Interviews

1. A teenager's memories of how a local newspaper misrepresented Japanese Americans

2. Reaction of Japanese American community toward draft resistance stance

3. The role of the media in influencing people's opinions

4. Living conditions in prison while serving time for resisting the draft

5. Talking to children about decision to resist the draft during World War II

6. Deciding whether to answer "yes-yes" on the loyalty questionnaire in order to leave camp

7. Reflecting on Japanese Americans' response to incarceration

8. Speak out for your beliefs

(b. 1925) Draft resister

Talking to children about decision to resist the draft during World War II

And I just called them together and says, “Well, it's about time I tell you about what had happened, what I have done. You may not have heard about it.” And he says, “Oh yeah, we read about it in the paper, I mean, in the textbook.” I says, “How much did you have in there?” And they says, “Oh, just a little paragraph about the evacuation.” So I says, “Well, I'll tell you what happened and what had happened to me, what I have done.” And so I explained to the kids what I did and so that the kids won't get secondhand news from somebody else and find out that his, his or her dad was a draft resister, I thought I'd better get it straight with him and tell him why I did it and so they realized that. And to this day, I'm glad that I told 'em. I think many of the parents, I think, they held back and lot of the parents didn't know—I mean, the children, didn't know about what had happened to the Niseis and the Issei during the war years. And I think a lot of them, they just couldn't believe that it had actually happened.

discrimination draft resisters interpersonal relations resisters World War II

Date: July 25, 1997

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Larry Hashima, Stephen Fugita

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

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