<Begin Segment 17>

JD: This is a very speculative question. I don't know if it's possible to say anything about this, but do you imagine that without the war hysteria and deliberate prejudice created by the U.S. government, that the Bainbridge Island community would have seen you as the enemy or looking like the enemy? Would that have, would that have caused a huge reaction against the Japanese American community here?

FK: Well, that's an interesting question. I'm sure there would have been a few people that would have... would still feel that way. I mean, there were people at that time who felt that we should be taken away and that it was justified, and that we should never come back. But, I would say in general, we probably would have been able to ride that out, you know, and then just gone merrily on our way and just done what we always do. But I think politically, it was becoming such a, a problem in that, again, it's, it's the fear of politicians losing their jobs. The fear of, of farmers, not particularly on Bainbridge but maybe in the valley or in California, having their industry taken over by people of Japanese descent. Or, or those kind of fears make... when somebody gets really afraid of their own well-being, it gets real easy to not think about anything except yourself. And, and it becomes an excuse or a reason for doing some things that don't make sense. So, the chances are pretty good the island would have survived with us being here, but I don't know if it would have been possible because of the climate at that time, politically.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.