Oral History Interview with Warren Tsuneishi, September 18, 2005 Page: 13

                                
13

END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE A
BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO, TAPE A

Mr. Uneishi:
Mr. Metzler:
Mr. Uneishi:
Mr. Metzler:
Mr. Uneishi:

. . . the program, chiefly based on Japanese Americans, on the assumption that we
knew Japanese. Well, it turns out that when we began to take tests for the language
competence, not many of us had enough Japanese spoken or written. The percentage
was remarkably low. I'll tell you why. Every immigrant group to this country tries to
establish language schools, whether they're Portuguese or Polish or whatever. Korean
or Japanese. I went to Japanese language school as a youngster on Mondays and
Wednesdays after regular regular school, and all day Saturday. I was a very
indifferent student. I was a straight A student in regular school, but in the Japanese
language school I got Cs and Ds. Because I wasn't interested. I was interested in being
American. Matter of fact, I didn't want to study there. I wanted to be patriotic and all
this kind of stuff you know. The ironic thing is, I regretted that later when I was at
camp .. .
Came back to haunt you.
It did! It bit me. If I had been more studious, I would have been a much more effecient
student and in war time a much more effective inelligence person in the field. And
more ironically than that, I end up being a professional Japanologist. After the war, I
went to graduate school on the G.I. Bill, I ended up with a Ph.D. in Political Science. My
dissertation was on constitutional and political changes in Japan under the
Occupation. My job was as librarian of the Japanese collection and the
recruited me as head of a Far Eastern languages section-Chinese, Japanese, and
Korean-and eventually I became chief of the Orient                  Division
because of my Japanese language competency (laughs).
Back to World War II, when you-did you pass or did you not pass?
Oh no, I passed it. I had pretty good competency.

Mr. Metzler: You were good enough.
Mr. Uneishi: I was good enough, yes.
Mr. Metzler: So then what happened?
Mr. Uneishi: Those who were not good enough were sent were sent to the 442nd.

Mr. Metzler: To be cannon fodder.