He had answered “No” to those two questions, because he said, “No, I’m a pacifist, I don’t believe in killing, and therefore I wouldn’t bear arms under any circumstances,” and the second, he said, “No, because I didn’t swear allegiance to the emperor of Japan in the first place, and so why should I forswear allegiance?” And so he answered “No” to the questions. And – as I said, apparently, nobody read the questionnaires after – we had left camp anyway.
So about a year – we were in Cincinnati for about a year, at University of Cincinnati, and the FBI came to his rooming house to ask him, with a copy of his questionnaire, to – if he would change his answers to “Yes.” And I remember Mike said he – said, “No,” he wasn’t gonna change it. And – and I remember yelling at him, I said, “What? Are you crazy?”
Of course he was expelled from the school. Because…the school – well he wasn’t expelled actually; they said that they were doing “sensitive war work on campus,” and therefore, the campus was “off-limits” to him. And so then he was not able to take his final exams at the end of his first year. And so then he failed all his classes. And so then he immediately – he left Cincinnati to go to Boston – he graduated from Boston University later.
Date: August 7, 2018
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Sharon Yamato
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
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