Densho Digital Archive
Japanese American Museum of San Jose Collection
Title: James Sakamoto Interview
Narrator: James Sakamoto
Interviewer: Ann Muto
Location: San Jose, California
Date: October 18, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-sjames-01-0010

<Begin Segment 10>

AM: And then once again, you left the camp before the rest of your family.

JS: Yeah, uh-huh.

AM: And when was that?

JS: I left there in April when I turned nineteen. I turned, I went to Denver, Colorado. Well, actually, it was Lafayette, Colorado, on the farm where we got, FBI gave us a clearance to go, so we went out to Lafayette and sponsored by a farmer to work on the farm. But that didn't last long. [Laughs]

AM: Yeah, well, to go back a little bit to your, the clearance that you got. Was that the same thing as the, what we call now, the "loyalty questions" or the questionnaire?

JS: No, no. That was --

AM: This is different?

JS: -- that was if you're cleared by the FBI -- I guess it must be tied in with that, too. But if you were cleared, why, you could leave camp. And if you had a sponsor, you could leave camp.

AM: And you had both of those, the clearance and the sponsor that was the people on the farm there.

JS: Yeah, had to sponsor you, uh-huh.

AM: Okay, and the permission to leave, that was permanent or temporary?

JS: That was permanent, yeah.

AM: So you didn't have to go back to camp.

JS: No, we didn't have to go back to camp, no.

AM: And so you don't remember filling out the "loyalty questionnaire"?

JS: I remember filling out, yes.

AM: You do remember?

JS: It was "yes-yes," "no-no," but being we had a brother in the army, you couldn't very well say, "no-no," so we all went "yes-yes."

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.