Feelings of loyalty to America while in Japan

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My mother is really understandable. That is, not my grandmother -- mother. And she understand that, You are American and born there. So then says, Loyal, too, she didn't tell other, from other people because they don't want, telling the Japanese to be loyal to American. Later on, war broke out, you cannot say that, but anyway, she know the way my, she hear about it, what my grandmother treated me. So my mother knows that... but being mother-in-law, she cannot say anything, but she told me that, You're an American. If you want to go back, do it, but you gotta be loyal, too. That's my, my thing. So even though I got Japanese education and you say that, Oh, Japanese be loyal to Emperor, and things like that. But to me, still, I was young, but I'm an American. See, that came in, well, bear the fruits, to speak what I've done.

Date: December 17 & 18, 2003
Location: Washington, US
Interviewer: Alice Ito, Tom Ikeda
Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

identity patriotism

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