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SF: Well, maybe I can ask you one more question about Japanese Americans, and maybe Jenna can finish up. I think it was 19-, 1988, President Reagan signed a redress bill that gave everybody who was in, every Japanese American who was interned $20,000 and a formal apology. It was kind of pro forma, just a sheet of paper. But everybody got a redress check for $20,000. What are your thoughts about that?

JF: Well, at the time, I was, I was heavily into reading about the American West and how we thoroughly screwed over the American Indians. And my thought at the time was, this was kind of a one-time thing for the Japanese people, but why the hell don't we do something about the American Indians that we've done this to time after time after time over hundreds of years? And also I figured that it certainly wasn't enough money for what, from what I had heard and how some of these people were, some of the Japanese Americans were pretty damned well off, and all of a sudden, why, they didn't have anything, that it was not nearly enough compensation. If they're going to do it, they ought to do it with a little more generosity. So I was kind of ambivalent there. But, and I still, right now sitting here, feel exactly the same way. I mean, we, we violated the Japanese rights. There's no doubt about that. But still we, we did much worse to the Indians, as even wiping out, definite attempt to wipe out their cultures, which to me is a terrible crime.

But those two thoughts are still with me, that if they're going to help the Japanese, $20,000 is a drop in the bucket from what, what's going to actually do, what good is it going to do. And what good is it going to do the people who have passed away? Because a lot of 'em, a lot of the Japanese were long gone.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.