Densho Digital Archive
Frank Abe Collection
Title: Frank Emi Interview I
Narrator: Frank Emi
Interviewers: Frank Abe (primary); Frank Chin (secondary)
Location: San Gabriel, California
Date: February 23, 1993
Densho ID: denshovh-efrank-02-0010

<Begin Segment 10>

FA: One more question. The photograph you took where you posed your wife and two children, that's taken at Heart Mountain?

FE: At Heart Mountain, and a little, little before I was taken away.

FA: Where in Heart Mountain was the picture taken?

FE: This was taken in an open area just beyond where all the barracks were built.

FA: Who took the picture?

FE: I don't remember who took the picture now.

FA: A friend took the picture? A friend in the camp?

FE: Probably. Probably.

FA: Why did you have the picture taken?

FE: I thought there may be a long separation.

FA: Can you tell me... can you start the sentence, "I had the picture taken because..."

FE: Yeah. I had the taken picture... I had the picture taken because I had a feeling that maybe if this trial came to pass and the outcome wasn't what we were hoping for, there may be a long period that we won't be together. So that's the reason I wanted to have a family picture taken then.

FA: One more question. How did your wife, who was Caucasian...

FE: No. She was Japanese, but she's, was, about one-quarter Caucasian, I think.

FA: How did she -- Nakadate's wife didn't stand behind, beside him?

FE: No.

FA: Your wife. How did she take it?

FE: She was supportive. Not in a very forceful way or anything, but whatever I... whatever I did was okay with her, and she was supportive in a quiet way. But she never showed any distaste, or feeling of annoyance or anger or anything because I took this position. She knew how angry I felt about the whole thing, so she sympathized. The same with my parents. Of course, the Issei parents really didn't say too much, then. They didn't say one way or another, you know. They just left it up to us to do what we had to do.

FA: One more question. I asked -- in one quick sentence, why does a grocery store owner, operator, become a constitutional resister?

FE: I think the circumstances of the whole unfair, unjust evacuation and the internment, and plus maybe all the discriminations that had been built up in the past, all got together, and said, "This is it. That's enough. We can't take it anymore." And, it wasn't with any sense of trying to fight for, to make a name as being a fighter for justice or fighter for rights or anything like that. It's just that we had enough of this injustice, and we figured... at least I figured that this is it, you know. I gotta do something or say something, or get active in order to raise our voices in protest. I think that was the way I felt. Yeah.

FA: Thanks, Frank.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1993, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.