<Begin Segment 5>

CN: And then evacuation, I mean, December 7, 1941. You were just a baby at that point. Your father was active in the Japanese American Citizens League, so they were going to be sent to camp, but your family was separated from the rest of the Portland group, as I understand, because of his activities, is that correct?

JM: My father was the president of the JACL from 1938 to 1940, so he was just a recent past president. And when Pearl Harbor happened, of course there was all sorts of turmoil and speculation and fear going on. And I believe that when the Tolan Committee began to have hearings and talk with the Japanese Americans, there really weren't a lot of organizations or organized people to talk with, so they ended up having contact with the JACL, Japanese American Citizens League, and my father as one of the still leaders, even though he was no longer president, was one of the people that they talked with. I have no idea exactly what happened at that point, but they... I think my father, even though he didn't speak about it very much in later life, I gather that he was of the opinion, or he shared the opinion of those who felt that the way that the Japanese Americans could show their patriotism and loyalty was to cooperate with the government and more or less just cooperate with the government and go into the camps at that point. I don't know if he felt that... I don't know if he really knew what was going to happen or how it was going to happen but that's kind of the stand that he probably supported.

And we found out that most of the people in Portland, Oregon, went to Minidoka, Idaho, and all of their family and friends went to Minidoka. My father and our family, our immediate family, went to Heart Mountain, Wyoming, and he was told that the reason why he was being sent to Heart Mountain was because they needed registered pharmacists there. When they got there we found that there were several, many registered pharmacists already there, and my father ended up working as a carpenter there. And they found out later that the reason why our family was separated was because there were some Japanese Americans, Niseis, who were blaming other Japanese Americans, such as people who were from the JACL, because they felt that they were maybe almost being a traitor to the cause of the freedom of the Japanese Americans. And they said things like, they accused people such as my father of turning in or naming people who may be questionable, and some of those people were maybe sent to Tule Lake, and so then the other Japanese Americans would beat up on the JACL people. So, supposedly we were sent to Heart Mountain to protect our family from other Japanese Americans, which was really kind of ironic. My mother said that -- she had written some things years later -- that one time she when we were in the barracks, she was in the barracks by herself, and someone threw in a note and called my father "Howard DeWitt." He was more or less the head of the internment, the whole internment effort on the side of the government. So in other words they were labeling my father as a part of that. And I think that another time something was tossed through the window, a burning newspaper, and my mother had to stamp it out, and she wrote down she didn't know how she stamped it out all by herself. It was those sorts of terrorist things that happened to her that made my mother very bitter about the whole experience and she never spoke about it. In fact, years later, if anyone even mentioned something, it just kind of got my mother all riled up about it. It was because, not just of the experience itself, but because of all the other memories and difficulties that they had from both sides.

CN: Did your father ever mention the difficulties at Heart Mountain? Did he ever feel threatened?

JM: I think... well, you know, my father ended up... our family was not in the camp as long as many of the other people because we were able to come to Minnesota. So we were in the camps for roughly... my father was in camp for about a year. And during that time, he became the chairperson of all the different blocks. The way they were organized they had so many blocks and units and he was head of our block. Then he was also kind of, they jokingly said he was the "chairman of all the block heads." And, in fact, I think I brought a picture of him as... I'm not sure if brought it or not, but I did bring a picture of them in camp with...

CN: I don't have that one.

JM: Okay, but yeah, I will show it to you because it has 'em all line up, and he was, at that point, the chairman of all the blocks. So I think that even in a new environment where he didn't really know any people. People recognized he had leadership skills and respected him for that.

CN: It sounds like they must have trusted him, even if people were afraid of JACL leaders, I guess. It sounds like he earned their trust.

JM: I think so, yes.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.