Densho Digital Archive - Bo T. Sakaguchi Interview (denshovh-sbo-01-0016)

<Begin Segment 16>

JA: Do you think America has learned from this experience?

BS: I hope they have. I hope they have. You know, at least this president, when 9/11 happened, spoke up for the Muslims. We weren't that lucky with Roosevelt, you know, he didn't... and that DeWitt certainly didn't help our cause at all. And Governor Warren certainly didn't, Attorney General Warren certainly didn't help us. Nobody helped us. The newspapers certainly didn't help us. There were very few columnists who ever wrote anything favorable about the Japanese Americans. And then even my dental school classmate, who I sat next to, one day not too long ago, said, "You know, the evacuation was for your protection." Oh, that got me so mad. I never spoke to him after that.

JA: So what do you see as the main constitutional issues raised by all this?

BS: Main constitutional issues?

JA: If you were teaching a civics class, what would you...

BS: Well, the one thing is that you can't judge a person just because he has the color of the enemy. That we were just as loyal to this country as, as anyone else. I remember thinking about my Italian friends who never got taken away, and my German friends who never got taken away. And I remember one classmate in particular who when we were on duty at something at school, he was mentioning about how great Hitler was, and I often wondered whatever happened to him after I lost track of him. And I remember we used to go buy eggs in North Hollywood at this egg farmer who was of German descent, and I remember the father talking so much about how great Hitler was, and he never got taken away. So, let's hope that in the future, just because you have the face and the character of the enemy, that that person might be just as loyal to this country as you or I, that we have to trust them, because there are only a few who are out there to try to destroy us, not the whole group. Like, we could have farmed in North Hollywood and contributed to the war effort. My father was a good farmer, and he was loyal to this country, and their decision was to stay in this country because this is where the kids were, this is where we all grew up, this is where they were educated. We had no future in going back to Japan. So when the time came that people were deciding whether to go to Tule Lake to be segregated or to stay in camp, my parents, I remember discussing that, and my mother said, "No, we're not going there." And my father says, "Well, gee, a lot of our friends in North Hollywood are all going there." But of course they realized, those people realized they made a mistake and they finally returned to North Hollywood.