<Begin Segment 11>

GK: What do you believe the legacy of the redress movement is?

SH: I think that the legacy of the redress movement is... goes beyond Japanese Americans. I... a couple of years ago, after the redress victory, in San Jose, the Border Patrol was picking up people who looked like they might be illegal aliens. There was supposed to be a crackdown, right, on the illegal aliens. And I think this was happening in different communities, but it did happen in San Jose. And they were staking out schools where people were picking up their children from school. This was terrible, they caused people to stay away from school, and keep their kids home from school. They were picking people up on the street, like when they were going shopping and stuff like that. And based on the fact that they looked like they could be illegal aliens. There were citizens and legal residents who were picked up in that process. And, at a hearing in front of the human relations commission for Santa Clara County, unprompted by Japanese Americans, some Latino organizations cited what the FBI did to Japanese Americans following Pearl Harbor. And they cited the concentration camps and the redress victory, and what the implications of that were, and how it was a very parallel situation, what was happening to them. And when I heard that, I was so proud that we'd been able to arm them with something that they could use in their defense.

So to me, that's one of the legacies. I think about, I think about, sometimes there are petty struggles for credit, like who did the most, and blah blah blah. I guess my attitude is, you may have spent your entire life -- I spent my entire adult life to a point, working on redress, day in and day out, and other people did, too. But you know, the point is not whether we'll go down in history because we won't. Nobody is gonna remember us in fifty years. We're just tiny little specks of dust in this whole movement and... but if we were able to do something to further the cause of justice and equality, and make it easier for people to continue to struggle in the future, then that would be a lasting legacy. I mean, I think of anonymous people that won't go down in history. There were, I... in the Nihonmachi Outreach Committee, there are three Nisei who were very active who have passed away since. Tom Nakaji was an older Nisei who helped organize Issei and keep them informed of the redress movement. And Luther Ogawa was a Nisei who was actively involved, and George Yoshioka. And they're not famous, nobody is ever gonna remember them except for us, and when we're gone, nobody's gonna remember them or us. But I am so proud that they played a role in this campaign for justice. So, yeah, so I think that that's one of the legacies.

I think practically speaking, right now, we have to make sure that redress is complete, and there are uncompleted aspects of redress. The railroad workers are uncompensated, a significant proportion of the Latin American Japanese are uncompensated due to a technicality in the redress law. So, you know, those things need to be dealt with. Also, one thing that I really hope is that this becomes more than just a Japanese American issue. I mean, Day of Remembrance, I think that it... the legacy will only be meaningful if people other than Japanese Americans can remember with us on Day of Remembrance. And when little children, like my son in preschool, learned that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree... he knows that, all little children know that. But until all little children also know that, about the concentration camps, and the resistance, and the struggle to defend the Constitution... until all little children know about that, too, then the work is not done. So, there's a lot of practical things required to insure the legacy, so that injustices like the camps won't happen again.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.