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Q: You talk much to your kids about those years?

CU: Well, I let them know what had happened. And I've always pushed their cultural heritage and background. I've always told them that when they went to school, "Under no circumstances are you to ever tolerate anyone calling you a 'Jap.' I don't care whether it's a teacher or anybody else, you will correct them, now. And that also goes for any of your friends who are of different backgrounds, whether they be Mexican, Chinese or Jewish or what." I do not tolerate and do not like anyone using derogatory terms pertaining to anyone's ethnic background. I don't like it and I get very, very vocal about it. And if necessary, I get physical, too. My wife always said I was very hard-headed.

Q: It sounds like you were, and it's interesting. Did you at a certain point not want to go to the camps?

CU: Well, I felt that it was, once the wheels were in motion, it was inevitable. I wasn't going to have a say so, I base this... I base this on an incident that happened just before war broke out where I was involved in a car accident. The other party was dead wrong. He ran a boulevard stop and he smashed into my car. But since I was very young and very Japanese, this person decided to take me to small claims court. I had witnesses and yet I lost the judgment. So I wrote an article in English class in high school about racial prejudice and it caused quite a bit of a ruckus. The teacher called me and the principal called me and says, "Well, why do you say this?" I said, "Because it's true." Jerry Thorpe. Are you acquainted with Jerry Thorpe, the movie producer, director? His son was in my class. He wrote an essay about the "Yellow Peril." And when he started to read his essay at the head of the class, he used the term "Jap" and I just picked up my books and threw it at him. And as the books went flying, I followed. It took two coaches and two other male teachers to finally subdue me, okay. Then I thought I was in a lot of trouble, because he comes from a wealthy family. But surprisingly, his father showed up and apologized to me for what his son had said. That really shocked me. But I thought, you know, sending me to camp, what am I gonna do? I lose a judgment, a sure judgment, in small claims court. What chance do I have of trying to fight going to camp? No chance. I thought maybe perhaps if I'd been a little bit older, I would have been just hardheaded enough to try.

[Interruption]

CU: Okay, now when I was put into those camps, at that time, I had no idea whether I would ever leave that camp, whether I would be deported, or whether I'd be put before a firing squad, you know, or just out and outright killed. So I just accepted life as being inevitable. That, that is somewhat like what I would term code of Bushido. You learn to accept physical discomfort without a whimper. Of course, I know my parents, they didn't know what was going to happen. They didn't know whether they were gonna be shot or deported or what have you.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1983, 2010 Densho and Steven Okazaki. All Rights Reserved.