<Begin Segment 10>

CO: ...start with the development of factions and kind of describe the leadership.

FM: As I said, in the late summer of 1942, there were a series of protest actions and revolts which developed at the Tule Lake center. What became very apparent in that period of revolt was that there were quite varied reactions within the population to the situation which they faced. There was, for example, the protest about the inadequacy of the food. But some people then wanted, so to speak, to bring the WRA down in their protest whereas others simply wanted to have better food brought in and looked upon it more in a utilitarian sense. What was revealed by this difference of attitude was that in a sense, in a sense of the degree of trust or distrust that the members of the population showed towards the administration, towards white people, towards the federal government, and the severity of the protest, or the radicalness of the protest then turned on the degree to which one trusted or distrusted the governing population, the governing group.

As might be imagined, the JACL was at the far end of the accommodationist side. They wanted to accommodate with, to the authorities as much as possible, whereas those who were called the radicals and the agitators were at the opposite pole; they were in many instances almost, almost outspoken supporters of the Japanese military and of the Japanese national government. In many respects it was not unreasonable that one -- not many respects, but in some respects -- it was not unreasonable that one should feel that way, take a very strong anti-American attitude in view of the kind of treatment to which the Japanese minority population had been subjected. But the expressions which came out at that time reflected feelings -- very fundamental feelings, it seems to me, within the population -- and reflected variation then in the kind of attitude which people took towards the evacuation, towards the center situation, and the like.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1992, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.