Densho Digital Archive - Charlie Matsubara - Mary Matsubara - Evelyn Togami Interview (denshovh-mcharlie

<Begin Segment 19>

DC: When you were at Manzanar, were you ever asked to answer a "loyalty questionnaire"?

CM: Yes.

DC: What did you do?

CM: When that question arrived, I wrote a letter back to my brother Frank who's the oldest in the family. I wanted his viewpoint, how we should answer. And he says, "Answer 'yes.'"

DC: So you're talking about the two questions, 27 and 28 right?

CM: Right, right.

DC: So the first question was about whether you'd be willing to serve in the armed forces and combat duty right?

CM: Right, right.

DC: And the second one was about forswearing any allegiance to Japan. So why did you answer the way you did?

CM: Well, you're a citizen there, you're American citizen, what else are you going to do, you have to be loyal to your country.

DC: Did you feel obligated to answer "yes" or was it how you really felt in your heart?

CM: Well, I felt that I have to say yes... where are you going to go afterwards? This is your country, this is your home. And yes, we just have to live through it and you get over it and do the best we can.

DC: Did you feel any ambivalence towards the U.S. government because of what was happening to you and your brother?

CM: Yes. You losing your citizenship right, that really hurt me. And I think they said, well, there's a wrong there.

DC: Did you expect that things would get better after the war, or did you think that justice would prevail somehow?

CM: Well, all the family was in Albuquerque, this is their country there and we're waiting for our time to get okay to leave Manzanar.

DC: When you were in Manzanar, what did you think it was like outside of the camp?

CM: Well the... through the Montana experience there, outside of camp, you're going to have to really work hard to make a living. Well, camp life the government was paying, spending what 100, 125 million to feed us there and that become too much of a burden for U.S., for us, feed us, so the U.S. people say, oh, you could go back, but not to California, go to other eastern city, you could relocate.