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Images and Imaginings of Internment: Comics and Illustrations of Camp

Receive the "Loyalty Questionnaire"

You've been living in camp for roughly a year when you are asked to complete a form. Reading over the questions, you feel confused, threatened, and unsure about what your future is going to be in the United States.

The loyalty questionnaire was created to create a means of assessing the loyalty of those incarcerated in camp. You come to find that this form will determine who in the camp will be drafted to serve in the military, who might be released from camp sooner, and who will be sent away to an even harsher prison camp. How you decide to answer this form, especially question 27 and 28, could change your future forever.

Question #27 asks if you are willing to serve on combat duty wherever ordered. You ask yourself: "Am I willing to die for a country that has stripped away my basic human rights and treated myself and my family like prisoners? Am I willing to go to another country and leave my family in camp?"

Question #28 asks if you would will unqualified allegiance to the United States and forswear any form of allegiance to the Emperor of Japan. This question is both confusing and insulting. If you are a U.S. citizen, renouncing allegiance to the Emperor of Japan feels like a round about way to trick you into saying that you were loyal to Japan in the first place. If you are a Japanese immigrant, you are not allowed to become a U.S. citizen on the basis of racial exclusion laws, so renouncing your ties to Japan would mean that you have no citizenship anywhere.

How will you answer these questions?

This page has replies:

Both my Grandfathers were taken to Tuna Canyon and then to both detention centers in New Mexico. Yet their sons served in the MIS, and sons served in the Korean War. I also had an Aunt, married with a one year old taken to Tule Lake for answering No No.
Contents of this reply:
1. Receive the "Loyalty Questionnaire" You've been living in camp for roughly a year when you are asked to complete a form. Reading over the questions, you feel confused, threatened, and unsure about what your future is going to be in the United States.
  
  The loyalty questionnaire was created to create a means of assessing the loyalty of those incarcerated in camp. You come to find that this form will determine who in the camp will be drafted to serve in the military, who might be released from camp sooner, and who will be sent away to an even harsher prison camp. How you decide to answer this form, especially question 27 and 28, could change your future forever.
  
  Question #27 asks if you are willing to serve on combat duty wherever ordered. You ask yourself: "Am I willing to die for a country that has stripped away my basic human rights and treated myself and my family like prisoners? Am I willing to go to another country and leave my family in camp?"
  
  Question #28 asks if you would will unqualified allegiance to the United States and forswear any form of allegiance to the Emperor of Japan. This question is both confusing and insulting. If you are a U.S. citizen, renouncing allegiance to the Emperor of Japan feels like a round about way to trick you into saying that you were loyal to Japan in the first place. If you are a Japanese immigrant, you are not allowed to become a U.S. citizen on the basis of racial exclusion laws, so renouncing your ties to Japan would mean that you have no citizenship anywhere.
  How will you answer these questions?

This page references:

Loyalty Questionnaire Part 2