<Begin Segment 11>

Q: What was your hearing like?

MY: Well, the hearing itself, I have very vague recollections. Because it was extremely perfunctory, the facts of the situation was very simple. There was a military order I deliberately violated. The two interesting questions, of course, related to whether or not the military could impose military orders upon a civilian population, and secondly, whether the military could distinguish between citizens on the basis of ancestry, both of which I felt were absolutely wrong. So the hearing itself, as I say, was not of great importance. The amicus curiae briefs that were filed by the various attorneys, the research that was done was really the heart of the whole case.

Q: How did you feel about being sentenced?

MY: The sentence was really unusual because the judge, James Alger Fee, ruled that military orders were unconstitutional and unenforceable so far as the United States citizens are concerned. However, by some freak reasoning, he ruled that I had dual citizenship and therefore, because I worked for the Japanese consulate general, because I'd gone to Japan as a child at the age of nine, because my father had received a medal from the Japanese government, I had renounced my American citizenship and therefore was a Japanese national. As a Japanese national, these particular military orders could be enforced. The other thing that startled me, although I did not particularly protest, was the maximum imposition of a fine of one year in jail and a five thousand dollar fine, which I thought was a little heavy for the particular test case that I was involved in.

Q: Tell us what the solitary confinement was like.

MY: The prison in which I was confined was the Multnomah County Jail. And I will frankly say, I think the jailers were being solicitous of my welfare, because they did not throw me into the general tank where the other prisoners were. They were concerned that someone might do me harm, so therefore they gave me a private room and there I languished in solitary confinement for a period of nine months. The solitary isolation cells are approximately 6 feet by 8 feet, the floor is concrete, the walls are, of course, bars. The back wall was steel, the ceiling is steel, they have steel bunks with canvas stretched in between, and open toilet bowl and an open wash bowl, and there's very little that you can do. I can remember walking back and forth, taking three steps forward and then turning around and walking three steps back. It's very confining.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1983, 2010 Densho and Steven Okazaki. All Rights Reserved.