<Begin Segment 4>

FC: You could understand the dissension inside Japanese Americans, you said?

FO: Yes, I can.

FC: Talk a little about that.

FO: Well, I -- and I get much of this, I got much of it, of course, from that letter that Wakayama sent me, but also I've done a considerable amount of reading of the literature about what happened in there, and the impression I get and the material that I've read is that there was a great deal of conflict inside the camps themselves as to how the Japanese should comport themselves, what position they should take. There were those who said something like what the JACL, apparently, position was: "look, we're being wrongly treated, but we're not -- and they're calling us disloyal." Not only that, they classified everybody as "enemy aliens" and all that stuff. "They're calling us disloyal, they're wrong, we're not disloyal and we're going to show our patriotism by going along with, with the order. More than that, we're going to try to get people to volunteer for the army," and they got all that stuff, "even though it's a segregated unit, we're going to show that we're patriots and that's how we'll show that they're wrong." On the other hand, there were people like Wakayama and others who were more vociferous than Wakayama, said, "Hey, wait a minute. Look what they're doing to us. We're Americans, we're not enemies, we're not 'enemy aliens', certainly the American citizens are not, and these aliens here were aliens but they're not enemies. It's wrong; we have to resist." And, of course, the pinnacle of the, culmination of that, that idea was the Heart Mountain resisters. And I can certainly understand both of them. I can understand it.

FC: Was Wakayama... was Wakayama a good plaintiff?

FO: Oh, he was a perfect plaintiff, just so perfect. He was a World War I veteran, served his country. He was an American Legionnaire. As I remember, he couldn't speak Japanese -- I don't know what he was doing at that meeting. [Laughs] He spoke English. He'd never been to Japan, he was just the perfect person to test what was being done to him. How can you consider him to be dangerous, this kind of an American? And he was an American person, just a perfect plaintiff We lost him as a plaintiff, is what happened. [Laughs]

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1995, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.