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GK: What do think the contributions of NCJAR was, and the coram nobis cases?

SH: Well, I think, I think they were very strong contributors to the success of the redress movement. I know that there were a lot of debates at the time, like, "What was the vehicle for redress victory?" And some people felt that, "Oh, everybody who didn't agree with me should stop what they're doing and do what I'm doing." I think that, in the NCRR we didn't feel like that at all. Actually, on a practical level, there were a lot of people who supported all efforts. I think that was very common among the grassroots. That there were people... it was very common for people who joined and supported the NCRR to also be members of the JACL. You know, there wasn't this real sharp division. People, people felt like they should support everything. There were also people in San Jose who supported the legislation, who also were either members of the lawsuit or supporters of the lawsuit. I think that people were... I think people recognized right away that the breakthroughs in the legal efforts could only help the legislative effort, because a lot of what the breakthroughs were in the legal efforts were new evidence that the government had misrepresented the entire case against Japanese Americans. So, I think... people were cheering, I think people generally recognized that we were all part of the same movement. To me, that's what a movement is, it's very broad, there... it's not just one organization's thing. So there were multiple organizations, there were multiple strategies. I think our official position, and I think it was borne out by the opinions of a lot of the grassroots people, that we had to support all efforts.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.