Interviews

1. Loyalty questionnaire

2. Fair Play Committee

3. Speaking out in camp

4. Wanting to take a stand

5. Ostracized by the camp newspapers

6. On trial for draft evasion

7. Draft resisters sent to jail

8. Fair Play Committee charged with conspiracy

9. Prison

10. Meeting other Americans in jail

11. Would do the same again

12. Arrested in camp for trying to leave

13. Becoming involved with the NCRR and redress

14. Apologies from the JACL

15. Different feelings from veterans about the draft resisters

16. “No more shikataganai”

Emi,Frank

(1916-2010) draft resister, helped form the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee

Speaking out in camp

We got together with him and uh I think maybe four or five of us and we started talking with him and uh, he gave us a pretty good course on the Constitution and all the uh Roosevelt just looked at us like Oriental monkeys and uh that uh all our rights as citizens were stepped on within [inaudible]. So uh, well some of us felt the same way he did and as we organized he was uh deemed as a chairman of the Fair Play Committee. And uh, (clears throat) we held open public meetings in various camps uh various blocks of the camps. We were of course we were explaining what the government did was wrong and it was against the law and that uh we had no rights as citizens and did all this explaining, the information you know to the people and we had standing room only crowds at that time because the draft was a very important uh thing that was uh introduced into the camps.

civil rights Heart Mountain Heart Mountain concentration camp Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee imprisonment incarceration resistance United States World War II World War II camps Wyoming

Date: May 9, 2006

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Lisa Itagaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Frank Emi was born on September 23, 1916 in Los Angeles, CA. He ran the family produce business until life was interrupted by war. Emi was sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming with his young wife and two kids.

Emi, along with many others, openly questioned the constitutionality of the incarceration of Japanese Americans. He helped form the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee and protested against the government’s actions by organizing a draft resistance. Emi was not even eligible for the draft because he was a father.

The Fair Play Committee argued that they were willing to serve in the military, but not until their rights as U.S. citizens were restored and their families released from the camps. The government convicted Emi and six others leaders of conspiracy to evade the draft. He served 18 months in jail. 86 others from Heart Mountain were put on trial and imprisoned for resisting the draft.

Following the war, Emi and other draft resisters were ostracized by Japanese American leaders and veterans. It was not until the fight for Redress, some forty years later that the Fair Play Committee was vindicated for taking a principled stand against injustice.

He passed away on December 2010 at age 94. (December 2010)