Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Shig Kaseguma Interview
Narrator: Shig Kaseguma
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Date: November 6, 2007
Densho ID: denshovh-kshig-01-0014

<Begin Segment 14>

SK: And until the government realized that gee, this was folly, and then they came with that "loyalty oath." Then you wonder, "Well, now, what in the world is this?" You have a "loyalty oath," trying to say, "Will you be loyal to the United States or will you be loyal to your native land?" And we're American citizen. Would you ask a German or Italian or any white, Caucasians, give you a "loyalty oath," "Will you sign this loyalty act, loyalty oath that you would support America?" Well, of course you would. Why wouldn't you? You were born here, you're American. And then to insult somebody, to say, "Would you be willing to sign this oath?" Of course, there were a lot of people that went in an uproar, and some were sent to jail because they won't sign.

RP: Some were sent to Tule Lake.

SK: Yeah, Tule Lake, and that was a bad one for everybody.

RP: So you remember a lot of, a lot of discussions and controversy over the --

SK: Oh, yeah. The families were broken up about it. Some parents were not understanding. They said, "No, no way. Because you people are Americans, why would you sign a loyalty oath to Japan when you don't even know the country?"

RP: Uh-huh. How did that whole scenario play out in your family?

SK: Well, my dad left it up to me. 'Cause we had a lot of kids, and we'e all Americans. So, he left it up to us, and we voted whatever we want to write. And all of us, we signed the oath that we, although we knew it was wrong, but we want to be American. One, either they punished us as being non-American, but we figured something was going to happen to us. They can't keep us in the jail, I mean, like this forever. So we discussed it. We figured that that was the best way, if you want to get out of this thing.

RP: Yeah, part of it was designed to gauge your eligibility to leave the camp, or relocate. Or, you know, being drafted, or volunteer.

SK: Be drafted, yeah. Because after the volunteers came in and wanted to know if we could volunteer.

RP: And Minidoka, I guess, happened to be the camp with the largest number of volunteers.

SK: Yeah, as it turned out.

RP: As it turned out.

SK: I think the California people were a little different. There were a lot of them that spoke a lot of Japanese, too, among them. They were, some more like rabble-rousers.

RP: You're referring to the Manzanar camp and Tule Lake?

SK: Tule Lake, Manzanar.

RP: Those were the camps with the most "no-no" answers. And I think Minidoka on the other -- was the opposite. Was the most "yes-yes" answers and kinda trying to understand what, what factors entered into that.

SK: I think, like, they were more Japanesey. Although they were Americans, they were more Japanesey. Whereas, the people in the Northwest weren't. They were more Americanized than they were. 'Cause somehow, they were, I don't what the things they did and how they behaved. There were a lot of people there.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2007 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.