<Begin Segment 9>

TI: In general, what was the feeling? I mean, asking for redress at that point was a pretty innovative idea. It wasn't really discussed up until that point. What were the reactions of, like the Niseis and others to that?

DM: You know, it's funny because the thing passed almost unanimously if not unanimously. And I think partly it was because Edison was a commanding presence and made a terrific speech and the Seattle folks were awesome. They had some crazy people up here, man. It was not just crazy, crazy, bad crazy, but they were so rabid about, and so strong. I should say forceful, "rabid" is a bad word to put it, but forceful about demanding redress and justice for what happened. Somehow we bonded, the Bay Area chapter and the Seattle folks got together really, really well and the presentation was so forceful that nobody wanted to say, "No." [Laughs] And so everybody just kind of went along with it. But there wasn't a lot of great either hostility toward it, expressed hostility in a typical Japanese American or Japanese way. There were a lot of people probably bad-mouthing us behind our backs. But nobody overtly said that we shouldn't do that.

TI: And when you mentioned the Seattle group, was that like the Henry Miyatake, that group, or is that, I'm trying to remember...

DM: It was Henry --

MC: Boeing engineer people?

TI: Yeah, Mike Naka --

DM: I remember only one of them. He eventually moved down to California. I forgot his name, too, this is what happens. But it was that group. It was the same group. It was part of that same chapter. Absolutely.

TI: Shosuke Sasaki.

DM: Yeah.

TI: Those guys.

DM: Yeah, and when redress started, though, in the late '70s, or the idea started gaining momentum, then my parents started talking openly. I think, I mean, they talked very openly, they started talking more and more and more and more. And then when I got involved with Korematsu and the coram nobis cases with Hirabayashi and Yasui, too, my parents just would, you couldn't stop 'em after that. [Laughs] I think they felt vindicated. At one point they felt, they realized -- like a lotta Japanese Americans that I have talked to -- once redress was either passed, not even passed, but when the movement went forward and they got used to the idea that, "Yeah, we were victims," I saw a total loosening of the voices of Japanese Americans. They were able to speak again about the camps, and not in a -- in a very, very strong way about how they felt. They were being, opened up about their feelings. They felt free to talk about one of the terrible things, some of the terrible things that happened to them.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.