came back this way. It's not because I didn't like United States, I didn't like Japan.

DG: What did... weren't there a lot of citizens who didn't want their sons to go into the army and to that's why they sent them like to Brazil and things?

GF: No, I don't think so. I never had that feeling. A lot of my friends --

DG: So the common people were really for whatever the government wanted to do.

GF: Wanted to do. Yes, that's right. But that was one of our duties, to go into army. Everybody that's of age, there's no restriction. You have to, unless you're blind or something else or are completely crippled.

DG: But it sounds like in your family, or your teacher, or your uncle, sort of understood that the service was not such a great idea. Is that where you got that?

GF: Well, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. Since my father and mother was here, they said, "You should go back."

DG: Oh, that was the main reason?

GF: That was the main reason for me and my other brothers are coming back to the United States is because of parents are here. That's the same thing when I was in Hawaii. I came back here. Gee, I didn't know what to do in (mainland), but my parents are here.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.