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MR: Could you talk about the American Legion and their activities removing the names from the honor board after the war?

HY: Oh, that was a little bit before the war, end of, actually, that was an American Legion Post actually, Hood River American Legion Post. It's American Legion Post Number 22 is what it is. And at that time, the commander was Jess Eddington whose daughter was a classmate of my next older brother, Shu. But Bonnie Eddington had nothing to do with it. Jess Eddington had a lot to do with it because he was the commander. But in 1944, November, the American Legion for whatever reason decided in their great wisdom that all Nisei, all Nisei with dual citizen by virtue of their birth in the United States, but at the same time, their parents were supposed to have registered them with the Japanese government as being also citizens of Japan. This was not true, but they said it was true. And they had some documentation that it was true earlier, but it wasn't true at the time they said it. And they said because of that thing, the sixteen men who were in the Armed Forces of the United States, they cannot be trusted. And until competent authority can a judge their loyalty, their names had to be stricken from this memorial board. It was kind of an honor roll board which was an American Legion, American Legion Post Number 22 project. It was their board, and it was mounted on the post office wall on the east side of the concrete post office, not concrete, stone wall. And they did remove those names. They removed all sixteen names of the Issei -- not Issei, Nisei soldiers, and one of them, well, Tim talked about several of them today, but there were sixteen, and I knew them all one way or another. Well, that really raised a firestorm of protest not only from legionnaires but also from the American Legion itself which is kind of interesting because, this is 1941-- not '41, it's '44, excuse me, 1944. Ed Scheiberling who was the commander of the National American Legion got together with his board and said, "Hey, we can't do things like that. My god, these guys, these Japanese, they may be Japanese but they're American citizens. They're fighting for the United States. We can't do a thing like that nor can we allow a thing like that." So they got, Scheiberling and his crew got back at the American Legion Post Number 22, said, "You guys will take, put those names back on the board or we'll pull your charter." So that put the Hood River American Legion Number 22 in a tough bind. They said, "Hey, what are we going to do, fellows? We either, we either fish or we cut bait. What do we want to do?" So they decided they better fish. So they said, "Okay. We'll put the names back on the board." But the interesting thing is this story says that the sixteen names removed, but only fifteen was returned, and the sixteenth one, nobody including the Nisei in Hood River seemed to know who it is. Although, one of the stories is, well, they think that maybe he was an itinerant Kibei -- Kibei is a Nisei, but he's a different category -- that was dishonorably discharged, so they can't put his name back on. So the story is to this day as far as I know, maybe Linda Tamura can explain that, there were sixteen names removed and fifteen were returned. And of those, there's several of these people who are still living here in our valley, and some of them, one of them is living right here in this community. And several of them won the Silver Star. The Silver Star is the third highest military honor available. You don't, they don't just give it to you. You earn these things. And yet, the American Legion had the brass to say these guys are not good American soldiers. So because they got dual citizenship, this American Legion was so screwy, and George Wilbur was so dumb, that this guy, a lawyer, says that these guys are dual citizens so that their loyalty is suspect in the first place. Japan is five thousand miles away. How in the hell are they going to enforce Japanese law on United States soil is beyond me, or how a smart guy like Wilbur could even imagine that can happen is far beyond me too.

MR: Did, how long did it take them after the war to come around and not only just put the names back but be accepting of the Japanese community?

HY: I think there are some that's still not accepting, the few that are still living. I don't know who they may be, but they'd have to be awful old, around ninety or so, I suppose. But I know some of them never, never changed. These guys are just bad. But to me, that's been such a distasteful bad scene. I have no fond memories of that era at all.

MR: It sounds like the American Legion was definitely in the forefront of anti-Japanese behavior. But what about the merchants and the general population of the town at that time?

HY: Well, the, as I say, they had the Anti-Exclusion League which was formed in 1919, and they did have a group, small cabaret that was always agitating for improvement of the home. And like I say, they didn't want Japanese women to working on the farm, carrying babies on their back, and hoeing strawberries and packing fruit and things like that. There was always a small cadre, but they were not vociferous or up front or outstanding like the American Legion Post was. During the war -- this is during the war which changes things quite a bit. For example, the police chief, he was very patronizing, and he has a notice printed in the paper saying, "The Japanese should not congregate, and if you meet each other on the street, don't bow, don't talk in your own language. You don't even have to go to church because it doesn't look good." This is the chief of police, Hood River chief of police. He's telling my people and me don't bow or don't talk Japanese. What right did he have to do that? But that is the temper of time, and you have to understand the temper of time. You have to understand the prejudice. You have to understand the patriotism, the loyalty. It was just unbelievable in today, in context of today's time. But if you can put your mind in that time frame, if you see some of the prejudice, if you read some of the stories and you realize hey, this was a different world and totally different, so it was very, very tough. They made us try, they tried to make us feel like dirt. And you know what? They were successful, they did.

MR: You said your brother Chop, you said, went back to Hood River after the war and farmed. Can you talk about the challenges he faced and some of the emotions he may have shared with you?

HY: Oh, well, yeah. One of the things that's difficult talking about this is Chop wanted, he wanted to get along with everybody, and so he wouldn't sometimes say things up front, up front that he probably should have. But anyway, when he went back to Hood River, he wanted to get along with everybody because this is where, what he knew, where he grew up. So he wanted to trade, he'd go in there and E.A. Franz company and want to buy a hoe or something. They wouldn't sell it to him, says, "We don't have any," and you see it on the wall, but, "Don't have any." So he'd go twenty-five miles to the Dalles, and all the Japanese in those areas -- this is 1945 I'm talking about, '45 and '46, drive twenty-five miles to the Dalles to get whatever they want including groceries. Now that wasn't universal because... let me back up. There were a few people like RJ, Robert J. McIsaac in Parkdale who ran a grocery store in Parkdale, and he trusted some of the Japanese people. And he said, "You can't treat these people like that. They've been here twenty and thirty years, and their kids are citizens. They went to school with my boy. You can't do that." So RJ McIsaac, bless his heart, bought groceries for the people. But those were tough times.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.