Densho Digital Archive - Ernest Uno Interview (denshovh-uernest-01-0006)

<Begin Segment 6>

LD: Did your father know you wanted to go? Because your father was sick.

EU: Yeah, they were both against it. My mother wasn't as resolute as my father. As I look back, and people from time to time have asked me, "Well, weren't you bitter about the evacuation and such?" I can't ever recall being a teenager at that time, ever recall any negative, strong negative feelings. I remember talking to people, and others who groused about having been herded like cattle and this kind of thing. But to give any serious thought to evacuation and the reason for... and then my role as an American, and my need to contribute to prove my loyalty, there was no question that that was something I had to do. I had in the back of my mind, Loni, a number of my classmates back in Los Angeles, whom I figured got caught in the draft or had enlisted in either the navy or the marine corps. And I remember that even as I read newspaper accounts of the war in the Pacific, those particular units out of California were consigned to combat zones in the South Pacific, and they were taking a dirty licking. I'm trying to think which division it was, maybe Sunshine Division, 40th Division, National Guard, some of my friends were... when they were in high school, had already joined the national guard. I knew they were facing combat. I could never think that I would go back to Los Angeles after the war and they would have been in the military and I would not have. I don't think I could have faced them. Strangely, I never saw any one of them, never looked them up after the war. But I knew that probably -- and this was through the high school counselor with whom I had talked after the war when I went back to check on whether or not I could get a diploma, I was told that there were a number of fellows in my class who never made it back. In fact, they had wanted, "they" speaking, the high school administration, had wanted me to show up at the graduation ceremonies of the class of 1946 as a returned war veteran. They wanted me in my uniform and all, and receive my diploma at that time. I said, "Well, what are my options to get my diploma?" They said, "Well, we can mail it to you." I said, "Do that." And they mailed it to me. [Laughs]

LD: You preferred to have it mailed to you because...

EU: Well, I wasn't going to allow anybody to make a show of my, this kind of thing. I did my duty, I felt. They were kind enough to say that I earned, because I was in the military, I earned enough credits to graduate, I didn't have to take any high school classes, kind of thing. I did that because I needed to find out what classes I had to take at City College to make up, in order to get on, enroll in college. That's the way it ended up. I didn't have to go back to high school or anything.

LD: This is the same high school that had [inaudible].

EU: Right.

LD: So it was a turnaround.

EU: It was a turnaround on their part, but they were aware. Well, there was a counselor... I think, you know, in retrospect, I should have been probably more willing to cooperate. Because there was a counselor there, a Mrs. Bailey, who I even have, I think, a copy of a letter I had written to her and her response to me when I was in camp. But she was very supportive of those of us who were attending Manual Arts High School and had to leave camp. And she did all that she could to keep us in touch with what was going on. And it was at her behest that I was asked to show up at graduation ceremonies, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It would have been a farce, the way I thought. You know, having been kicked out of that community and such, and then come back as a hero of the war, it just didn't make sense, and I didn't want to do that.