page 4 of 11

play moviePlay Movie

Please report errors to: info@tellingstories.org.

4-More on Resistance

Are you glad that you resisted?

Yes, I'm glad right now, but it's been a problem. You always had questions whether I did the right thing, was I being disloyal, because we were regarded as disloyals, "No-No's" who were disloyal. So you ask yourself, "Did I do the right thing?" People have told me that "It's not your problem, it's the government's problem. The government was the one who did it to you and you were forced to make your decision". But it's kind of hard, because I had been brought up to be a good American.

In fact, I had a good background in Japanese language. I had gone to the Japanese language school since I was seven. I have also a facility for language. So I was fairly advanced in Japanese and they were recruiting people who were good in the language to teach recruits and soldiers. I feel that I could have served in that capacity, as first maybe an instructor or later as part of the military intelligence service, the language specialists who served in the Pacific as interpreters and as soldiers who directly communicated with the Japanese soldiers. But they all learned in this language school so that they couldn't have had much of a language expertise. I could imagine the kind of language that they used, but it was wartime and survival and so all the most elementary language was useful at the time.

Did resisting affect you or the way you were perceived either in or after camp?

Oh yeah, that was a problem, yes. Years, there was a stigma attached to those of us who refused to comply, the so-called, what we were called, "No-No's". There's a group from Heart Mountain camp who were, they were the resisters, they resisted the draft. They were drafted and refused to go. Their contention was that they were American citizens. They were perfectly willing to answer the questions, which they did, and they answered "Yes-Yes." But they refused to be drafted until they were released from camp and their citizenship rights restored, which meant that they could move to any part of the country.

Their case was a little different. They were sent to the prison, federal prison, for having resisted the draft, refused to be drafted. But in our case we didn't go that far, we were not drafted. We just were "No-No's". We answered, actually answered "No" to the questions. As I say, there was a stigma attached. Whenever we met outside, and this was a common experience among Japanese-Americans, they would ask, "What camp were you in?" and we would have to say we were in Tule Lake. That meant right away that, "Ah, you were one of those", and we knew this. So it was a problem through the years and I write about that. Some of the problem was, as I say, my own conscience and whether it was the right thing to do or not.

It's sort of hard to talk about it, because there's another story that I have not revealed, and that is that we were in Tule Lake, requested repatriation. I don't remember that I ever did that, but according to the records that I've gotten, we did request repatriations, that is we wanted to say that we wanted to go to Japan. Which is rather absurd because my father was outside and free, although in a hospital. Why would we want to leave him? But I think we were forced to make that decision. So we did, and I never thought that we had done that until I saw it written on the paper.

There was a faction in Tule Lake who were very pro-Japan. Fanatics, who carried on with their kind of semi-military routine. Early in the morning they wore their headbands with the rising sun emblem. They claim that they were sons of Japan and they were going to Japan. They pressured everyone to join. There was subtle ways of doing that and we were under that influence. Then we had a friend whose family was in Japan, all his family. He was going back to Japan, and he was obviously pro-Japan. He would come over every night and talk to us. So we were under his influence. There were all these outside influences.

There was a movement to request that we renounce our citizenship, an extreme measure I thought at the time. I thought it didn't involve me at all. But as it turned out, I was one of the renunciants. As soon as I signed off on that, I realized that I had made a mistake. It was something that I had not wanted to do, but I was forced. When my brother brought it up and said, "Let's settle this thing, are we going to Japan or are we American citizens, are we going to stay here?", we decided we would request renunciation of citizenship and we got our papers and we signed.

We had our hearing. When we went to the hearing, we knew all the questions and we knew also the answers to give. So there it was. It didn't take very long. We signed away, and as soon as I did that I felt that I had made a mistake. Right away there was a movement. I think there were others who felt the same way. We were wondering what to do because we would have been sent off to Japan.

Then this attorney, Wayne M. Collins, a civil rights attorney, came to Tule Lake. There were another separate prison for those who had caused trouble, a stockade I guess. He was going to close that, he came to do that. Then he found out that there were those of us who had renounced our citizenship, and wondering what we could do about changing that. We met with him, and he agreed to be our attorney. He prepared a letter to the attorney general that we changed our mind and we would like to have our citizenship back. It took over thirty years to recover our citizenship.

Mr. Collins had to submit affidavits for each of us. It took a long, long time, for each of the renunciants that joined the group. There were almost 3,000 of us. It took thirty years to finally recover our citizenship. During that time of course, we didn't know what we were. We were not U.S. citizens. I was going to school and wondering what I'm going to do after I graduated, whether to say and reveal my past. But even if I kept it a secret, which I tried to do, they could always check up.

Sometimes, I would take tests and I would not be called for interviews, and I think I missed out on a lot of jobs that way. I was going to State afterwards, to find a job and as preparation for becoming a teacher. I'm sure I wouldn't have been hired had they known my record. Yeah, it was some burden that I carried through the years, yes.

previous page next page