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FM: And then, as I say, the Native Americans were the low people on the -- oh, in terms of hierarchy, the white people are on top, at least at Waterfall, Japanese are the next level, the Filipinos are a level below that, in the sense that since the contractor's Japanese, and he's relating to the Japanese, the Japanese are the next level. The Filipinos are the latest newcomers, arrivals in the system, so they have the low level position, but, outside this group is the Native American population, totally scrap, so to speak, from the standpoint of the system. You hire them because they're around, but you could do perfectly well without them, very unfortunate. It is a, it is a, misfortune of the Native American that his style of life, lifestyle, before the arrival of the white man was such that it was not going to be geared to fit into white society. The mental outlook, the way you, the way you look at things and the way people are related to each other, except for possibly groups like the Iroquois Indians, most Indian populations just were not organized to fit easily into Western white society. Japanese, fortunately, were particularly well-organized for that. And so, even today, why, if you say, "Why is it the Sansei are successful?" You'd have to say it has to do with something about the organizational background that the Issei brought with them from these village organiz-, communities that the Issei grew up in, and which have been transmitted down through the Nisei to the Sansei and Yonsei and so on. But, there are populations, even the Chinese... Chinese, as Francis L. K. Soo says, do not successfully organize volunteer associations, voluntary associations. And that's a sign of the fact that they do not organize well in an impersonal world such as modern society and the modern industrial organization tends to be. Japanese, the Jewish people, particularly are well-suited in this regard. So, in terms of organization, then, if there is a hierarchy of this kind it's partly a function of the racial discriminatory segregational arrangement. Partly, however, it has to do with organizational, background of organizational experiences which the population brings to it. That is, just to point to the Native American situation, the Native Americans in Alaska, I always felt, were an exceedingly tragic population. Tragic because they were inundated by a population that took over the area and did not provide a setting, an environment in which the Native American population could easily fit in and be successful. Unfortunate, but that's the nature of the history of the American continent. Well... then, having laid out, so to speak, the picture of this background, maybe I should tell you a little bit more about what I experienced personally. Would you like --

AI: Oh, excuse me. Before you do that --

FM: Yes?

AI: -- would you say a bit more about the union aspect, of the structure of the union activity?

FM: Let me, yeah...

AI: Or, would that come better later?

FM: Let me leave that, let me leave that...

AI: Okay.

FM: ...to after I talk about the personal experiences. As a last subject I will touch on.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.