<Begin Segment 11>

DG: So now, moving on, to like... high school. You said that in one of the classes, you had this discussion, about...?

SS: I wish I can remember the exact thing, but I had Mrs. Ruth King during my sophomore year and she was a very good teacher. But there was... I wish I can remember the subject, but there was a pro and a con and something about Japan. And since I was on the con side, the opposite side, I couldn't find anything about, what Japan was doing that was wrong, and so, what I did; now in the newspapers, everything was pro and then nothing that was against. And so, I had my dad read the Japanese paper, and then he gave me that, some of the reasons. And I wrote it and...

DG: Okay, one of the things I forgot to mention, that this is after Pearl Harbor.

SS: Right after Pearl Harbor.

DG: Okay. And we need to establish that...

SS: No, this happened before Pearl Harbor.

DG: Oh, okay. I'm confused...

SS: Okay. And then, she reported after and so, the FBI came and checked, and said, "Why did you answer it this way?" I wish the FBI had that in my record. And I said, "Because the teacher posed that question. And I had my dad read the Japanese paper and I wrote it from what the Japanese paper said." So I said it wasn't my way of thinking but because, and when you think she was a teacher that made you think, and the only way I could get the answer was through the Japanese paper. But I always told my kids, I said, "When you write the paper or anything be sure to qualify it." Because I said, this is what happened to me.

DG: That was really unfair.

SS: It is, it is. So I was bitter, a bitter person for a long, long time. Not only the war, I was forced to go into camp.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.