<Begin Segment 41>

AI: Well, you know in those beginning days of redress and even into the '70s, the mid '70s, there were many people that didn't think that redress would ever happen, and even very close to, it wasn't until 1980 [interviewer meant to say 1988] that the redress legislation passed and was signed. Did you, what did you think? Did you --

MY: Yeah, I don't know, I felt when, when William came up with the idea of a court case --

AI: William Hohri.

MY: I was talking to Aiko, too, Aiko Herzig. My feeling was that it's not going to go through Congress, it's not going to pass through Congress. You're right, you need to -- and this is why, you know, I didn't have much money in those days. My husband had quit his job and we were kind of in a, was very constricted as far as going from two salaries to one salary when I was just working and I wasn't even well enough to work. But, so William needed money so I sent him money. That was a very interesting, having kind of a distant perspective of watching -- Mike used to, belonged to the JACL so he used to send me material from the Pacific Citizen that was going on, and then Shosuke kept me in touch with what was going on with Henry Miyatake. And so it was kind of interesting to see that two perspective. And my point of view, I thought, I think the court case needs to, that's absolutely right. That's the way that we should go because it's the only way that we are going to get the redress issues publicized. If the court case comes up and then there would be, it would become like a public record. With the redress, after you pay off the inmates, the internees, it's going away, it's going to go away. And even then, there were a lot of people who were objecting to paying the money. There were all kind of problems on whether or not the money should be used for community service of the general Japanese American community, or whether it should go to individuals. And I thought that it should go to individuals, but I thought the JACL position was kind of crucial, that they would... I thought it would go their way, you know, because their organization is quite large. But I'm glad it went through, you know, and then once when it did go through, William called me and asked me if I was thinking of accepting. "Are you thinking of accepting the money?" And I said, well -- and then Mike, my brother Mike, they were kind of both agonizing about whether or not -- shall we turn it down for the sake of, for symbolic reasons. And because of my personal situation at that time, I thought, "Now I guess I'm going to have to accept it, I have my children to look after and so forth," so we did accept the money, but... and the year that, that redress bill was signed, was 1990, wasn't it? 1989?

AI: I think what happened is -- well, in 1980 is when the first commission of --

MY: Yes.

AI: -- the federal commission, the bill was passed before that and then the commission was established.

MY: In 1981 was the year that they came to Los Angeles to, they came to Los Angeles for testimony and that was just exactly the time I went to Japan, because I had already made prior arrangements to do that and so I didn't appear. I think Mike did in Chicago or someplace. That was 1981, right? And then finally when the legislation was passed was in 1990, I think.

AI: I think 1988.

MY: '89?

AI: '88 is when it was signed, and then 1990 the first payments were given out.

MY: Okay, yeah, so that's the sequence. Okay, 1988, 1990. Because I was in Washington when they first had that first... I was in Washington for an Amnesty International board meeting in 1990, and then I saw Aiko and she gave me a pass, she got me a pass to get in -- you have to have a pass to get into the Hall of Justice and I was able to be there for that, which was interesting.

<End Segment 41> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.