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SH: So we started trying to find people, and we knew some people from our organizing thus far, but we started doing things like having house meetings. Like, as you recall, people weren't used to talking about it at that time and it was very controversial. People would enryo like crazy: "Oh, no, no, no, I have nothing to say." And so we started this thing called house meetings. What we'd do is we would get somebody who was willing to deal with this on some level, and we'd have them invite their family members who had been in camp, or friends or something like that. And a lotta arm twisting -- "Just come and sit there. You don't have to say anything, just sit there." And so, and then we'd, the NCRR group, we'd come with our slide show and we showed historical pictures, and we talked about... we talked about some of the constitutional violations, we talked about redress, we talked about monetary compensation, and we talked about the commission. Then we asked, we asked people to tell us what had happened to them.

And it was incredible, I mean, I think a lot of people... nobody had ever asked them. And I think that a lot of people, even though they say, "Oh, no, I have nothing to say," I think one of the rules of thumb that I learned is never take "no" for an answer, 'cause you could kinda tell that they had something to say. That they actually really did want to say something, but they had to be convinced, you had to ask them several times. But once people actually could see that we were sincere and that we were sympathetic and that... and I think that they -- people responded to the fighting spirit, I think, because deep down inside that's how they felt, too. And so, a lot of people did tell us what had happened to them. And we learned a lot of really moving stories.

And I think it really affected us, too, that lot of the Sansei who were involved... like in my statement, I said that, "Not only did we find people to testify, but we also really secured the commitment and raised the consciousness of a lot of Sansei." I think... oh yeah, one observation that I have about that whole process and the redress movement as a whole, is that there was a lot of... like the reconciliation between Nisei and Sansei wasn't necessarily just within families. Like for instance, like my family, I always wanted them to be more involved, and speak out, and do all those kind of things that Sanseis want their Nisei parents to do, around the camps and stuff. And for a number of reasons, one of them being that they were very isolated, they never did and... but I was able to meet other Nisei who kind of fulfilled that need in me and who also, interestingly enough, frequently said that their children didn't want them to do it. [Laughs] It was funny, there was kind of a funny... you know, people gave each other what they couldn't get in their own family, and so anyway, that was an interesting thing that I noticed.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.