Densho Digital Archive
National Japanese American Historical Society Collection
Title: George Koshi Interview
Narrator: George Koshi
Interviewer: Marvin Uratsu
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: December 10, 1997
Densho ID: denshovh-kgeorge-01-0030

<Begin Segment 30>

MU: Now, before I ask you the final question, I wanted to know what your feelings were about the draft resisters in Heart Mountain. You know of them, of course.

GK: I don't know any of the specific persons.

MU: But you know the case.

GK: (Yes), I know the cases. And one case came to me (for legal advice.)

MU: Oh it did?

GK: Uh-huh. But then, I told him that... well, my whole approach was that the Issei we cannot help, that they are enemy aliens and whatever (the government decided to do would most likely) be legal -- and I was very optimistic about the outcome anyway. Internment of the Nisei, I thought was unconstitutional. And then drafting them from the camp was very, very unreasonable. I thought, "American government got nerve to put them in the camps saying that, 'They are disloyal,' and, 'We don't want you outside, but we want you to serve because you are loyal American citizen.'" And then this quotation from Roosevelt, that, "Americanism is a, not a matter of color or race." He's got nerve to say a thing like that when he's the one that --

MU: Put us... yeah, okay.

GK: Issued Executive Order 9066. (He is) the one that placed the Nisei in the concentration camps. (...)

MU: You don't hold any grudges against...

GK: Oh, I... I think it was unreasonable, but no grudge actually.

MU: Uh-huh. Well, it took a lot of nerve and guts to stand up like they did. And, they were punished for it.

GK: That's right. So... but eventually I was optimistic about it, always, because as long as there is no record of criminality, no record of disloyalty -- American government, basically, is fair. There would be fair-minded people, working someplace, which will start speaking up. The wee little voice at the beginning became a regular voice of America and the legislature, also saw to it. And after that we start seeing the amendment and...

MU: The redress.

GK: Redress. All those came up after 1943 -- '53. And eventually, everything now, even the California anti-alien land laws --

MU: That's all done away with, okay.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.