<Begin Segment 14>

CO: Tell us about your observer status in all this.

FM: Well, the observer status puts one, as an evacuee, in an ambiguous situation. That is, we were involved in the evacuation because we were what were called evacuees, people who did not have the qualifications for remaining at freedom on the West Coast, and therefore were members of the evacuee status and we have to behave that way within the centers. At the same time, Dorothy Thomas and the project required of us that we be observers of what was going on in the center. And observers, one had as observers, one has to behave in a different way, or think differently about the situation, and we're in a different situation than with the rest of the evacuees, and that then put us in a kind of a dual status as residents of the community. By and large, I think I functioned and perceived things and was mentally structured more as an observer than as an evacuee. I suppose in the back of mind I had no question as to where I stood in all of this, ever, but then I was more interested in how people were behaving, how they were reacting, and what they possibly might have been feeling. I was doing that as an observer and trying to understand it more so than trying to analyze my own feelings about the whole situation.

CO: So, describe the atmosphere of the camps during this registration process.

FM: The camp was torn clearly by the issue that was now before them. Those who felt that they were seriously threatened by the program of evacuation -- I mean, of resettlement, that is of being forced to leave the confines of the camp, for many were frightening and a real threat. And also, the many families in which there were sons who were of draftable status, in many cases they felt that the sons were perhaps among their primary means of future support, whatever might happen subsequent to the, their lives in the centers. There was a serious feeling of threat among the population of that kind. On the other side, people like ourselves, were threatened by having to forgo the freedom of, that is we were threatened with the possibility that we might have to forgo making a judgment or a decision that would be in line with our own desires. If as some people declared, everybody in the camp should declare "no-no" and show our feeling of protest against the country and so on in that way, if that kind of policy were followed down the line, then those of us who did not agree with that sentiment couldn't be free to act as we wanted to. And this was a serious threat. So the community became divided on, between these two polar sentiments and feelings. And there was in every block and even in some families, sharp conflict between those who stood for, wanted to do one thing as against the other.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 1992, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.