<Begin Segment 11>

FA: Books came out, Bill Hosokawa's Nisei, 1972, another Hosokawa book, another Hosokawa book, no mention of the draft resisters. How did that make you feel?

MK: Well, I think Hosokawa being the editor of the Heart Mountain Sentinel, it reflects his thinking that anything unpleasant to him shouldn't be written even though it's true history. And that he's never been a supporter of the resisters and so I can expect that from him.

[Interruption]

MK: Japanese American historians, as far as I know, never were able to tell the truth about what happened in camp until Michi Weglyn wrote her book about the Years of Infamy. I don't know why Japanese American historians think this way, but I think they still believe in the JACL thinking that good public image to please white America is far more important than good constitutional laws. That shows a weakness in Japanese American historians.

FA: And how did it make you feel even up 'til then that we've been talking about redress, and we talk about the camps again, but still nothing about the draft resisters?

MK: Well, I believe that people in the JACL have to admit that we were right. Redress proves that they were wrong during wartime. They, all they talked about was accommodating the government and cooperating with the government, then fifty years later, they said to pass redress that their constitutional rights were violated. That shows that at one hand in 1944 they were one way, and then in late 1980s they changed their mind and went the other way, see? But the resisters were always firm in their belief, they never wavered.

FA: And Mits, for so long you were talking about this, even writing in high school paper about this, but still no one listened to you, no one wrote about it, the historians ignored you. Now you're getting some attention finally, hundreds of people come out at reunions in San Jose and Los Angeles.

MK: Well, I think the young people, they're willing to study it and create what really happened during the wartime in their own minds. Like I said before, the Nisei that said, "Oh, I did everything, I obeyed all prejudiced laws, and prejudiced against Japanese Americans because my parents said to obey all laws no matter how bad they are," and like I said before, that's just a cop-out, because they want to blame their parents for their own shortcomings that they didn't have the courage to fight for constitutional laws.

FA: How do you feel now that people are finally paying attention, learning about your story?

MK: Well, it's the Sansei and Yonsei that's interested. The Nisei, I'm afraid...

FA: Sure. But Mits, how do you feel now that anyone is paying attention to your story?

MK: I feel very happy, I feel very happy. Hey, when I'm, sometimes when I'm walking with my wife down the street in San Jose, a couple come down the street and the wife will say, "Oh, that was a nice article that you wrote in the paper and I'm happy for you," but the husband, he's lookin' at the sky, you know, you know how he's thinking. You could tell right away the people that are against you.

FA: Even now?

MK: Oh yeah, they refuse to even talk about it. You know they're not stupid or anything, they read. They don't want to admit it. Do you know what I mean? They don't want to admit their own shortcomings.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1993, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.