<Begin Segment 9>

FC: Earlier on you said you were surprised to learn that Japanese Americans had resisted, and that it was good news to you.

CU: Well, it was good news to me because, well, when I came to the West Coast, I thought I had made a mistake in coming back because I left the West Coast because of the feelings, at least the thinking about, of the Japanese American was that, "Yes, accept your fate, accept this position that you're thrown into. This is the way America is." And so I left the West Coast, and when I came back I thought, "By now, after all, we had all gone through the Second World War, Japanese American soldiers had fought well, that possibly we'll be accepted and that Nisei would no longer have that same feeling, that they don't feel that way anymore." But when I came back, I felt -- I may be wrong -- but I felt among the Nisei that I met, that they still had a similar feeling, that they still felt that, you know, we're different, we're different in that we have to accept the fact that you are being treated differently, as if to say that, "Yes, we accept our second-class citizenship status." And I thought that, "Well, if this is what it is still after twenty years that I was away, more than twenty years, that maybe I did make a mistake coming back to the West Coast." But when I heard about the resisters, then I thought that no, I didn't make a mistake, it was good that I came back and learned about them, because I don't think I would have learned about them if I had lived elsewhere.

FC: So you, would you agree then that the general feeling in America was that the Japanese Americans had accepted the camps without protest or resistance?

CU: Well, at least... well, I would say that its leaders had accepted the camp, and possibly individuals did not. I think the individuals and the leaders were not in sync, they were not feeling the same way. I think this is why there was so much protest within the camp itself, and within the -- JACL's name was not very popular during the wartime, and at first I didn't know why, but I think I certainly understand now why that happened. And when I read some of the statements, especially when I -- what surprised me most was the statements being written by people who were at Manzanar, since they were strong JACL supporters, when the Manzanar problem came up, they were taken away from the camp apparently and put into a separate area for what the government called their protection. And there was, and the letters that I read were so ingratiating and so thankful to the government for taking them outside the camp, and they brought them to the local restaurants to eat, and for bringing them to see some movies, and they were such wonderful people they said, and this, it was almost sickening to read it.

FC: Why did they have to be taken out of Manzanar?

CU: For, because the people in Manzanar, they thought that they would be, they were threatened, apparently, with physical harm, because they were part of, they were the JACL leaders at Manzanar. But when I read some of this, I thought, well, this is typical. If the Nisei is going to start feeling this way and behaving this way, that is, after being incarcerated, just so they, for your protection, so they take you out for dinner and bring you to a movie, and all of a sudden you're so grateful and happy that they're doing this, that the government is doing to you, that, it's so, it's almost sickening type of a feeling. When I saw this, I said, my gosh, this is so much like what some of the Niseis were saying before the war, that is, if you want to be a good American, do exactly as we tell you to do, that is, accept everything.

FC: It sounds like the JACL leaders in Manzanar were moved outside of Manzanar to be protected from...

CU: Apparently their own people, yeah. Apparently this happened.

FC: So this means their own people don't accept JACL as their leaders, or despised them?

CU: Well, I think within the camp -- again, I can't tell you because I was not in camp -- but I'm sure that within the camp there was a strong anti-JACL feelings, because they felt that the JACL did not fight for them. And their feelings since, as an individual they could not say anything, JACL was accepted as a organization that was supposed to represent them. And yet they were not representing them. So I'm sure that there were many people who were angry. And I think possibly even the, as you know, the volunteers, for the very first call for volunteers from the camp, only 800 and something went in. Now take that with Hawaii where over 10,000 volunteered, and one can see that there was this resentment within the camp. And yet, that was never, looking at the JACL statements, that was not the case. Everybody was so happy to be there, and they were happy that the government was treating them so well, and that they would do anything that the government told them to do. I, just from that volunteer number, you could tell that that was not the case, that there was a strong resentment within the camp.

And also, when I see picture of Joe Kurihara being led into camp, and person like Ernest Wakayama, who I met and spoke to him for a long time here in San Francisco, when some of the veterans talk to me about people who are, did not cooperate, I said to them, "You people have gone out and fought for the United States. Now suppose today they came to you and said, 'You know, we're going to put you into jail because we don't trust you,' how would you react?" Because these, Joe Kurihara and Ernest Wakayama had already served in the U.S. Army. And yet they were being put into camp saying that, "We don't trust you because of your, because of your ancestry." I don't think that the veterans today would react very well, and yet they recall these other people who during the wartime were not all 100 percent with the JACL as being unpatriotic. That seems such a strange way to react. I don't think they, if -- to me, the people like the resisters, were really ahead of their time. Because if the same thing happened today, I'm sure that most Japanese American would not go quietly, they would protest. Then you could say, "Why didn't they protest back in 1940s?" The JACL would say it was impossible, you could not have protested. Possibly you could not have been successful, but at least JACL should have led the protest and say that... but instead of leading the protest they really encouraged people to cooperate, and this is what is difficult for me to understand. Maybe it was the only thing possible, but still, I think there's a way to go to prison, to go in happily marching and skipping along, or to be led in forcefully. That's two different thing. I think it gives a completely different public image.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1998, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.