<Begin Segment 25>

TI: In our earlier discussions you've, we've talked about sort of, the "no-no boys," the ones who later on who actually said "yes-yes" but resisted the draft. And our conversation sort of centered around how you really can't lump that whole group together, that there are a lot of different, essentially reasons why people did what they did. Can you talk a little bit about that?

FF: Yeah. I think as you've indicated, the reason why there were "no-no boys" is because they were the people that answered negatively to questions 27 and 28. Now, as you probably know, those, there was a horrible amount of confusion associated with answering that loyalty oath, because on the one hand, the selective service was using that as sort of a prelude to recruiting for the 442. And the WRA just jumped onto the bandwagon and said, "Hey, this is an opportunity for us to assess the loyalty of evacuees for purposes of relocating them." And so, they came out with one form for the Nisei citizens of draft age and another one for other people. And this other one indicated that it was really an application for relocation. And with that kind of confusion now, when they went into these relocation centers, many people knowing that there was the unfriendly attitude of people on the outside, they didn't want to relocate. Okay, so they said, "Heck, if we sign 'yes' to this thing we're going to be relocated," and so they said nix, "We're going to sign 'no.'" And that had nothing to do with loyalty. Well, of course, all along, the WRA, the War Relocation Authority, was trying to use this as their gauge or their criterion for loyal and disloyal inmates. And as it turned out, because of this kind of confusion, there was a... most of the people, probably, that answered "no-no" did so for reasons totally unrelated, really, to loyalty. But the WRA chose to segregate those people anyway.

And so, insofar as the Vets are concerned, they're not talking about "no-nos" as one big category of people. The reason the Seattle Nisei Vets reacted the way they did is because most of them are from Minidoka, and Minidoka was in some ways kind of not the typical center. Preparations for the loyalty program were really well-thought out beforehand, and so when the situation came, there were, of course, a lot of questions raised by the evacuees that were embarrassing to the administration, but there was not this antagonism towards the program. And so there were very few "no-nos" in the, most people signed "yes" in Minidoka. Not only that, having, Minidoka having only what? Seven percent of the, of the evacuee population accounted for twenty-five percent of the volunteers for the MIS -- 442. So the situation in Minidoka may not have been typical.

But to go on with this "no-no" business now, the guys that signed "no-no," at that time, nobody had to give any reason for saying "no-no." They just... in fact, they didn't want any elaboration of your "no-no" answer. And so we knew, we knew some guys that signed "no-no," although it wasn't really common knowledge to everybody that these individuals signed "no-no." It was not a big thing. And there were actually guys, at that point in time now, there were actually guys that volunteered that were very good friends with guys that said "no-no." It was a, but you know that, the situation between the guys that went to the army and the guys that answered "no-no" changed really further down the line. But that was because of the answers these guys, because of comments these guys made when they resisted the draft.

Okay, now the loyalty program was in 1943. And at that time, they only took volunteers. In 1944, as a result of the success of the 442 and the MIS and whatever, the army decided that it was going to draft Japanese Americans just like everybody else. And so it was at that time that the draft resistance came up, because there couldn't have been draft resistance before that, 'cause there was no draft of Nikkei. So when you're talking about "no-nos" and you're talking about draft resisters, they're products of two different events. They're not... they're not... well, lots of comments you see in the papers and what have you, seem to indicate that people think draft evaders are synonymous with "no-no boys," but that isn't true. Simply because there are a lot of "no-no boys." For instance, in Manzanar, I think, it was more than half the people signed "no," and yet, after a while ,after they got that off their chest they recanted and they said, "Aw heck, call me in the army, I'll go." So there are a lot of "yes-yeses," I mean, guys that went in the army that are "no-no." But on the other hand, one of the more famous draft resisters, of Nikkei draft resisters, of the Second World War were those Heart Mountain people. And they had a meeting, oh, I don't... a few years ago. Anyway, they, they made it perfectly clear that none of them were "no-no boys," they're all "yes-yes." And still some of them got segregated and sixty some of them resisted the draft. And they resisted the draft because they said, "Gee, as long as you guys got us locked up in this joint, why should we volunteer? Get us out of here and take care of our families and we'll volunteer tomorrow." I mean, that was their attitude. And so, I mean, it's a very reasonable position, I think. And it's a one of several positions that I think we Nikkei ought to be glad that somebody took.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.