<Begin Segment 5>

FC: The JACL leader who called himself Moses in World War II, what was his name?

PT: There was a person who was a leader of the national movement to lead us into camps, to start the 442nd, to, in his own words, to, after the war, to spread us throughout the country so our identity as Japanese Americans would be lost. The leader, that Moses name, was Mike Masaoka.

FA: What do you think now about the JACL cooperating with evacuation and suppressing the resistance?

PT: Run that by me again.

FC: Your opinion... the JACL, what do you feel now about the JACL's stand to oppose all test cases, to challenge, to test the constitutionality of the camps in court?

PT: My feeling about JACL in opposing those issues which are constitutional and of consequence to us, that it's JACL as an organization is taking a position that is counter to the, for the reason for its establishment as a civil rights organization.

FC: Can you simplify that? Was the JACL, was the JACL pursuit of good publicity over good law, was that a policy that worked? The JACL says it worked; did it work? Is Japanese America a healthy and happy community?

PT: My opinion of JACL's position that it was necessary for our survival, for our goodwill to be accepted, is still a recalling of that voice that says that we need to be "whiter than white."

FA: Paul, Mike Masaoka advocated being "whiter than white," yet everyone in Japanese America thinks Mike Masaoka still was a great man. How do you personally reconcile those two different views of Mike Masaoka?

PT: I do not believe that his public pronouncements can be separated from his private persona. He had a different agenda, and he was a member of army intelligence. I think you can take it from there.

FA: I'm sorry, Paul, I can't. What do you mean by that? [Laughs]

FC: You're saying that he informed before the war?

PT: The public position of Mike Masaoka in leading us into the camps and saying that all that transpired thereafter was good for us and it was, it led to our acceptance within the larger community is a betrayal of the concept of civil rights and what JACL stood for. Where's the sword I fall on now? [Laughs]

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1995, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.