Loyalty Oath and Family Conflict

• War Relocation Authority Application for Leave Clearance was released in 1943
• It contained questions to determine loyalty
• The administration gave each family a Christmas tree in December hauled in from the Sierras
• This was a peace offering for the riot

Loyalty Oath

• The government's Loyalty Oath appeared in February, and everyone seventeen and over had to fill it out
• The oath was the most divisive issue
• Block organizers came to talk to Papa and his brothers
• Their voices gradually rose to shouts and threats
• Mama tried to calm the men, but Papa told her to shut up
• Granny would tell Papa to quit disgracing Mama
• Papa shoved Granny across the room once
• Papa lectured Woody on true loyalty, waving his cane
• Papa said a soldier must believe he is never coming back so The Japanese are courageous warriors because they are prepared to die
• Papa continued that you must believe in what you are fighting for, you will not be willing to die, you won't fight well, and you will probably get killed stupidly, for the wrong reason, and unheroically
• Woody answered that he would fight well
• Woody stated he was an American citizen and America is at war
• Woody claimed that if more of them go into the army, the sooner the war will be over
• Papa was afraid of losing a son
• Papa said that if Woody answered NO NO, he would be shipped back to Japan
• Papa followed up that YES YES meant Woody would be drafted
• Papa believed they were looking for volunteers and that only a fool would volunteer
• Woody knew it was pointless to argue with Papa and that he would join the army when the time came

Manzanar Camp Gates

• Manzanar had three narrow gates
• The first gate led into the infantry
• The second gate led back across the Pacific
• The third gate, relocation, was opening up
• Interned citizens who could find a job inland away from the West Coast were beginning to trickle out of camp
• The program was taking months to process applications and security clearances and was bogged down with paperwork
• The loyalty statement was hoped to save time and red tape

Oath Controversy

• The oath gave rise to the ill-fated "oath"
• JACL leaders met in Salt Lake City two weeks before the December Riot
• They passed a resolution pledging Nisei to volunteer out of the camps for military service
• In January, the government announced its plan to form an all-Nisei combat regiment
• The government figured it could weed out the "disloyal"
• The government would have a clearer idea of how many agents and Japanese sympathizers it had to deal with
• The idea of the oath became the final goad that prodded many once-loyal citizens to turn militantly anti-American
• Papa agreed with Woody that meant swearing allegiance to the government that had sent him to Fort Lincoln while denying his connections with Japan
• The alternative was being sent to Tule Lake camp in northern California where all the "disloyal" were to be assembled for what most people believed would be eventual repatriation to Japan
• Papa had no reason to return to Japan because he was too old to start over
• He believed America would win the war and his future still lay in this country
• This choice was difficult to make and hold to
• Anti-American feeling in camp ran stronger than ever
• Pro-Japan forces were trying to organize a NO NO vote by blocks, in massive resistance
• Others wanted to boycott the oath altogether
• People had a mistaken fear that anyone who accepted the form would be shipped out of camp: NO NOS back to Japan, the YES YESS into an American society full of wartime hostility and racial hate
• A meeting to debate the matter was called in the mess hall
• Papa knew that merely showing his face would draw stares and muttered comments like YES YES was just what they expected of an inu
• He had to speak his mind before the NO NO contingent carried the block
• From the time he heard about it, Papa cut out alcohol and shaved his mustache
• Papa went swaggering off down the narrow walkway between the barracks

Mess Hall Fight

• The narrator was playing hopscotch in the firebreak with three other girls
• A great commotion inside the mess hall was taking place with men shouting wildly as if a fire had broken out
• Papa's was the loudest voice, cursing
• A short, beefy man came tearing out of the mess hall, but Papa took him down
• Papa stood up to defend the YES YES position and was attacked for it
• Papa had the man by the throat
• Other men pulled them apart
• The sandstorm hit and everyone ran for cover
• Two men hustled Papa to the barracks
• The sky stayed black
• The electricity went out all over the camp
• Mama, Woody, Chizu, a young woman named Chizu's friend, and Papa began to sing songs in Japanese

Japanese National Anthem

• Papa began to sing the first line of the Japanese national anthem, Kimi ga yo
• Woody, Chizu, and Mama knew the tune, so they hummed along
• Papa sang the song as a deep-throated lament, and tears began running down his face
• The national anthem is what Papa had sung every morning as a schoolboy in Japan
• The anthem is a poem that goes back to the ninth century
• The anthem can be read as a personal credo for endurance
• The stone can be the kingdom or it can be a man's life
• The moss is the greenery that, in time, will spring even from a rock
• The last line of the anthem refers to a certain type of mossy lichen with exquisitely tiny white flowers sprinkled in amongst the green