<Begin Segment 17>

FA: Did you keep your membership in JACL?

BK: No. I haven't been in membership in JACL for quite a few years now. In fact, I've been pretty much been living in seclusion. I really had to think twice about agreeing on this... I said when the Nebraska thing was in 1991 I said that's my last hurrah. Kind of bothers me 'cause I felt that I fought my heart out to prove myself and everything and I get criticized by the resisters and some of the Issei. I see stories where they call me inu, a dog, baka, a fool, and those things. It really hurts, you know. What hurt, what hurt me the most, I guess that the resisters said that I didn't know what I was fighting for. And kind of reminds me of an old saying that we had, on the way to the bombing target we were flying for Uncle Sam. So the minute we dropped the bombs and we turned around, we were flying for ourselves. All we wanted to do was get back to base, live another day. And, so I was just kind of staying out of the limelight. Couple of years ago I guess or maybe a little more than that, they asked me to speak to the board meeting of the 442nd regiment. And I turned them down. I said, you know, because for my personal reasons. They were quite offended 'cause I didn't, that I did turn them down, but it's not that I had anything against the 442nd. I think they were the greatest thing that happened to the Japanese Americans. And I'm real proud, considering that they had to go to war under such adverse conditions that I deeply respect them but I just, I'm going to try to get out of the limelight. I don't want to be criticized anymore for what I've done or said so many years ago.

FC: You wrote a letter to the LA Times after redress, thanking the 442nd for redress.

BK: Oh yes, I've mentioned, in every speech I've mentioned or given I always talk about what injustice the evacuation was, and yet some of the resisters say that I don't know what I was fighting for and that I never even mentioned once about the evacuation. And that's not so; I've certainly spoken out in their behalf on many, many occasions. And in fact, you know, my speech before the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Dr. Deutsche wrote to me while I was in combat in the Pacific and he says, you know, he says that was the turning point in the attitude toward Japanese on the West Coast, that my speech turned it around. And so I feel that I've, I've done the best job that I know how and I had my opinions on some things that don't jive with other people but basically that's why I've been pretty quiet lately.

FA: Then why then did you agree to be interviewed today?

BK: Because the very thing that bothered me about some of the resisters were calling me names and saying that I didn't know what I was fighting for. I wanted just one little chance to just say that it's not necessarily so.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1998, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.