<Begin Segment 41>

DG: And to finish off about the recruitment, your husband was refused.

NS: Yes. He volunteered, but they wouldn't take him because he was born in Japan and not a citizen. So he was refused. And he couldn't go to any other state because his license was good only in the state of Washington. So he had to -- in order to relocate, we weren't sure whether he would have, whether he could take the state boards in any other state. And since there wasn't any reassurance of reciprocity, he decided -- well, the only thing was to go back to the state of Washington. And that's why we came back to Spokane.

DG: Because you were thinking of going to Chicago or someplace.

NS: Yes. I had an uncle in Chicago.

DG: One of the things that you mention in one of the letters is that you were inundated with paperwork with all these questionnaires. So I took a look at the questionnaire about relocation -- and so there is some items in there about what kind of magazines that you read or what kind of papers you read and, so forth, and whether you'd been to Japan or whether you spoke Japanese, all those things. And it was interesting to me that you said, "After everybody gets through filling out all these questions, is there any question about their loyalty?"

NS: [Laughs]

DG: Were you having to constantly prove your...

NS: Yes, I think so. Well, to prove that you were loyal; that you had no interest in Japan, as such, excepting as a country and where your ancestors came from. But as far as your loyalty was concerned, it was where you were living and that was in the United States.

<End Segment 41> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.