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PW: This makes me think that we should take a step back and talk about what actually happened to Buena Vista during the war? So 1942, do you know anything about the history of what happened and how it was impacted?

MY: Most of that congregation went to Tanforan and to Topaz. And so there's a photo that's going to be part of the Densho Alameda Japantown history, I think, that shows their last worship service at the church before they left.

PW: And what happened to the building itself during...

MY: The building was taken care of by a man named John Cobb, who was a Methodist pastor, and so he was assigned to be the caretaker of the building while people were gone, but there were no worship services during the war.

PW: I understand that there, part of the actions of the church this movement to enfold civil liberties theology into the congregation was to talk to the Alameda City Council. Can you tell me a little bit about what happened?

MY: Well, I was talking with some of the members and I said, "What we should do is have a commemoration of the, commemoration celebration of the passage of the Civil Liberties Act." And so one of the members said, "I know one of the council members, let's go talk to him." And his response was, "Well, we don't do those kinds of things in Alameda." And I said, "What do you mean, those kind of things?" He says, "Well, you know, those kind of things. That's more for, like, Berkeley or something." And that kind of gave me a clue to the kind of politics and the social ambiance in the city of Alameda, that they weren't going to celebrate a civil rights victory in the community. And so we just had to do one on our own. We asked another congregation that was much bigger that had capacity to help us host that and do a community celebration for that. And we, along with other folks in the community, had our own commemoration celebration. But what the councilman did come back and say is, "What I can do for you is I would like to help support maybe a commemoration of the old ATK Japanese baseball team," which is a segregated baseball team that had existed prewar and continued on after the war. And so that was actually very exciting for Shiz Kawamura, who was the member at Buena Vista who was the point person on this. And he got really excited and they had a little reunion of the old ATK baseball team, and had a commemorative plaque put at the baseball park where they used to play.

PW: Which is where? Where is this baseball field?

MY: It's over near McKinley Park in Alameda, I can't quite describe for you how to place it. But it's not too far from the church. And then they used to play there in segregated leagues, and sometimes had people coming in from Japan, they played baseball with. But they also belonged to the circuit of Japanese American sports network. So they probably played with some of your relatives in Fresno, for that matter.

PW: Very possible.

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