Densho Digital Archive - Ben Kuroki - Shige Kuroki Interview (denshovh-kben

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FA: I read another report from one of the camp analysts who said that one of the boys, one of the Fair Play Committee members asked you, "Mr. Kuroki, Ben, what would you do if you were us? What would you do if you were us? We're in camp, we were expelled from the West Coast, we lost our businesses, our homes, our rights, and now the government wants to draft us out of these camps. What would you do if you were us?"

BK: Well, I don't remember when that question was asked of me. It might have been, but if it had been I probably would've encouraged them to enlist rather than to resist. It's just simply because of my background and what I had been through. And that's one of the things, you know, I was born and raised in Nebraska and it's quite different from what it was out in the West Coast.

FA: One of the, I guess you did say you, that you encouraged them to volunteer, and then it was recorded that the kids, that one of the men replied, "So you think it's okay for us to be evacuated and locked up here?"

BK: I don't think there was any question like that asked of me, but it's possible.

FA: If, let's say I'm asking, I'm asking you now. By telling the Fair Play Committee boys to volunteer, were you --

BK: Oh, I didn't think for a minute that it was fair, the way they got locked up or the tremendous losses that they suffered. My goodness, I don't think anybody in their fair mind could say that it was justified.

FA: But from their, from their point of view, from their experience on the West Coast, that's how it felt.

BK: Well, obviously, yeah.

FA: It's just an interesting, interesting question. That you're all young men of different backgrounds and yet made different choices.

BK: Yeah, well, you know I was irritated about that whole thing in relation to that even when I was overseas because I read in a magazine how many Sons and Daughters of the Golden West wanted to incarcerate all the Japanese. And then I read a newspaper report that at a national governor's conference, Earl Warren tried to urge all the governors, the other governors, to incarcerate Japanese all over the United States everywhere, including Nebraska. And I remember seeing in a story that Governor Griswold from Nebraska took issue with Earl Warren and even told him off. And the first thing I did when I came back from my thirty missions, I did not go home. I went, got off the train in Omaha and went straight down to Lincoln to Governor Griswold's office and I thanked him for what he had said. So you know how I felt about the whole thing. I didn't think it was justified as far as the evacuation was concerned.

FA: Tell me again in your mind, what was the evacuation -- the expulsion and incarceration? Fair or unfair?

BK: Well, it was grossly unfair and of course you know that I don't think it took much analyzing to know that there were a lot of economics involved and decisions were made by a handful of people who were extremely anti-Japanese. It's a sad thing but that's one of those things that's a mistake that was made and I think the thing that pleases me the most is after all those years, after all those years, and it was 1988 that Congress passed the reparations bill, paid $20,000 dollars each to those who were interned and issued a national apology and President Reagan signed it. I think you know that it's just absolutely great that a country could admit a mistake after so many years. And then to apologize, it couldn't have happened anywhere else except in the United States. It's a great country.