Former Japanese American Internee Answers Questions in “Ask Me Anything” Feature on Reddit

George Takei will be performing alongside a star-studded cast of Asian American Broadway and TV actors in the upcoming musical, "Allegiance", which tells about life in an internment camp.

A Japanese American woman, now a grandmother, was interned at Tule Lake during WWII. Recently, on Reddit, she was featured on their “I Am A…” schedule. For hours, she answered user-submitted questions, which were translated and typed up by the woman’s daughter and granddaughter.

Through the course of the interview, the granddaughter learned that her grandmother was a “no-no boy”, having answered ‘no’ to two loyalty questions distributed to internees a year prior to the end of internment. Those questions were:

  • “Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?”

Having been born a United States citizen, the IAmA internee featured on Reddit spent a great deal of time agonizing over her answers before choosing to answer “no”. In so doing, she renounced her American citizenship and became statesless; after internment, she eventually regained her citizenship. She writes (with her granddaughter adding comments in the brackets):

We renounced our citizenship about a year before we left [the internment camps] to stay with our parents. One of the questions was “Did we have any loyalty to the Japanese Emperor?”. Many people didn’t like that question. We were born in America. Why would we have any loyalty to the Japanese Emperor?

(She’s referring to the loyalty questions. She didn’t talk about it this time, but she usually tells me that after the questionare came out, they had meetings every night to try to figure out what to answer. At the time there were rumors going around that everyone would be shipped back to Japan. If they said they weren’t loyal, they would be alienated in Japan (as well as the United States). If they answered yes, she would probably be able to stick with her parents.)

I also learned through this post about the internment camp stockades, basically a jail built to hold unruly interns. It’s described here:

She didn’t know much about them at all. I personally had never heard of it until I went to the pilgrimage. I was like 14 at the time so I don’t remember much, but here’s what I do remember. I remember that it was built to only hold somewhere around 30 people and something like 100 people ended up there. It was built using really nice concrete, so it’s the only building that remains standing. Someone was really nice and donated a cover that was built over it so it would be preserved. We got to go inside and it was really dark and creepy and there were poems on the wall (and graffiti from taggers). It’s not surprising though. If people would go through and dig up a cemetery, graffiti on a wall is nothing.

The full feature is quite fascinating. This link contains the cleaned up version of both questions and answers (minus Reddit user comments).

While we’re on the topic, check out the website for Allegiance, an upcoming musical starring George Takei and the incredible, incredible Lea Salonga, which follows a story set in Japanese American internment camps. The show opens at the Old Globe in San Diego Sept 7-19.

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