<Begin Segment 6>

FA: I want to go back to the impact in camp on the Nisei of getting the "loyalty questionnaire." What was the effect on the families, inside the families? You write about this so well in the book.

MW: Oh, my goodness. It varied from family to family. It all must have depended on how old you were. If you were the oldest son, your loyalty belonged first to the family. You must take care of your mother and father, get them reestablished once again. After all, they're totally impoverished now. How are they going to get started on the outside? So that his mother and father would say, "You aren't going to volunteer, are you? Abandon us?" So that's an instance where it had nothing to do with loyalty or disloyalty. He had an obligation first to his family. Then there were those who wanted to get the hell out of camp and they figured, "Okay, I'll take a chance at being shot at. Maybe the $10,000, I think it was $10,000 insurance, might help. I mean, if I don't come back, at least it'll help my parents get started." So some of them ended up like mercenaries. Figured, "We'll get our freedom one way but maybe get shot at and never come back. But it'll be worth it. My parents could use the $10,000." But it was, it was gut-wrenching because there were at that time families with many children. They had large families then. There were like four sons, five sons. That wasn't unusual. Some, some would feel that their brothers were traitors, there was terrible conflict within a family.

I started to tell the story of, in Gila, where the mothers were urged by about eighteen or so leaders within Gila to threaten to commit suicide. And so all the mothers got together and they announced the fact that, "If our sons dare to volunteer," that they would commit suicide. So I think 70 percent did not volunteer. So the army, the Pentagon heard about it and they sent the FBI in. They picked up the Issei who were agitating and encouraging the mothers to say that they're gonna commit suicide. And once these men, the Issei -- and there were about a dozen and a half Nisei involved, too, they were picked up and summarily put in jail. Some were sent to Bismarck or... that, that brings me to another concept of mine. I do believe that the Provost Marshal General's office, which was part of the War Department, was most eager to get as much Japanese Americans to renounce their citizenship so that we would have a good reason to get rid of them. "Send them back to China -- Japan. Just the way we were able, we succeeded so well in sending the Chinese back to China, and we should do the same with the Japanese." And the justification they had was that, "Once they renounce, we have every reason, we have the right to deport them." And it is my gut feeling and I think that other researchers will eventually learn that that also was the ultimate goal of the military: to make as many disloyals as possible so that we would not only be able to justify the establishment of all these multi-million, multi-billion dollar camps, but that we would then be able to get rid of a whole lot of unwanted Japs.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1998, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.