Shigeya Kihara joined Military Service Intelligence Language School (MISLS) as one of the first civilian instructors.
After attending a segregated school system in Oakland, Calif. Kihara entered the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in political science. After graduation he could not find a job. He returned to school and earned a Master's degree in international relations. The economy still suffered from the effects of the Great Depression. Taking his father's advice, he left for Japan in September1940.
Upon arrival, he followed Japanese procedure and reported to a local police office near his residence. A "seedy-looking" bureaucrat checked Kihara's papers and said, "Huh. You're a son of an emigrant, aren't you?" [Oral History]. While he could understand the treatment he received in America due to his racial difference, in Japan the discrimination felt different:
If I'm destined to be an object of prejudice, discrimination, and ridicule in life in the United States or in the country of my parents, Japan, I would prefer to receive prejudice and be discriminated against in the United States rather than to receive prejudice and discrimination from my own people in Japan. And so my mind began to switch in that way. [Oral History]
(It was said that) the Army was looking for Japanese language instructors in order to serve as spies for the United States Army against individuals in Japanese communities. And the Kibei were absolutely reluctant to apply for a job; none of them, very few of them would apply. [Oral History]
And after the introductions were finished, Colonel Weckerling said, "Ok, let's pack these books in my car and we'll go down to your school.".... We left the manicured green lawn, tree-lined streets, or the Presidio proper. And then we went toward the Bay, crossed some railroad lines, and there was this huge empty area.... There was nothin' there. Just this one abandoned, empty, unpainted, crusty-looking, corrugated tin building. [Oral History]
The course consisted of six hours of classroom each day, plus two hours of supervised instruction from seven to nine in the evenings and four hours of examinations on Saturdays....
It was a day-to-day struggle of keeping one step ahead of our students and providing the mimeographed materials, preparing English to Japanese translation materials each day for our students and then preparing examinations on Saturdays. [Oral History]
My family, Japanese Americans in Oakland (Calif.), were ordered to go to Tanforan. Colonel Weckerling assured us that school would remain at the Presidio of San Francisco until the first class had graduated. That all the instructors would be protected from the relocation. My family, father and mother and brothers and sisters, and my wife's family, all prepared to move, getting rid of automobiles, refrigerators, business equipment... washers, dryers, presses, inventories in stores, farm equipment, tractors, everything. And it was total chaos. [Oral History]
You can't conduct a war against a powerful enemy like Japan only using two-dozen military intelligence operators. And so Japanese Americans, the Nisei, were the only source. And Weckerling and Captain Rasmussen and other people who had associations with Nisei in Tokyo and after coming back from language duty in different places had confidence that the Nisei would be loyal to the United States and would be able to conduct military intelligence. [Oral History]