<Begin Segment 31>

EO: Now when you were in Leupp, tell us about when did registration happen for you?

HU: That was, let's see, late June or July. Best was the head of the Leupp, you know. But he'd been appointed to Tule Lake, so he was transferred to Tule Lake, here comes Robertson. Robertson was more open-minded. He know the Japanese prior to war because he was inspector in LA market, I guess. He got a lot of contact with the Japanese so he knows, and he was more liberal toward the Japanese and he was a fair man. His wife was very nice, so everything, we could talk to him. And that's why I communicate with him after the war. He came over here, too. And other house twice, and here once, year before last year he came over with the family.

EO: Just one thing, in this article with Arthur Hanson, you said about 150 military police were assigned to guard about forty-five internees in Leupp.

HU: No, it was 300 they had there. Yeah.

EO: Okay. So, and Raymond Best was...

HU: Appointed to Tule Lake, director of Tule Lake.

EO: After he left Leupp. So he was at Leupp.

HU: Yeah he was in Leupp, too.

EO: Okay, so can you describe how the registration actually happened?

[Interruption]

HU: Well, there was about fifteen or twenty people, they signed "yes," and eventually they shift to the other camp.

EO: But did people come there with these questionnaires? Did you actually have to sign those same loyalty questionnaires?

HU: Yeah, same thing, same thing. Yeah.

EO: Did army people come and pass them out?

HU: No, the administration. So some people refused to sign, for instance, like people came from Tule Lake, they, originally they refused to sign, but eventually they landed back to Tule Lake. So like Tateishi, John's father, you know, they signed "yes," so he went to the, I don't know... Poston, or some other camp. And they had a bunch of, like Ben Kishi, he talked big, but he signed "yes," he landed to another camp. They... I have a record of every one of those.

EO: How did you feel having to answer these questions?

HU: Well, I decided to go back to Japan because the way they treat us I don't feel any, comfortable staying here. I know my parents, I hope they're alive, but I didn't have communication for quite a while, so I don't know. During the wartime, you know. So I had a good relation with people in Japan, my uncle and so on, you know. And that's why I thought maybe I got more future in Japan. But after I went to Tule Lake, and I really, I have a Spanish consuls inquire how they exchange people, so on, they give a, I got a paper there, I give you a copy if you want.

<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 1994, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.