Densho Digital Archive - Richard Sakurai Interview (denshovh-srichard-01-0015)

<Begin Segment 15>

RP: This is tape three of a continuing interview with Dick Sakurai. Dick we were just sharing some of your experiences with going and not going to school in Minidoka. I wanted to ask you something came up in the camps that was very divisive in early 1943, the government circulated a "loyalty questionnaire."

RS: Yes.

RP: To extract young Nisei males for a special military unit and also to register everyone else in the camp for quote, "relocation eligibility." Can you tell us how did your family respond to the questionnaire, one, two was there significant discussions that went on within your family and other families in your block about how to answer this questionnaire, was there confusion, chaos?

RS: Yes, at that time, early 1943, I was too young to be required to answer it. But of course this is something that involved my father and so I know that he was talking with many other people outside the family about it and so he would come back home and tell us about the different things that people were saying about these questions. And so we talked about these different responses. But it wasn't a major discussion and I don't think there was any real controversy within the family about this. Because in the end, everything was answered in a satisfactory manner so that questions twenty-seven and twenty-eight, for example, my father answer "yes-yes" even though that meant certain inconsistency because the answers, the way the questions were asked, you had to give inconsistent answers. Anyway, there was some discussion within the family but not a real, real controversial kind of discussion, yes.

RP: Most people categorize Minidoka as one of the quote more "loyal" camps of the... compared with Tule Lake and Manzanar.

RS: And that early 1943 when they were using that to recruit people for the army, Minidoka, they rated which the volunteers came out of Minidoka was much higher than the other camps.

RP: Do you remember seeing men volunteering or leaving?

RS: Oh, yes, and I remember hearing all sorts of really big discussions and controversies within other families about volunteering and so forth. And actually I think there were some within our block, controversial things going on within a family.

RP: Did you ask yourself how you might have answered if you were of age?

RS: Yeah, and actually when I got of age I did have to answer those same questions and I answered "yes-yes." When I think back now, whereas I would've have been one of the ones to scream and yell about the inconsistency of all these things, but back then I just figured well, you know, the easiest thing to do is to say "yes-yes" and so I think I'll do that. If I had to answer in 1943 I probably would have said "yes-yes" and when I did have to answer it after I turned eighteen, well then I did in fact answer "yes-yes."