Densho Digital Archive
Frank Abe Collection
Title: Clifford Uyeda Interview
Narrator: Clifford Uyeda
Interviewers: Frank Chin (primary); Frank Abe (secondary)
Location: San Francisco, California
Date: May 5, 1996
Densho ID: denshovh-uclifford-01-0016

<Begin Segment 16>

FA: What would happen if the JACL were to acknowlege its mistake and apologize to the resisters?

CU: Well, I think it would be just like so many Americans would feel. We made the horrible mistake, we acknowledge that, and we admitted to our mistake, and that really, sort of a self-cleansing feeling. And unless the JACL comes out and says, "We did, we also made a mistake, the way we treated and thought, talked about the dissidents," until that happens, I think the Japanese American community could never forgive the JACL for what they did.

FC: So to admit, to apologize, would be to admit that everything from 1942 to the present has been wrong.

CU: Not everything. They did some right things; you know, they did a lot of right things. But when it comes to dissidents, they did the wrong, they did it really wrong. And to me, it does not hurt the JACL image at all. I think it enhances it. When you, when you admit the mistake and try to correct it, then it really shows you that you're, you are human. You can make a mistake but at least you admit it. But to stubbornly refuse to admit that you made a mistake, I think this is, it's almost unacceptable.

FA: The other half of the resolution had to do with, with the JACL's response to the evacuation orders. Can you also --

CU: Wait a minute. JACL's response...

FA: It said that instead of cheerful cooperation --

CU: Oh, I see, yeah.

FA: Tell, can you put that in your own words?

CU: Yeah. My thing is that when the government finally issued an order that Japanese Americans would be incarcerated, I think that would be the time when the JACL should have made a tremendous protest. Not just verbally, but by action as well, that this is not American. This is not, this is not Japan, this is not Germany, this is the United States. You can't do this in the United States. And to stick by that statement, I think would have been a tremendous help, and I think possibly they would have gotten the respect of the American public at the same time. Sure, the war was going on, so possibly there were others who would be extremely anti-JACL, but in the long run, they would come out ahead. But the fact that they did not protest but to tell everybody that we are, that we are glad to go into the camp to show our patriotism, I think that was a very weak statement to make.

FA: Read what Mike Masaoka said, he says, "Yes, we cooperated, mainly because we were afraid of what would happen." And he says that, "If we cooperate, the government [inaudible], and if we don't cooperate and if we protest, the army had a contingency plan to move us out within twelve hours, twenty four hours, and what are you going to say in a situation like that? And more people murdered in the streets, you want tanks to come in? I think we had no choice."

CU: I just wonder whether, how true that is, because if they did not... as I said, POWs do cooperate, physically, but mentally, of course, they are, they are completely opposed to it. But for the American citizens to be incarcerated by their own government, to say that we want to fully cooperate, somehow, there's something missing there in being American. Yes, I, if you happen to be living in Germany or in Japan, I suppose maybe that would, could be correct. But America is supposed to be different from Germany and Japan, that's why we were fighting them.

FA: Can you just say this, you said this in writing many times, we just haven't heard it yet. Can you say something like, instead of cheerful cooperation, I think the JACL urged cooperation under protest.

CU: Oh, yes, we said... yes. I think when the government asked for, stated that we're going to be incarcerated, JACL, instead of saying that we would be glad to go into camp or to cheerfully cooperate, if we had protested all the way into the camp, I think that would have created a completely different image. It would have given us some sense of self-respect. This way, we took the self-respect completely away by saying that we would do anything that the government told us to do. This might have been okay in Germany and Japan, but, you know, to think that this is being done in the United States means, also meant that the Japanese American leaders never really truly understood the American government.

[Interruption]

FA: And so now, Mike Masaoka, if he were here today, he would say, "You Sansei, you were not there. You were not there, you can't know what it was like back then, therefore you can't pass judgment on us."

CU: You know, that... you know, history is always being corrected, and I think the person who really is appreciated are the persons who, if history proves that you were wrong, to say that yes, to admit that you were wrong. The Constitution of the United States has not changed for the last two hundred years. The Japanese Americans, while we were thinking may have changed, but, you know, what we were, what the protesters were doing, they were going by the Constitution which has not changed, not before the Second World War, but not after the war; it's still there, it's exactly the same thing. And they were going by that, and I think the, and when the government and the organizations such as the JACL refuses to recognize the Constitution itself and saying that that's, that doesn't apply during wartime, then there's something wrong with the Constitution itself. If that is, much, I think, I shouldn't say there's something wrong with the government itself and the organization itself. The Constitution is unchangeable. It still stands, after two hundred years it has not changed. Just because, say, the Sansei were not there, that is a poor excuse for, I think it's a sort of a, if there was anything like a copout, that's it. It's to say that that prevents you from answering. Since, of course, you were not living then, so how can you protest? How can you pass judgment? Well, there is many things that you are not there, but if it's wrong, it's wrong. I mean, you don't have to be there to be wrong.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1998, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.