<Begin Segment 10>

KL: One other thing that sometimes happened at least at Manzanar in the block manager's offices were people were interviewed about the leave clearance form, and for the men, selective service, for the draft eligible guys, the selective service forms. Sometimes people called it the "loyalty questionnaire" that the government sent around in 1943. What are your memories of that?

JW: You know, I remember the questionnaire very well, but I don't know that anybody came in and asked about that. I'm sure maybe Kats took care of the manager.

KL: Well, maybe it was different at Rohwer.

JW: Maybe they had to go to, maybe a certain office. I bet they did.

KL: What are your memories of it?

JW: I don't remember.

KL: I mean for yourself?

JW: Oh, I wouldn't remember filling out those blanks. Yeah, well, those two questions were kind of... I knew I wasn't going to the service. We all put "yes." I can't remember what they asked all except what was the 27 and 28, was it...

KL: Those were the really key ones, particularly 28, which was about renouncing your loyalty to the Japanese emperor?

JW: Yeah, I don't know... it seemed like a test, that they were testing us, you know, when I read all the questions it seemed like... but I filled 'em out, I don't recall the questions that they asked.

KL: How did it strike you to feel like you were being tested that way?

JW: That maybe they wanted to get rid of us or something, divide the loyal ones from the unloyal ones. It's that strange, I can't remember a single question?

KL: A lot of them were innocuous, like "what's your name," "what's your age." But those two were the ones that have become notorious, and were the ones that determined consequences. What was your understanding of what the consequences were for how you answered? Or what did you think at the time about what would happen next?

JW: I really don't know. I really don't know, or I don't remember how I felt. Except that I wondered why. The questions were asked, but when I came to those two, I felt, "Oh, they want these people separated, the good ones and the bad ones." But I don't remember.

KL: Did you talk it over with anyone?

JW: I think I did, with my friends. Yeah, I think I did. Yeah, 'cause several of my dear girlfriends, the family, they had to go to Tule Lake. I don't know why they put down "no," but I think maybe the boy... funniest thing is he served in the service, in the army. No, I don't... yeah, we talked it over, and then said... yeah, because they ended up in Tule Lake. I think they put down "no," and one of the sisters did go.

KL: To Tule Lake?

JW: No, the whole family went to Tule Lake. But one of the girls' daughters was shipped to Japan, but the other stayed.

KL: In the U.S.?

JW: Yeah, they were sent over. But this one daughter did go. Maybe she wanted to go, I don't know. But she ended up in Japan during the war.

KL: Your friends that you talked about it with in that family, did they... what were their reasons for deciding to answer the way they did?

JW: I think it's because the others, maybe the father might have said something. And, of course, the sister, being that she was from Japan from the beginning, she's a Kibei, I think they all put their heads together and said, well, okay, we'll go to Tule Lake, and this one daughter decided she was going to go to Japan. And that was bad because I don't think they wanted us in Japan. They had enough of their troubles. But she, eventually she got married in Japan to a serviceman was, it? Came back to the States.

KL: And she was a friend, it was your friend who went to Japan?

JW: Uh-huh.

KL: What was her name?

JW: Her name was Mitsuko. I tell you...

KL: That's okay. I'm asking you to remember a lot of details from seventy-plus years ago. And it's stuff that's been studied since, so those layers of memory kind of... do you recall people leaving for Tule Lake and what that was like, to watch people go?

JW: Yeah, I was sad to see my friends go. Oh, wait a minute. Did that come after I... what was that? 'Cause I left early.

KL: People were leaving in '43, usually. In Manzanar there were still some people in '44 who went kind of late.

JW: To Tule Lake? I wonder if they were gone. Gee, I can't even remember that. Can't remember if that family had already left.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.