<Begin Segment 4>

gky: You said that fought a battle of prejudice. You said before that you fought a battle of prejudice. In what way?

SY: Well, prejudice insofar as how the Japanese Americans and my folks and most of the others were being treated, I mean, all of the people being relocated and put in the concentration camp. And so I would consider that prejudice. So as far as personal prejudice, I didn't feel any prejudice at all except a few words of slang words thrown at me when I was in San Francisco. But other than that, I didn't feel too much prejudice, except the fact that this, the thing that really stands out in my mind is the fact that my folks were put into concentration camp when I was already in uniform, and so I thought this was not right. And so, I consider that to be the main stigma as far as prejudice is concerned.

gky: Did your parents have a hard time in camp because you were in uniform and here they were in camp?

SY: I don't know. I never had a chance to talk to them about how they felt or how they were treated. I wouldn't think they should be. In the eyes of draft resisters, so to speak, I wouldn't know. But I did not get any idea or any feelings to how they felt because I was already in uniform overseas and here they were in a concentration camp. I have no idea how they felt.

gky: Looking back on your experiences during the war, fifty years later, you can say, "My civil rights were taken away." But that sort of wasn't the mood back then. I mean, how'd you feel about your civil rights being taken away, and you're fighting discrimination, as well as fighting for the United States?

SY: I didn't think, personally, I didn't think that my rights were being taken away because I was already in uniform, and we in uniform, especially I was operating out of G2 section, the 6th Army, most of the time in New Guinea, and my colleagues, Caucasian colleagues, treated me as one of their own. They showed no sign of prejudice or the fact that I was of Japanese descent. They showed no sign of that at all. So on the war front, among my colleagues, I have felt no prejudice. I didn't feel that any of my rights were being away at all, because I was treated as one of, as a true one same as Caucasians.

gky: You were attached to an Australian unit. When you were attached to non-American units, did they treat you any differently because you were of Japanese descent?

SY: No. As a matter of fact, I was in the Australian unit for -- I've forgotten how long, it was maybe about a week or ten days, I was a warrant officer already. And so they treated me just like any other Australian officer. As a matter of fact, the Australian units, even at the war front, had great privilege. And each officer was assigned an orderly, so to speak, to make your cot, shine your shoes, if your shoes needed shining, and so I felt no different when I was assigned to the Australian unit as opposed to if I was assigned to a U.S. unit. And they thought, as a matter of fact, they sort of felt that here is a Japanese American in the war front doing intelligence work against their own kind. So they felt that this was a great honor.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.