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PW: So in 1998, Buena Vista church celebrated your hundredth anniversary.

MY: Uh-huh.

PW: What did the congregation do in reflection of that history or that milestone? Was there much?

MY: If I remember well, we had a big celebration, I think, at a hotel somewhere, and we did a lot of history. I think there had been a decade since the passage of the Civil Liberties Act, but there was efforts to recapture some of that history and kind of retell the history to new generations and celebrate. And I think it was also a very critical time because we were having a changing of guard and leadership, we were having new people come in to church, and I think there were people who maybe were not part of families that grew up in Alameda or at this particular church, or not part of the family of the church, but the people who became part of the family, so to speak. And I think that was a really important pivot point for the congregation. And you had key families like the Takedas and Judy Furuichi, Jo Takata, her sister Carol, and Susan, the Koike family, Wayne and his brothers, the Hanamura family, and Wendy Hanamura is offspring of Howe and Mary Hanamura, and her grandparents were key members. I think there's something about core family members being able to embrace new folks to the congregation and then help them feel part of the family and then feel part of the whole fabric of the community, that there was a good shift going on around the hundredth anniversary. And Jo in particular was coming back with us, because she hadn't been so involved, but Judy had been involved for a long time. Jo came back and started to give leadership to senior citizens, and started a program for the seniors, and actually, she started that back in 1990 or so. But anyway, I think, fast forward to 1998 and I think the shift in our leadership kind of was a key thing that was taking place.

PW: And with those changes from some of, well, there were key families that you're describing, and there's new families. I'm just imagining that a lot of people who were Japanese American are moving out of Alameda, you just described all the housing issues, and you have a new demographic.

MY: Yeah.

PW: What was that like? What did it start to look like?

MY: Well, it started becoming more multicultural. I mean, people walking through the door, there's no sign that says "Japanese only," right? That's antithetical to what you are as a church. Although I think there were some hopes that this church would continue to be sort of the anchor place for the Japanese community. I think it still has been and still continues to be, but it's also become more inclusive of others of other ethnicities. Other Asians becoming... I think in our mission statement we began to talk about naming that we were much more of an Asian American congregation at that particular time. But I think it was not until toward my retirement that they also began to embrace the naming of being more multicultural as well because of who was making up the congregation at that particular time, maybe another decade later or so.

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