<Begin Segment 7>

FA: Kiyoshi Okamoto was still to us kind of a mystery man. We're not even sure if we have a proper picture of him. You know, the dispute over the Kubota picture, you know. With a clean-shaven.

FE: Yeah, I can't recall that.

FA: Give me, we really gotta hear from you, what was Kiyoshi -- what did he look like? What kind of guy was he?

FE: Well, he was, I would say, he was a very learned guy, but very temperamental, very taciturn. And especially when I knew him with his beard and everything, and the structure of his face, and the way he carried himself, like a rugged old prospector, is the --

[Interruption]

FA: Okay, let me go back. I need to get a portrait of Kiyoshi Okamoto, and just start out by saying, "Kiyoshi Okamoto was..."

FE: Kiyoshi Okamoto was a very taciturn gentleman. He was... I hardly, we ever, hardly ever saw him smile. Very serious. Right, he was very serious. He didn't joke much. Every now and then he would come out with a pretty salty type of joke, and he would laugh at it himself, you know, but I can picture him and, the best I can describe him would be as a real crusty old miner, you know, prospector type. He was lean and almost skinny, you might say. And he didn't like people doubting him or refuting what he had to say. That would make him shut up. He would get sullen. And like James Omura was telling me when they were in a cell together, he mentioned that he was... Okamoto mentioned that he was the first one to resist something. Resist this, and James Okamoto, "No," he says, "You're not the first one because there are a couple ahead of you." He says, "I resisted the evacuation, and then somebody else" -- he mentioned, "Somebody else resisted something." After that Okamoto would not talk to him. He says that all through the rest of the time, the stay in jail, he would not talk to him. He just... so he was temperamental. But, as I said before, he was very brilliant in his writing. His speeches weren't that great, but especially he can tend to get pretty, pretty salty sometimes.

FA: When... can you recall your first encounter with him in camp? Your first...

FE: Very first encounter was at this meeting where I mentioned that it was a Nisei pastor that spoke, but I'm not clear whether it was at that time or whether it was when Nobu Kawai made a speech. A very pro-American speech about registration, but that's when Okamoto got up and, well, he'd been used to speaking at, anytime somebody would listen to him, he would go on his spiel about the Constitution, you know. So he got up and talked about the Constitution, that we were denied due process. We didn't know -- I had never even heard of "due process" at that point. Due process... that our Constitution, all our Bill of Rights things were violated, and that the Nisei should think about that before they answer these "yes" and "no" questions, et cetera, et cetera. And the only reason that I went there was... I dunno, maybe it's Paul and Sam or, I don't... it's hazy. I don't remember who else was with me, but some of us went there and talked to him because we felt, gee, we were very angry about the whole thing, and especially making us answer these questions after they put us in a concentration camp. So after talking to him and discussing everything, we figured, gee, this fellow really knows his Constitution and it's something that we would really like to get together with him, and maybe we can start something with this. And that's how we got to know him, and we organized it into the Fair Play Committee. Up to that point he was the Fair Play Committee of One.

FA: He strikes us as kind of a loner.

FE: That he was. He was a loner, and people that didn't like him, you know, like the administration and the JACL people, would call him a rabble-rouser, you know, or words to that effect, because, well, you know, when people stand on street corners and make speeches, why, that's how they tend to look at him. And he would tend to be a little like that, you know. Whoever, people would listen, he would start talking to them about the rights that were violated. Which was true, you know. There was nothing screwed up about him talking like that. It's just I guess the way he presented it that... well, he was very uncompromising on that.

[Interruption]

FA: Kiyoshi Okamoto curiously had a turn after he was pulled out and segregated at Tule Lake? I understand -- could you tell me what happened to Kiyoshi Okamoto after, after he was segregated?

FE: Well, after he was segregated to Tule Lake, he started to do a little activating there. And I understand this from... I forget if it was Sam Horino, or maybe he might have wrote to me. People were put in stockade in Tule Lake, and their families hadn't seen 'em for months. So he had contacted -- Kiyoshi Okamoto had contacted the ACLU, and it was through his efforts that I understand that... was it Besig? Or... was it Besig that came out to Tule Lake?

FA: Besig and Collins.

FE: Oh, Collins, I think it was Collins came out to the Tule Lake and they wouldn't let him in, so he told the project director, "Well, you can either let me in now, or you can wait 'til I get a court order." See, and then they let him in.

FA: My question is -- yeah, but didn't Okamoto turn sour?

FE: Well, he did -- in one of his letters, which I think Frank Chin has a copy of -- I, I seem to have lost mine somewhere in there -- he did mention that "I, I'm not a part of the Fair Play Committee anymore." I think this was after the FBI questioned him over there. And he sort of turned, and gave the impression that he didn't want to be connected with the Fair Play Committee anymore. That's the letter I was trying to look for, James Omura, and I couldn't find it in my files.

FA: How did you feel about that?

FE: Well, I kinda felt that he being an older man, and in danger of being maybe convicted or indicted for something to do with the draft, that I didn't blame him if he wanted to step out, you know, get away from it all, to save from being taken in.

FA: And didn't that thrust you into the leadership of the steering committee?

FE: More or less, because by that time I think Paul had sort of cooled down, and he wanted to sort of stay away... not get too active, so it fell upon my shoulders to, you know, sort of carry on.

FA: How did you feel about that?

FE: I didn't feel anything. I just... matter of fact, I'd do what I had to do. Yeah.

FA: I knew you'd say that.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1993, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.