<Begin Segment 16>

CO: I know this is a question that's not on this, but were you aware of the informing, the gathering of information in the community prewar?

SS: No.

CO: How about during the camps?

SS: I remember, oh yes, right after the war began, the FBI, they came to see me twice. And he was probing for any information of the, my knowledge of any information, concerning the resident Japanese in this country who might be dangerous to this country or might be a spy or something like that. Of course, I didn't know of any such person. I did know one man who was an assistant naval attache in Washington, in Washington, D.C. He was living in New York for a few months. And I didn't know him before, but one of my friends who knew him came to me and said that he, this man needed, wanted to study English while he was here so they thought I'd make a good teacher for him, and would I accept the job. So I said, "Well, I'll do that." I remember he was there maybe three or four months. I used to go to his place once a week, and have him read from the newspaper and so forth. But an assistant naval attache, or a military, army attache, those men are, in a sense, they're official spies. Some people would regard them as that. But they're not... I didn't think of it those days. He was just a naval attache. But certainly no, I was never made privy to any secrets that they might have known.

EO: So you were not aware that in each camp there were groups that were collecting information specifically for, say, the WRA group out of UC Berkeley.

SS: Oh, yes. Well, I knew that there were so-called sociologists in camp and they were there to pick up bits of information, probably to help in the pacification of the camp in case of any uprisings, but none of them ever took me into their confidence or asked me for any information. I just regarded them as harmless scholars who were in there probably to promote themselves to a higher degree and a higher position in the schools they were connected with. I saw no harm in that.

EO: Did you lose family in Japan?

SS: Pardon?

EO: Did you lose family in Japan?

SS: No, because our entire family had moved to this country back in 1919. My uncles and aunts were... well, I had one, one aunt, but she died about two years after we came. All my grandparents were gone, and my, no other uncles or aunts existed, as I remember.

EO: So, are you a citizen?

SS: Yes, I took out American citizenship.

EO: When?

SS: That was in '52. No, not '52, '54. I could have become a citizen in '52 but I didn't rush to sign up for that. And I might not have ever taken it up had it not been for the fact that my friends, with whom I ate lunch every day and worked with every day at Standard and Poor's, they knew that had, I was not an American citizen. And when they asked why, I said, "Well, look. Your government has officially stated that I'm not good enough to become an American citizen." And they said, they said, "Well, now, the way is open now, why don't you take out citizenship?" Well, I had no particular reason, reason to take up citizenship. I just let it drag. Then eventually these fellows kept bringing up the subject so frequently that I... certainly I had no hostile intentions toward this country, and, but I couldn't see any particular benefit from taking out citizenship except owning land. And I didn't own any land and I had no intention of owning land and I was working for Standard and Poor's Corporation, enough to live on. So I kept pushing it off. Until these fellows finally started asking me questions which, I realized that since it's the custom in this country for people who come from abroad to eventually take out American citizenship and be able to vote, that since I would have to live the rest of my life in this country anyway, that I might just as well get it. But still, I'd been brought up to be proud of my Japanese citizenship.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1992, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.