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GK: I got, I got my friend to lend me their typewriter, and then I'll start typing for them, but I just took a little bit and after years and years, it was kind of foreign, pokey, and so they said, "Oh, you're too slow," and they fired me, which was just as well because I had my family to take care of. But they came, some people brought lumber into the, my unit, 'cause my unit was a big unit. So they made a nice table, so you know, the typewriter will fit and the boys sat around talking. And I wasn't there all the time, but I try to help because husband didn't type. And pretty soon I got fired so I don't know what went on. But they met at different places, too, that's how... but I was really, I thought, "Gee, we have to fight for our rights." That's all we know is this country. So when my husband was asked to interpret what the Fair Play boys were saying, I thought, well, that's the only way they can make the money, raise the money, 'cause the Isseis have the money, the Niseis, they're young yet, they didn't have any money. I never followed, I never went to his speeches or anything, I just stayed home. But I knew he was trying to help them. And they made, I guess they got quite a few people, older ladies to follow him around and donate, and it was really cute how some of these old people followed him around. And that's what they had to have, was the Issei ladies to help raise the money for this trial. But they finally took it to the Supreme Court because they had enough money.

FC: So the Issei respected your husband.

GK: Oh yes, they loved him. [Laughs] They, the ones that believed in him, they just followed him around. And there were thirty blocks in our Heart Mountain, and it used to be cold but he'd go all over and they'd follow him around. Some people brought all the cash that they had and they'd give it to him. So they, of course, they had people taking charge of that. My husband just believed that the Niseis shouldn't be drafted from the camp 'cause he had studied law and he knows what law was like. But I felt that that was true. We had sentries watching us and everything with no freedom for them to be drafted, I don't know. I guess I didn't know what I was getting into but I just believed that what they were doing was right.

FC: Did you realize the danger that your husband was putting himself in as an Issei?

GK: Well, I said, "Hey, you always wanted to live in this country but you might..." he said, "It's all right, Mom." He says, "I got a place to go to, we'll all go if that day comes." [Laughs] And you know, at one time they tried, they had it that he was going to get deported. So I got a letter he told us that he was going to get deported when he got out, but when Supreme Court handed down their thing, they won, so then they wanted the letter back and he says, "I'm not going to give it back." But I guess he gave it back because he never came home with it. They had given him a paper saying, "When you get out of camp," I mean, "out of Leavenworth, you're going to be deported, first chance." Well, he didn't care, because he knew what home was.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1993, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.