<Begin Segment 14>

RP: Just going back to Manzanar, do you recall the "loyalty questionnaire" that you would've had to answer?

SK: The "loyalty questions"? There were all kind of --

RP: There were two, there were two questions there, twenty-seven and twenty-eight.

SK: What was it?

RP: Forswearing allegiance to the emperor of Japan, swearing allegiance to...

SK: Yeah, that was "no-no" for me, see. Yeah, being an American citizen, no. Yeah. I mean, I had nothing to do with Japan. Of course, some of my relatives, uncles and, they were back there, but no. I had no, well, if you can call going back to Japan, I couldn't live the way in Japan. I was there in, before the war, but that, to me that's hard living. And not only that, the way my aunt, they're all in the uppity up class, I could never live like that. I had to be free. They way you hold your hands, the way you walk, everything was criticized at first. "No, you got to learn all the etiquette." No, that was just too much for me. I had to be, I had to be free. [Laughs] I'm a tomboy. Yeah, I couldn't be tied down like that. Not only that, Japan, the ladies carry all the heavy things, the man's walking in front. That's not for me either. [Laughs]

RP: Right, so just the gender roles too.

SK: Yeah, I see my cousin that comes from Japan, here the poor wife, she carries all the heavy things, here he's walking up front like this. Oh jeez. [Laughs]

RP: So did you ever go back to Japan and visit again?

SK: No, I wanted to, but I just couldn't, with my mother and then... I just couldn't. They called me from Japan many times, all used to call to see how things were, but they wanted me to come back again just to see, but I never did. I never had the chance. I had to work, support the family here.

RP: Okay.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.