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gky: You didn't volunteer from an internment camp, but you did volunteer. What made you volunteer?

TT: Well, you know, from the moment we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, although being the same ancestry as the enemy, there was no question, at least in my mind, and of course in the minds of many of my colleagues, that we were still Americans and that's why we responded a few minutes after the Pearl Harbor attack, to respond as university cadets and serving in the Hawai'i Territorial Guard. It was just, there was just no question. That was our obligation and duty. And then, of course, we suffered this terrible blow of being rejected because of your race and ancestry. But still, that didn't cancel out any fact that we were still Americans and our duty, our obligation was to be of service to our country. And even the triple-V experience, although we could only offer ourselves as civilians, the ultimate goal was that that was a gesture, a demonstration of our feeling of loyalty with the eventual hope that we would be, that the opportunity for military service would be restored, and that was the purpose of the VVV, at least our serving in it, and our faith was ultimately justified by the fact that they did open up military service again in the call for volunteers for the 442. So at that time, the whole group out at VVV, we voted to disband so that we could volunteer for the 442. So it was not just individual. I think all of the people in our group individually, but as a group, volunteered.

gky: So you all had to officially disband before you were allowed to volunteer for the 442nd?

TT: Yeah, well, you know, the demonstration or experience had served its real purpose. Initially, just a few weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack, initially it was at that time the tide of anti-Japanese sentiment was just at its height, plus the fear of being -- Hawai'i was in imminent danger of being invaded by Japan. It wasn't until the Battle of Midway when the Japanese navy was turned back that the feelings here, the tension and all that was alleviated or reduced. Until then, it was just an awful experience of being someone of Japanese ancestry. And so, this, you could feel this tide of fear and prejudice and resentment directed at anyone who was Japanese because in effect we were taking the hit for what the enemy did to us at Pearl Harbor. And the VVV gesture, you might say, is like the story of the little Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the dike to stop the leak that might eventually turn into a flood. I would say it had that effect of stemming a tide of -- and, of course, the authorities pointed to this triple-V demonstration or experiences as something that justified the faith of a lot of authorities that the Nisei are Americans. They're okay, they're going to be loyal and they can be trusted.

gky: When you got to Camp Shelby, did you find much difference from people from the mainland and the Nisei from Hawai'i?

TT: Yes. I had found out a difference earlier on a trip that I made in 1941 to a conference in California where we met mainland Niseis. I could tell at that time there is a difference.

gky: How would you characterize that difference?

TT: Well, although we may be ethnically, racially the same, we're products of the environment we're brought up in, and the Hawaiian Nisei is culturally a different person from those who are brought up on the continental U.S. They're much more, you might say, American. Of course, their speech is better, their reactions, their emotions, you know, they were more like the haoles on the mainland. Whereas here, we're just one of the minorities growing up, brought up in Hawai'i. Even at that time in Hawai'i, we, although we had many races, it was still a stratified society where the haole was at the top of society and it was a vertical stratification. And the people in the minority, quote, "knew their place in society," unquote. So being a minority person, or brought up as a minority person, there's an inherent, you might say, inferiority feeling, especially toward the controlling and dominant group which is the haole, or the -- especially those who are brought up on the plantation. On a plantation, the manager was like God, you know. So those, most of the people, Niseis that I knew that grew up in rural areas had very little contact with the haoles, and they always felt that they had to keep their place. Then we go to the mainland, we run into people that look like us, have the same kind of names and everything else, and yet they're talking and acting like haoles. That was a great cultural shock to most of the guys that came from Hawai'i.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2001 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.