<Begin Segment 5>

FA: Fred, the distinction I'm making about the JACL calling the draft resisters "disloyal," you always keep turning this around to, to the JACL have said, suggested everyone resist, but the question I'm asking, though, is why did the JACL go out of its way to label the resisters as "disloyal" and ostracize them? I'm not saying, I'm not saying that they should have encouraged everyone of, every boy, to resist the draft. I'm just saying, why didn't they just look the other way, why didn't they just let it, let the resisters go make their test case and let them go on their own? Why did they go out of their way to label them delinquents, draft resisters, troublemakers?

FH: Because I think all of us -- not all of us -- many of us were concerned, as I say, with the fate of our group and our kids in the postwar society of America. We were looking at the long range. And we thought that the Heart Mountain resisters, I don't say that they were disloyal, but they were resisting the draft, which they resisted because, as I say, some of 'em truly on constitutional principles, others because they didn't want to go to war. I think if you really searched into that, you'd find that's true. That's true of all the resisters. Because... where's that thing I had?

FA: It's on the floor by your right foot.

FH: I've been reading a book, I was telling... who was it?

FC: Paul.

FH: Paul. Derelicts of Company K, and in it is says, "On May 31, 1944, the War Department announced that since the reinstation of Selective Service Nisei, 3,312 had been called. Of this number, 669 had been rejected, and only 139 had declined the report." Now think of it this way: who did the most for our group, the Nisei group, Nikkei group? Heart Mountain resisters or the 442? Who did the most for us?

FA: Who do you think?

FH: 442 and the war... there's no question about it.

FA: Why?

FH: Why? Look at the record they established. Every bit of publicity that came out after the 442 made their, they became more and more favorable to the Japanese American group and their problems. And there's been otherwise, if the 442 had failed, we wouldn't have had that publicity. And our return to American society wouldn't have been that good.

FC: I think the 442 did fail.

FH: Oh, they did not.

FC: If the 442 had succeeded --

FH: Don't say that to me.

FC: -- you would have won redress by 1950.

FH: That's applesauce, and you know it.

FC: No, I don't.

FH: Well, I do.

FC: I firmly believe that.

FH: I don't believe it.

FC: Because the 442 did nothing. Affected not one law. Not one law. They touched not one constitutional issue of camp. The 442 argument is a justification for camp. It's a racist argument.

FH: I totally disagree with you.

FA: Why do you disagree?

FH: Because I think if it weren't for the -- if it weren't for the guys that volunteered out of camp in our life, into the army and established those records, publicity would never have been favorable to us. We would never have gained the things that we gained after the war, redress included. We owe a debt to those guys that volunteered in spite of violation of their constitutional rights. We owe them a debt that we've never repaid.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1998, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.