<Begin Segment 13>

LT: Well, at Tule Lake, you and your family and other Japanese Americans were asked to fill out a "loyalty questionnaire." What was it, and what were some of the questions that you answered? The "loyalty questionnaire"?

TT: Yeah, the "loyalty questions" was that, what was that, I can't remember. Would you fight for the U.S. or go in the army, or I can't remember exactly. Then they had one, for the Isseis, would you renounce your citizenship, Japanese citizenship? That's the one they had trouble with because they can't get American citizenship, and then here they wanted them to renounce their Japanese citizenship. They told them they'd be a man without a country. So I think they changed that, so they didn't have to answer that.

LT: When you and your family were faced with the questionnaire, was that a dilemma for you?

TT: I think it was for a lot of people. They didn't know what to do, and we had to all go to an ag. building or somewhere to fill out the... I don't know who was there, whether it was soldiers there or who, but somebody was there to hand out the forms and gather it up and stuff like that. So, why, everybody just went when they felt like going. So when they were ready to go, they went and signed up.

LT: And there were some who answered those two questions "yes-yes," and there were some who answered those questions "no-no." That was a difficult division.

TT: Yeah. Well, those who answered "no-no," they were willing to go to Japan or stay segregated right there. That was going to be the "no-no" camp from every other camp that was "no-no." So the other one that they want to say "no-no," they all left for other camps.

[Interruption]

TT: Was it difficult for former neighbors and friends who answered differently to the "loyalty questionnaire"?

TT: Well, it might have, but then we didn't have any friends that were as close as our family friends that signed "no-no," so we didn't have much trouble. But then there were some, some of the guys that didn't want to, they want to answer "yes-yes," they were trying to get their friends to answer "no-no," too. Like Parkdale, there was a few that... this Mark Sato is kind of, he didn't want to, he was a "no-no," so he was trying to get his friends to say "no-no," but some of them did and some of them didn't. I don't know how it caused any trouble with them.

LT: But a community that had been more united when you'd left was now separated in some ways because of the responses to the "loyalty questionnaire," and you were moving to different camps then. So the "no-nos" stayed at Tule Lake, which is where you were, and you and your family and other families who answered "yes-yes" moved to other camps. Again you were moving. Was that difficult for your family?

TT: Not really that bad, I don't think. Well, you don't have too much things to move anyway, so it wasn't that bad, I don't think. And you're going to where you wanted to go.

LT: How was Minidoka different from Pinedale and Tule Lake?

TT: Well, I don't think too much difference. All the food and stuff were about the same, just different neighbors now. Only thing different is I noticed in Tule Lake, they used to have block managers, they kind of look after the block, they were Niseis. But when I went to Minidoka, I noticed the block managers, all of them were Isseis, most of them were Isseis. So I don't know if that had anything, made any different there or not, but I noticed that.

LT: What was your overall feeling about being in camp during the war years?

TT: To us young guys, it wasn't really that bad. Because actually, before, you had to work hard and make a living, now you're doing nothing. [Laughs] Just running around doing nothing, so it was an easier life, I guess you could say, as far as the physical part.

LT: So there were some pluses in being in camp. Were there any negatives?

TT: Well, you couldn't do what you wanted to do, and go anywhere. Although from camp we went out to work, because some companies like Blue Mountain Cannery in Dayton, Oregon, the head of that company came to the camp looking for labor, because, during the war, labor shortage, so they were really looking for men to do this type of job, farm job. So a bunch of guys got tired of sitting in camp, seemed like a good chance to go outside and so they went out to get a job, work.

LT: Did you ever think about the reason that you and your family were in camp?

TT: Not really. There wasn't much we could do anyway, to the government, pretty hard to buck the government when you're not a big outfit or anything. I guess most of us just took it in stride, even if they didn't like it.

LT: The Issei weren't citizens, the Nisei were. Did that make a difference?

TT: To the government it didn't make no difference, because they put us in the same place.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.