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Copy of letter in reply to James Reed by Y. K.



Dear James
I was very happy to get your letter and I will try to answer your questions, telling you all about my activities and my attitude concerning the war and myself.

I was born in the southern part of the main island of Japan in the town of Okayama a long time ago and I came to America as a boy, all by myself.

When I was a boy, I was very romantic. I wanted to see the entire world and all its people, but I didn't have any idea at that time that I wanted to become an artist. I just came here to the U. S. out of curiosity and planned to go home after a few years of studying English. Frankly, that is about all I had on my mind when I first came here.

I landed in Seattle and then went to Los Angeles where I attended public school. One of my teachers urged me to study painting because she though I was talented in that direction. That was how I started my art career - quite by accident. Although I always liked to draw and enjoyed seeing pictures, I didn't dream of being an artist until that time, nor did I think at that time that I was going to remain in America so many years. I am glad and happy to say that I have stayed. I will stay all my life because this is my home. America has given me everything; it has taught me the democratic way of life which to me is the real essence of worthwhile living. If I had children I would be very proud of their being American.

I am very proud to consider myself an American artist and I am proud that I am generally thought of in that way. Artists are valuable to a community because they have vision and they add to the cultural background which is the strength of a democratic nation.

Do you know that no matter how long I live here I cannot ever become an American citizen because I was born in the Orient and Orientals are excluded from that privilege by law. In appearance, I am Oriental but my beliefs, my ideals and my sentiments, have been shaped by living in the free American atmosphere most of my life. At hear I am an American and I see and feel everything that way.

I trust you and your friends know what we are fighting for - about the cruelty of the Japanese militarists and the savagery of the Nazis. It is a war of one set of ideals against