<Begin Segment 21>

RP: You were in, you were in camp when the government passed, I think it was all people over the age of seventeen to respond to a "loyalty questionnaire"?

CH: Oh, yeah.

RP: Question 27 and 28 were the key questions.

CH: I thought that was very unfair questioning. But I wasn't gonna go for Japan. So we all stayed, because especially Grandfather, we were all in this country and born in this country, and had no intention of going back and starting there, that way.

RP: So it was a unanimous consensus amongst your family.

CH: Yes, we didn't have any disagreement on that one.

RP: No "no-nos."

KP: You said that you thought that it was unfair question. How did you think it was unfair?

CH: Oh, maybe I didn't mean it that way, huh? Well, let's see. I don't really know. I'm sorry.

KP: You just felt it wasn't quite the right question they should have asked.

CH: Yeah. No, that's okay.

RP: Do you recall families who struggled with those questions, maybe families in your block that had arguments or conversations, discussions about how to answer these questionnaire questions?

CH: I would imagine some of them, yes. Or they're a big family, you know.

RP: Do you remember when people began leaving to go to Tule Lake when it became a segregation center?

CH: Oh, let's see. When was it? Probably 1944?

RP: Early '44.

CH: Yeah. And, of course, some of 'em, they took out their citizenship. I don't know how they do that, but...

RP: Renounced their citizenship.

CH: But they later really got it back, didn't they? It wasn't a set agreement or whatever that was called.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.