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JD: The family's... so your dad was already in camp in March, but can you say a little bit more about what you know about what happened to the men and families when FBI came to their homes and were searching and looking for evidence of disloyalty or whatever they thought they were doing?

FK: Again, this is mostly things I've heard when I've talked to different people, in doing our oral history projects and things. I know, I remember once talking to Tyke Nishimori who's passed away -- and he must have been in his late twenties at that time -- but he said... I asked him an entirely different question and then somehow we got on the FBI coming and he got so mad. He got really angry and started cussing and all this. And he said, "Those blankety-blank FBI guys," He said, "They came to our house and I told, 'Leave my father alone, he's just an old man. And if you're gonna take anybody, take me instead.'" And he said, and he just, just was so upset about that. And I knew he had these feelings that were still deep inside him as far as that happening. I remember when we were filming Snow Falling on Cedars, a P-I reporter was talking to Tyke and said to him, "Well, what do you remember about this day?" And Tyke just gave her this deathly stare and said, "I don't have any good memories about this day," and just walked away. So, and I know one person we tried to interview said that when the FBI -- I think it was Henry Terashita -- he said when the FBI came he stalled them around and, and told 'em they had no business being there and refused to cooperate with them and stalled as long as he could so his brothers can start hiding things and putting things away. And he said... and I said, "You know, that's the kind of stuff we want to hear about, how you reacted when the FBI came." He said, "Yeah," but he said, "I don't want to be interviewed." 'Cause he said after that, some of the other community members came to me and said, and chastised him for not cooperating, and not putting on a good face or whatever and giving the FBI a bad time. 'Cause they felt that was, he was not a good image with the FBI. And the official stance of the JACL at that time was that we should we cooperate and show we were good Americans by, by cooperating as much as we can. So they felt that it was just giving us a bad name and he didn't want people to be upset by stuff like that. So he... that was one of the reasons he gave for not wanting to be interviewed.

JD: Did your dad ever talk to you later about how he had felt or reacted to being singled out and sent to this so-called...

FK: No, no, and I guess in a lot of ways I didn't get really interested in history or family history until, you know, way after I graduated from college. Probably not until I got in my forties, and by that time my dad had passed away. So I'm, keep thinking, "God, if I had only, you know, was able to talk to him and asked him these questions before he passed away," since he died in '69. I, I've heard different stories from him when he was younger and so forth. But as far as the internment-type time, I've never really heard anything. I do remember my mother telling me that when they had that questionnaire, the "loyalty questionnaire," and my dad had just been released from Missoula, and that questionnaire came around. And he refused to sign "yes-yes" to the two questions. The one about bearing arms against an enemy and forsaking any allegiance to the emperor of Japan. And he was, he was so angry that he just refused to sign "yes-yes." And, and you know, the rumors are going around that if you don't sign "yes" you're gonna be taken away and sent to Tule Lake or back to Japan for, in exchange for Americans trapped in Japan. And my mom said, she said she pleaded with him and said, "Sign 'yes.' What would you do in Japan? You can't... you can speak Japanese, but you can't read or write Japanese. What, what would the family do if you had to go to Japan?" And she said, "I'd rather hang myself than go to Japan." And my dad got so angry he said, "Go get a rope. Go ahead." And, but he did finally sign "yes" to the two questions. And I think Reverend Andrews, Reverend Emery Andrews from the Baptist church played a big part in convincing him that he should think of his family first and sign "yes" on those two questions. So I know he was just really angry about what happened to him.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.