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AD: How did that feel for you to serve? Tell us how you served for the U.S. military --

ET: Well, I was given a test, and in the minute they went through with me, "Would you be willing to serve?" I had a very angry feeling towards Japan because of the fact that the left three hundred thousand people, they sacrificed all these three hundred thousand people and started a war. And maybe that's a very oversimplified reason, because war is, when you really stop to think, psychological part of the war, if Japan warned us, "Hey, we're gonna drop a bomb in Pearl Harbor on such and such day," then they could have never got the thing done, maybe. But we are the victim, but what happened to same victim again by the United States? They just victimized us again.

HT: We were without a country.

ET: We were completely without a country, we were stripped of our citizenship which is a very drastic move by the United States government. This is why I think of Roosevelt to blame for that. And Earl Warren never thought that was a crime. And this is, I think, the worst crime against another human being. It could have happened in the United States, and this is the thing that...

AD: Heidi, talk more about what you mean by "being without a country."

HT: Well, I just say that because they didn't want us, Japan didn't want us. We're foreigners, and the U.S. didn't want us, put us in a camp. We were people without a country for so many years. Here we're U.S. citizens, and we're treated like that. But we were young. You know, we never thought too much of things like that when you're young. All you thought about is, "Oh, we're going to camp. What's it going to be like?" Never thought about being without a country, or this is afterwards you think about it. But at the time, we're going to camp, wonder what kind of a life we're going to have over there. That's all you think about, who you're gonna meet and what you're gonna do, and you're young. And if everything works out fine, then you're very, very happy. You have no worry, go to bed, wake up, play, go back to bed. There's no worry at all. When you're young. So I never think about, I never thought about my mom losing anything until it got later. When, "Oh, I wish I had this," or, "I wish I had that," 'cause Mom had it. But, see, we didn't have any of that leftover. Before that, never thought about it, just lived day to day being happy where you are.

ET: I think as a man without a country, it's depending on where you are in your lifetime, what age you are. Some of 'em felt very much responsible. The trip from Puyallup to Minidoka, I knew it was fairly safe. And some of my friends left earlier, asked me if I would go and volunteer to build a camp. And I get the thing set up, but then my commitment with family, I stayed with family. But then I felt fairly safe because of the fact that I even heard from some of my friends that went ahead to camp. But a lot of 'em believed we're gonna be shot right at the end of this train trip. We'll be lined up and be shot. And I said, "No way that's going to happen. Don't worry about it." But my father, my father really believed it's gonna be end of all of us at the time. And that's kind of sad. And this is when I said I felt very desperate to reach out for Red Cross and people like, but they didn't pay any attention to us. That was kind of sad. But I don't know whether I would have done probably the same under the same circumstance. Well, if I was volunteering for the Red Cross and here a bunch of evacuees come on another train, and knowing that's them, and of course a guard is watching them, they won't let them out, here the inside of that train there were so many sick people, they needed help, they needed doctors, they needed nurse, they needed food, they needed water, nothing was provided. But it was not because we were Japanese American, but under the circumstances, we could be the completely the other way around. I have to tell you, you know that I came out here and we went to... one day, I can't remember what occasion it was, Red Cross people had a program and we were there. And he told about the atrocity of Japanese soldiers. And, of course, I felt bad about this, and he was just saying that. But yet, I felt so angry at the time, and I stood up and told him off and what the American Red Cross did to us, or didn't do a thing for us. And I think it was Mr. Cole, publishing, he backed me up.

AD: Did you guys consider yourselves American, and how did that feel to be treated as not American?

ET: Well, actually, I feel, like I said, I was very angry at the Japanese at the time. And we only have one country. No matter... I have a 4-C classification, which is "alien Americans," and here I have a 1-A classification at the same time. So it was a very crazy time at the time, but I always maintain that I am an American. I started the Sister City and [inaudible]. One time I was accused of bombing Japan because of the fact that I flew a little bit myself. [Laughs] Those are misunderstandings, it happened all the time.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.