<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So when you hear of things like this happening, was there quite a bit of fear inside the Japanese community in Salt Lake City?

JK: Well, not so much, because Sheriff Young proposed that all the Japanese had to turn in, turn in all the firearms that they had, all the cameras and radios that had shortwave sets, and especially cameras, and they would be stored in a common storage area near the police station when they were supposed to be able to recover that, although it was after the, the war. But when I talked to several people that stored their shotguns and their cameras, and they find that almost all of it was missing. The police or somebody had already confiscated or had taken, or had stolen so many of the things that they had deposited there.

TI: When you mentioned Sheriff Young, so I'm thinking, in your position as the president of the Salt Lake City chapter, were you in contact with authorities like Sheriff Young and other law enforcement officials? Did they kind of use you as a...

JK: No, not really, I knew Sheriff Young and I met with him, but we never did, we never talked too much about what would transpire as far as the attitude of the Japanese would be. Because I was asked to speak at several different organizations like the Knights of Columbus group, and then most of the Knights of Columbus group were Italian group. They asked me to explain the status of dual citizenship. Well, evidently, they didn't know that they were, as Italians, they were the subject of discrimination. Not in the sense that we were, but then they were also declared citizens of Italy by the Italian government, but they didn't know it.

TI: And so they were concerned about that, so they wanted to...

JK: Yeah, and so they asked me, and I said, well, most of the Italians, even if you're second generation, maybe not the third generation, but as far as the immigrants from Italy, and as far as their children, who would be second generation, are subject to dual citizenship by the Italian government. And most of them were really surprised to think that the Italian government rendered such a position.

TI: Yeah, so that's interesting. Going back to the officials, when I've interviewed people on the West Coast, oftentimes officials like the FBI worked closely with JACL chapters to help them either communicate information or to ask advice from the JACL in terms of pro-Japan factions and things like that. Was that happening in Salt Lake City?

JK: No, no. No, we didn't have much, except our travel restrictions were prominent here. That is, if we wanted to go out of town or if we wanted to go, say, a hundred miles out, why, generally be required to have an attorney, a U.S. attorney's permit to travel outside of the town. And in most cases, they didn't enforce it, and I don't recall that we were ever accosted in any way. Because when I went down to Topaz, why, my wife and I and Mrs. Hirota, and she had her three-year-old daughter with her. Well, we had an attorney's pass for myself and one for my wife, one for Mrs. Hirota...

<End Segment 14> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.