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Q: Could you tell us about the atmosphere in Portland towards Japanese Americans?

GS: Well, it wasn't good, and that in certain places it was worse. For example, in Gresham, Oregon, and in Hood River, Oregon, where there were quite a few farmers and quite a few Japanese farmers, the attitude was very bad and they were not treated very well. As a result of the Pearl Harbor, there was widespread feeling of animosity against persons of Japanese ancestry. And I think that Executive Order 9066 was not, was greeted with a great deal of pleasure by most of the citizens of the area. There were only a very few people who were critical of it. And the newspapers were very supportive of the idea.

Q: Do you have any comments about the Supreme Court decisions of that time on the Yasui case?

GS: Well, the... Judge Fee agreed with me that the law was unconstitutional, at least insofar as the citizens are concerned. And then he did something with which I did not agree, and that was he found that Yasui had voluntarily relinquished his citizenship. I didn't see any basis for it, and then it went to the Court of Appeals and even the government didn't see any basis for it, and the Supreme Court just set aside that portion of Judge Fee's judgment. However, on the main issue, Judge Fee had decided that the law was unconstitutional but the Supreme Court of the United States reversed that judgment and held that it was valid. I gather that there was a great deal of dissention, but I think that the decision came out almost unanimously. Now I doubt very much whether they would do that today, but they did it at that time. Now after the, that decision came down, shortly thereafter, General DeWitt's order was set aside. And shortly thereafter, I received a call from a local newspaper asking me what I thought. And I said, well, I thought it was great, the order never should have been issued in the first place.

[Interruption]

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1983, 2010 Densho and Steven Okazaki. All Rights Reserved.