(This interview is audio-only. It contains raw footage used by Steven Okazaki in his 1985 film Unfinished Business.
This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, finding, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of the Interior.)","extent":"00:14:50","links_children":"ddr-densho-1012-7","creators":[{"role":"narrator","oh_id":134,"namepart":"Dale Minami"}],"format":"vh","language":["eng"],"contributor":"Steven Okazaki","rights":"cc","genre":"interview","location":"San Francisco, California","creation":"February 18, 1984","status":"completed","search_hidden":"Dale Minami narrator","download_large":"denshovh-mdale-03-a.jpg"},{"id":"ddr-densho-1012-6","model":"entity","index":"2 2177/{'value': 2184, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-1012-6/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/ddr-densho-1012-6/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/ddr-densho-1012/denshovh-mdale-02-a.jpg","thumb":"http://ddrmedia.local/media/ddr-densho-1012/denshovh-mdale-02-a.jpg"},"title":"Dale Minami Interview I","description":"Sansei male. Born in Los Angeles, California on October 13, 1946, and grew up in Gardena, California. Received B.A. in Political Science from University of Southern California, graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1968. Received J.D., 1971, from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California. Mr. Minami was a co-founder of the Asian Law Caucus, Inc., a co-founder of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area, the Asian Pacific Bar of California and the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans. He was involved in significant litigation affecting civil rights of Asian Pacific Americans and other minorities, including Korematsu v. United States, a lawsuit to overturn a 40 year old conviction for refusal to obey exclusion orders aimed at Japanese Americans during WWII, originally upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in landmark decisions; United Pilipinos for Affirmative Action v. California Blue Shield, the first class action employment lawsuit brought by Asian Pacific Americans on behalf of Asian Pacific Americans; Spokane JACL v. Washington State University, a class action on behalf of Asian Pacific Americans to establish an Asian American Studies program at Washington State University; and Nakanishi v. UCLA, a claim for unfair denial of tenure which resulted in the granting of tenure after widespread publicity over discrimination in academia. Mr. Minami represents Kristi Yamaguchi, the 1992 Olympic Gold Medal skater, playwright Philip Kan Gotanda, actor Lane Nishikawa, and others in the fields of media and entertainment. He is counsel to the National Asian American Telecommunications Association and the Asian American Journalists' Association. Mr. Minami has taught at University of California, Berkeley and Mills College in Oakland, CA and has been a Commissioner of the State of California's Fair Employment and Housing Commission, a Commissioner on the State Bar of California, Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, the Chair of the Attorney General's Asian/Pacific Advisory Committee and a Member of Senator Barbara Boxer's Judicial Screening Committee. He was Chair of the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund Commission, appointed by President Clinton in 1994. Mr. Minami has received numerous awards including the State Bar President's Pro bono Service Award, an honorary Juris Doctor degree from the McGeorge School of Law, designation of a dormitory at the University of California at Santa Cruz as the \"Queen Liliuokalani-Minami\" Dormitory, awards from the Coro Foundation, the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California, the Harry Dow Memorial Fellowship in Boston, the Fred Korematsu Civil Rights Fund Award, the Organization of Chinese Americans, the Japanese American Youth Center and the Centro Legale de la Raza. Mr. Minami is a partner with Minami, Lew and Tamaki in San Francisco, and specializes in personal injury and entertainment law.
(This interview is audio-only. It contains raw footage used by Steven Okazaki in his 1985 film Unfinished Business.
This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, finding, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of the Interior.)","extent":"00:10:42","links_children":"ddr-densho-1012-6","creators":[{"role":"narrator","oh_id":134,"namepart":"Dale Minami"}],"format":"vh","language":["eng"],"contributor":"Steven Okazaki","rights":"cc","genre":"interview","location":"San Francisco, California","creation":"October 4, 1983","status":"completed","search_hidden":"Dale Minami narrator","download_large":"denshovh-mdale-02-a.jpg"},{"id":"ddr-densho-379","model":"collection","index":"3 2178/{'value': 2184, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-379/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/ddr-densho-379/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/ddr-densho-379/ddr-densho-379-734-mezzanine-d569eaec62-a.jpg","thumb":"http://ddrmedia.local/media/ddr-densho-379/ddr-densho-379-734-mezzanine-d569eaec62-a.jpg"},"title":"Sumida Family Collection","description":"The Sumida Family Collection contains material about Chimata and Masako Murakami Sumida and their six children, Alice Yuriko Endo, Grace Rayko Nagai, Emmy Ito, Marshall Masaru Sumida, Theodore Tetsuro Sumida, Marjorie Yohko Matsumoto, and their families. Before World War II, Chimata Sumida owned a music store located in Los Angeles’ Japanese Town that sold music, instruments, radios, and other small electronics. After 3 FBI interrogations, Chimata and his worker, Yoshio Takashima, were arrested on January 16, 1942, detained at the Los Angeles County Jail, transferred to Tuna Canyon Detention Station, and interned at the Fort Missoula Alien Detention Center.
\r\n\r\nThe collection begins with a series of letters between Chimata Sumida written during his internment in the Fort Missoula Alien Detention Center to and from his wife and children. These censored letters describe the harsh conditions and social atmosphere at Ft. Missoula and chaotic life in Los Angeles preparing for the upcoming Executive 9066 evacuation and its consequences. An important portion of this collection are copies of documents contained in Chimata Sumida’s U.S. Department of Justice file obtained from the U.S. Archives. Contained in this file are Chimata’s testimony during his Alien Enemy Hearing Board, the docketed Department of Justice Alien Enemy Hearing Board Report with its split 2-1 decision recommendation in favor of internment, the Memorandum to the Chief of the Review Division recommending parole, and the final Order signed by Attorney General Biddle granting parole under the conditions and restrictions indicated in the document.
\r\n\r\nAfter Chimata Sumida’s transfer to Rohwer Relocation Center, he soon became a prominent Issei leader of the camp. He met 6 days a week with more than 600 Issei nightly who listened to his translation of American News into Japanese. He served as a committeeman on the Resettlement Advisory Board and was chairman of the Resettlement Committee organized by the Community Council. In addition, he collaborated with two other Issei, T. Takashima and S. Muraoka, to submit a proposal to various U.S. government agencies to establish cooperative colonies in rural areas of the United States suitable for farming to relocate 13,000 settlers from various WRA relocation camps. This plan was ultimately rejected by Dillon Myer, Director of the War Relocation Authority.
\r\n\r\nAfter leaving Rohwer Relocation Camp in 1945, Chimata and Masako Sumida resettled in Washington, D.C. with their children and grandchildren. Most of the Sumida family eventually moved back to the west coast. However, the Endos remained in the Washington, D.C. area and remained active in the community. They participated in many civil rights events including the 1963 March on Washington.","links_children":"ddr-densho-379","language":["eng","jpn"],"contributor":"Densho","public":"1","rights":"cc","status":"completed","search_hidden":"","download_large":"ddr-densho-379-734-mezzanine-d569eaec62-a.jpg"},{"id":"ddr-densho-1021-6","model":"entity","index":"4 2179/{'value': 2184, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-1021-6/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/ddr-densho-1021-6/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/ddr-densho-1021/ddr-densho-1021-6-3-mezzanine-4a06470cf5-a.jpg","thumb":"http://ddrmedia.local/media/ddr-densho-1021/ddr-densho-1021-6-3-mezzanine-4a06470cf5-a.jpg"},"title":"Jun Dairiki Interview","description":"Jun Dairiki was born in San Francisco in 1934 and was seven years old when the Japanese army attacked Pearl Harbor. Her family was sent to a detention center in Tanforan, then to the camp in Topaz, Utah. Dairiki remembers how her mother told her that, now that she was in camp, she was free of household duties such as cooking, washing, and paying bills. Dairiki also recalls meeting a lot of new people, making friends, and learning arts and crafts. After leaving the camp in 1945, her family went to Idaho relying on their friends, where her parents, in their fifties by then, learned how to farm. After graduating from high school, Dairiki went to Chicago where her sisters had been working. She attended a secretarial school at Northwestern University. After finishing the school, she worked for an insurance company in Indianapolis, then for a federal government office with a hope to be assigned to a branch in Europe. Her thought was that a stay in Europe would help her further her love of music, singing in particular. She was assigned to a Japanese office instead. After returning to San Francisco in 1957, she found a position in the Standard Oil Company, where she worked for forty-two years until her retirement. In 1963 she met her husband, Jack Dairiki, who is a US survivor of Hiroshima. Although they did not discuss the bomb in great details, they decided not to have children because of their concern about radiation effect. Dairiki also expressed her ambivalence toward the US decision to use the bomb, as she feels that Japanese Americans were sent to the concentration camp because of Japanese decision to attack the United States. Nonetheless, Jun supports Jack's work for US survivors' organization in San Francisco. Jun as a Nisei feels \"happy\" about how Sanseis in the 1970s and 1980s spoke up against the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, while she also recognizes that she \"might not have said much\" about the camp even if she \"might have felt that this was all wrong.\"","extent":"1:35:30","links_children":"ddr-densho-1021-6","creators":[{"role":"narrator","oh_id":556,"namepart":"Jun Dairiki"},{"role":"interviewer","namepart":"Naoko Wake"}],"format":"vh","language":["eng"],"contributor":"Densho","rights":"cc","genre":"interview","location":"San Francisco, California","creation":"22-Jul-12","status":"completed","search_hidden":"Jun Dairiki narrator \nNaoko Wake interviewer","download_large":"ddr-densho-1021-6-3-mezzanine-4a06470cf5-a.jpg"},{"id":"ddr-densho-1000-142","model":"entity","index":"5 2180/{'value': 2184, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-1000-142/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/ddr-densho-1000-142/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/ddr-densho-1000/denshovh-sroger-01-a.jpg","thumb":"http://ddrmedia.local/media/ddr-densho-1000/denshovh-sroger-01-a.jpg"},"title":"Roger Shimomura Interview","description":"Roger Shimomura's paintings, prints, and theater pieces address sociopolitical issues of Asian America. The inspiration for many of his works are the diaries kept by his late immigrant grandmother for fifty-six years. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Washington in Seattle, and his graduate degree from Syracuse University, New York.