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”

Frank Emi

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

Wanting to take a stand

I felt very strongly about the unfairness of the whole thing for one thing. I thought it was very unfair that the government would uh put you in this position and then expect you to be drafted on the same basis as the free people on the outside. That was totally unacceptable. And uh, some of us, lot of us felt the same way so uh, that’s why we were able to take this step. Well, after awhile several meetings we said, some of us thought that we better go a step further. Instead of just being informational, take, take a stand.

Well we had a pretty serious uh steering committee meeting before that ‘cause some of the, there was one or two guys that uh didn’t want to go that strong. They said you know we might get in trouble. And one of them who was a college graduate at that time, was the one that said well you know, Paul Wakanate, he was a good speaker, a very good speaker. But he said well you shouldn’t go that strong and uh I guess I must have argued with him pretty badly because uh one of the fellas said hey Frank, talk to me like that I’d either haul off and hit him or start running like hell. So anyway, we took a vote and those of us that wanted to take a stronger stand on it came out ahead and we actually came out and said that we will refuse to go until our rights are restored.

civil rights draft resisters Heart Mountain Heart Mountain concentration camp Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee imprisonment incarceration resistance resisters 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)

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