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DG: Okay, and so getting back now to the war period, tell me more about the history of the Review, we covered the first edition, what went on beyond that?

MW: Oh, okay. Let's see. Well, all though the... one thing that I've discovered in some research that I've done was that apparently the Review was unique in interviewing Issei. Many of the other newspapers who were, again, in the early part of December saying, "Let's be calm," interviewed the Nisei. But they, my parents included the Issei, so right from the beginning they were part of it. They chronicled the FBI restrictions, because almost from, in December there were restrictions on the Issei which, on Bainbridge, of course, affected everybody because mostly there were Issei with Nisei within the... so curfews, couldn't go beyond five miles out of their home, had to be in after dusk, those were chronicled.

And at some point, there was a group of young Nisei, most of the Nisei were in their twenties if that, some of the older Nisei were in their twenties. I think Sam Nakao was the oldest at twenty-eight. Most of the Nisei were in high school or younger. But there was a group, a group of young men who when the FBI did come in February and removed a number of the Issei who had been prominent in the community and took them out of the state, most of them went to Missoula where they were interned for, some of them, for a lengthy period of time. But they were aliens, they were not citizens, and that was a legal process; as much as it might be disparaged, it was a legal process. And that left the Nisei, the inexperienced Nisei who had always looked to their fathers for direction and for wisdom, and they knew that it was falling on their shoulders to weather whatever was coming. And they of course had heard the rumors and knew people were talking about removing everyone. At that time, they felt that probably it would be the Issei who would be forced to move but certainly not the citizens. And they came to the Review one day to talk with my father about, "What do we do? How do we act now? What can we do to help our community?" And he said, "Well, you got to stop the Japanese language schools because people just don't understand that," and they went, "Great. We hated those anyway." [Laughs] Nobody ever learned anything, and got in the way of sports. That was not a problem for them. But then he said, "And some of you are going to have to join the army and you're going to have to get shot at. Then if that happens, the wider population who don't know you, don't understand you, will see that you are indeed loyal and you are supporting the nation." And that wasn't a topic of laughter when they realized that that probably was what they would have to do. I don't know that my father was saying that that was the ideal thing that they had to do, but he was looking at the broader picture of how, what's going to happen after the war with the greater community on the West Coast, and what kinds of things can be done so that there's going to be an integration after that, a smoother transition.

And that's one thing that I really marvel at about my parents. They were... well, let's see, they were thirty years old. They'd just started a business, they were neophytes at the job they were doing, they had an infant, they didn't have any money. And I think of what I was doing when I had an infant, and I wasn't thinking much beyond my family, particularly my little baby. They had the foresight, they had the wisdom to see the big picture. They always saw the big picture. And they saw not only what was happening right now and how to deal with that, but looking to what's going to happen when this war is over, and that was in their minds right from the beginning, and it really affected how they dealt with the situation.

As they saw the progression of what was happening with, toward 9066, they... 1940, '41, '42, very different from even 1962. I mean, especially different from 2002. We look back over, what, fifty years of civil rights marches and protests, and it's okay to take a placard and say, "My government's doing the wrong thing. I object to that and I'm going to get a bunch of people together, we're gonna march and say this is wrong." Nobody did that in 1940, nobody did that. And to, especially in a time of war, to say, "The government's doing this wrong." You just didn't do that. Everybody was very patriotic, it was the good thing to be patriotic and to accept what your government said. And the press went along with that. I mean, they didn't show Roosevelt on crutches, they didn't show Roosevelt in his wheelchair. They showed him after he was propped up at the podium looking like a healthy man. So it was a different time and my parents were part of that. They supported their government a hundred percent. It was very, very difficult for them to believe that Roosevelt or the government would ever agree to this wholesale roundup of citizens. And the way that 9066 was presented, it was so vague, and at the same time, there were other announcements coming from the government saying, "Well, of course, the Japanese Americans are the first, but the German Americans and the Italian Americans certainly will be..." I mean, there were statements put out that they were also going to be. So my folks said, well, my goodness, I'm glad that these racist columnists aren't going to be the ones to dictate that it's just going to be the Japanese. Our government is going to apply this equally to the aliens from Germany. Of course, they didn't do that, and it was, I think, very, very difficult for my folks to finally realize that they weren't ever gonna do that. That indeed they were just targeting on the basis of race this one group from the West Coast. And so it's interesting reading some of their editorials in January and into February where they're saying, "Yeah, okay, now our government wouldn't ever do anything wrong." It seems so naive today, but in the context of the time, it makes sense.

But when they did recognize that it was directed at this one group and it was going to include citizens, not only the first generation aliens -- who incidentally were aliens only because the United States government said that they were "aliens ineligible for citizenship" -- northern Europeans didn't face that. Immigrants from Asia coming across the other ocean did. They were, if you came from, if you came from Ireland like my ancestors did, that you could become a naturalized citizen. Well, that was not provided for these people who had made their home here for forty, sometimes fifty years. By 1940, some of these folks had been here since before the turn of the century, but they were prohibited from becoming American citizens, so it's circular, catch 22. But when it was apparent to them that the citizens were going to be rounded up, they immediately began speaking, they said, "This is wrong. We've tried, we've done what we can, and we are really sorry to say that this is happening and now we have to deal with this." And throughout the war they continued to periodically have editorials saying, "This is wrong." When the Japanese who were in the U.S. Army were classified as "enemy aliens," they said, "This is wrong. This is not only silly, but it's wrong." So at each stage along the way, they did make public statements in opposition to what the government was doing.

But in addition to that, they hired Paul Ohtaki who was the first one, said, "Okay, you folks are being taken, we don't know where, but when they get there, we want to know what's going on with islanders." So talk to people, get the gossip, find out who's getting married, find out who won the baseball game, who's the catcher on the team, what kind of jobs are people doing there. Who's sick, who might die. And later in the war when the Japanese were again included in the armed services, who's in uniform and who's being wounded. So every week there was a column reporting the news initially from Manzanar and then from Minidoka about what islanders were doing who were away from home. And they always presented it that way, that, "These are our neighbors who are away for a while. And they're going to be coming home, and we want to keep up on their lives." And that, I think that was just brilliant on their part, just brilliant. Because it had that effect. It had the effect... we knew when Fudge and Tad got married. We knew when David was born. We knew when Kay and Sam got married and when Bruce was born. People could keep up on that. And they were always identified not as, not as "Jerry Nakata as Manzanar has a .50 batting average," but it was "Jerry Nakata of Winslow." They were always identified by their area, where they had lived on the island so they were still, they were still Bainbridge residents there. And so people were able to keep up, not only those who were away in camp who could read what was happening on the island, but the opposite was true.

DG: And beyond Paul Ohtaki, they had other correspondents as well?

MW: Uh-huh. Paul was, Paul stayed, I think, for about a year, and then he went back, at some people they allowed people to leave camps as long as they didn't come west. They couldn't come back to their homes, but if they went east and had a sponsor they could leave, and many folks went to harvest beets and potatoes in Montana and Idaho, and a lot of people went to Chicago. It's interesting, I've never quite understood that. Chicago and Milwaukee, some to go to school and some to work, and then Paul eventually went into the MIS and was in the Pacific as an interpreter along with that, I think there were about six thousand others who went to the Pacific, which was not publicized. Nobody knew that was happening. Interesting that it wasn't. But when he went, Sada Omoto was the, very briefly, before he also went back to go to school. And then Tony Koura was for about a year, and then he left and convinced his sister, Sachiko Koura Nakata, at that time Koura, to take over the job. And so it continued all the way through. A couple of times they didn't feel like they were doing it well, Paul, "Oh, I can't write, I'm not a reporter." And my folks would send him letters saying, "No, this is very important. We need to know what's happening. This is an important part of the paper and people appreciate it. They like this, so you got to keep it up," and they did.

DG: So there was always one representative in the camps.

MW: Uh-huh.

DG: And how about, did the Japanese in the camps, did they receive the Review as well?

MW: Yes. I have a couple of letters that my mother sent about lists of subscriptions, so they were collecting subscription money and people got their paper. I think they would have sent it even if they, people didn't have money for subscriptions.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.