<Begin Segment 18>

RT: Speaking of problems, I do remember the incident, although I did not see it firsthand, of the protests that went, a protest group that went towards the administration building, in which the military came out and stopped the protests, and two of the protesters were shot.

AL: What can you tell me about, why do you think that protest was happening? What were they protesting?

RT: Well, that's kind of a difficult thing, because I think there was a faction of people who were from a particular segment of the population who were, maybe they were just against being incarcerated. But they had a situation where they called people who cooperated with the government, in making it possible to have a smooth transition to allow the evacuation process to work, that they were called "dogs," in Japanese they called them inu. You've heard the term inu? All right. And there were, some of them were Kibeis, and they said these people were not trustworthy, or did not deserve our respect. And I think there was one person that was being targeted, and he was, I think the hospital had to protect him, and kept him from being exposed to this gang of guys who wanted to get at him, and they were rather violent people. But they also, I think that was the group that drew enough supporters and went down to protest this down at the administration building, and that's when things got ugly. And, you know, when people are cooped up in a camp, and they think it's unjust, they would buy into it, so it was mob psychology. And they started going down there, and when the military came and told them to stop, and I guess they were, they didn't think they were stopping, so they did open fire on them. So it was a bad situation and there were two people who were killed, I think, and that was the end of that. But I didn't have firsthand knowledge. I knew about it after it occurred, because I was living way in the corner of the camp, and it was very disturbing to hear about that happening.

AL: Jimmy Ito, the boy who was killed first, was only seventeen. So he would have been around your age. Do you remember him personally?

RT: [Shakes head].

AL: Did you know anybody who was involved?

RT: No. You know, to tell you the truth, I didn't know anybody who was involved. I think there were more people from the L.A., Terminal Island, people that... you know, the people from Terminal Island were really, had a difficult time. Because when the war started, they were the fishermen, and they were the people who had shortwave radios. And, of course, when December 7th, after it happened, those people were picked up, and I understand -- this is all secondhand knowledge to me -- that they just gathered those people up and took them to L.A. and confiscated all their fishing boats and everything. And, of course, the shortwave radios was a matter of safety for people at sea who were trying to communicate with each other in times of storms and sea conditions. So it was unfair to them, and they were treated, brutally treated by the government when they were taken into custody and then their families abandoned in the streets of Los Angeles as I understand. So there was a lot of injustice there, so maybe they had reason to feel strongly about the camp situation.

AL: Was your brother Katsuma involved in any of the Kibei groups?

RT: No, he really wasn't. He was sort of, he was much like my father, he was very stoic. Didn't get involved with them. And again, we were so outside of that community, because we didn't know anybody in the camp. We had no alliances with any, we didn't have friendships with people, and whatever friends we had, we made in camp. And he was very, he was very mature, and he never showed any ill feelings toward anybody.

AL: In the aftermath of the riot, a number of the camp operations shut down.

RT: I wasn't even aware of that.

AL: That's what I was going to ask, were you aware of... people have talked about that night, the mess hall gongs, that people beat the gongs all night. Stories where at one point in time, they were talking about the mess halls going on strike until they realized that people would... so were there any impacts to you as a result of the riot?

RT: No. I was just not aware of that. If it occurred, I was not close to the sources, I was not living in that part of the camp where that went on.

AL: One of the, probably the most famous crime in the camp was up here in Block 35 or 36. Do you know about the murder-suicide?

RT: No.

AL: Okay. There was a man who killed his wife and himself. They spoke at the reunion a couple years ago. The daughter's name is Sharon Kodama, I don't remember what her maiden name is. But that was, would have been a block right near you.

RT: Well, we would have been Block 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 was way up...

AL: Thirty-five and thirty-six are down by the highway because of the hospital, so it doesn't go all the way to the end. So it would have been adjacent to you.

RT: Oh, okay.

AL: But, I mean, it's... we don't know always know when everything... I was just curious if you knew anything about that.

RT: No. I'm kind of oblivious.

AL: I'm not trying to do your interview, I'm just curious...

RT: Well, I'm learning things from you. [Laughs]

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.