Densho Digital Archive
Emiko and Chizuko Omori Collection
Title: Frank Emi Interview
Narrator: Frank Emi
Interviewers: Emiko Omori (primary), Chizu Omori (secondary)
Location: San Francisco, California
Date: March 20, 1994
Densho ID: denshovh-efrank-01-0006

<Begin Segment 6>

EO: I want to ask you also, the "no-no" situation that came up. Would you have been classified -- you're not actually "no-no"?

FE: No.

EO: You refused to answer?

FE: "No-no" were the ones that unqualifiedly put down "no" to both 27 and 28, and with that they were shipped to Tule Lake. I would come under the category of "qualified" answer because I didn't say "yes" or "no," I just said I couldn't answer these questions under these conditions. So there's a difference there. In fact, I think most of those that were in the Fair Play Committee, they actually, the younger boys that resisted all answered "yes-yes."

EO: Was there any discussion in your family about these answers?

FE: I really can't remember if we had any discussion with our parents or not, because, but I'm sure that we must have talked about it with our parents. But I think in the case of our parents, like my father, probably answered "yes-yes," for all I know, otherwise if he'd have put "no-no," he'd have probably been shipped to Tule Lake.

EO: I guess we didn't get this, but did you tell us that your parents were aliens?

FE: Yes. My parents were both aliens. In fact, my older sister was also born in Japan. She came over here at the age of twelve. So she was virtually a Nisei, but she was born in Japan. Now, my brother, who is two-and-a-half years younger than me, also answered it the same way I did. And although he didn't attend a lot of these meetings that we had with Mr. Okamoto, he was, became active later after we were taken away. Of course, that's getting ahead of the story.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1994, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.