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Q: What was the attitude of people after the executive order was lifted?

GS: Well, late one evening, in December 1944, I was received a call from a local newspaper asking me, telling me that the order had been lifted and asking me what my attitude was. And I told him I thought it was great. And I learned from the reporter that I was the only one whom they had called that thought so. And the next morning when I read it in the newspaper, I found that, again, that I was the only one that was happy about the lifting of the order. That the mayor and the governor and a lot of farm leaders and labor leaders and businesspeople had said, be calm, don't get excited, the army knows what it's doing and don't protest too much. Or at all. And then, as I was walking to my office, several people stopped me and were critical of me and finally one man said, "Don't you have any respect for your wife and children?" Said, "How would you like to have your house blown up?" And that was the attitude that I saw, and those were my experiences. But there were people on the other side because about ten o'clock that morning, a young lady came to my office and she wanted to talk to me about the, my statement. And I said to her, "Are you objecting to it also?" And she said, "No, I think it's great. We never heard about you but there's a meeting at the YWCA this afternoon with a number of people present, the man, the head of the Council of Churches and others, and we want you there because we're organizing a committee to aid relocation." And I did go there and I did become a member of the committee and I did become the chairman of the Committee to Aid Relocation. Now, the Employment Committee to Aid Relocation. Now in that position, I tried to get help, the internees get their property back. Many of 'em had given up their farms or had let their neighbors run the farms while they were in the camps, and never got a penny for it during that whole period of time. And when we tried to get lawyers to represent them, we found that they, we couldn't get lawyers to represent them if they wanted to get their property back or if they wanted an accounting. We could only get lawyers if, for them, if they wanted to sell their property. And the same thing is true with people who were trying to get licenses to operate businesses. We had a difficult time, and that's why I had to go to Hood River and elsewhere in order to get their, these people's cases before the courts.

Q: What do you think of the possibility of the internment happening again?

GS: Well, I hope that never happens, and I don't think it will. I think most people now recognize that it was a mistake, and there has been much publicity about the, what the 442nd and the 100th Combat Team has done. I think the 442nd is the most decorated unit in the American military services. There are buildings that are named after many of these people. And I think generally, people recognize that patriotism is not a matter of a color of one's skin, and that there were many persons of Japanese ancestry who fought and gave up their lives for this country. Now, one can never judge what's gonna happen when a crisis occurs. But I do want to say that I have talked to a few people who have participated as attorneys for the government during this terrible period, and not all of them are convinced that a mistake has been made. Some of 'em are still of the opinion that the Executive Order 9066 was a proper order and are much opposed to granting any of these internees any money at all, or recognizing that a mistake has been made.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1983, 2010 Densho and Steven Okazaki. All Rights Reserved.