<Begin Segment 24>

AI: Well, just before our break, you had told us a little bit about some of, well not, quite a bit about some of the union activities and the shifts going on globally, nationally, and then in the cannery situation, and in particular, at Waterfall, and also had mentioned Dyke Miyagawa and George Taki. And we also had a question about Clarence Arai and some of his union activities.

FM: Yes, I, I knew Clarence Arai vaguely, not, certainly not well. I knew his background a little more, mainly because at one point in his university career, he attended the University of Washington, and after his undergraduate years he went on to do a master's thesis in Sociology. As I recall, it had to do with the Japanese community in some sense and I don't rem-, I don't know why I can't remember what his thesis was about, but in any event, I do remember that he wrote some interesting things about Japanese people, and so I thought well of him in that regard. However, he went on to get his law degree here and then set up a law office within the Japanese community, that is to say, his clients were especially Japanese, more-, yeah, I'd say especially Japanese, especially the Issei who, for whom he was the first lawyer available. Tom Masuda came a little later to fill in the gap there. But also, working for the Japanese kaisha, such as... that were located here in Seattle, such as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, the banks, Yokohama Specie and so on, all of whom required some kind of American representation in the legal system. And Clarence Arai, and later Tom Masuda filled that position.

Now, because of that, Tom -- Clarence Arai also became prominent in the local Japanese politics; that is, the politics that the Japanese community became involved in, particularly with respect to discrimination and anti-Japanese hostility. This was partly, of course, a function related to his legal activity since issues came up such as, concerning anti-alien land law problems, who owned what and what could the Japanese retain, issues of this kind. And therefore, Clarence, as a lawyer, naturally became involved in political issues of the community, probably involved in some degree in, even in international issues having to do with the kaisha which were representing Japanese companies. But in any event, because of that position, when the local Japanese association, the Nihonjinkai, became concerned with the requi-, need for a political organization of the Nisei that could represent the Japanese point of view and defend the Japanese position against the strong anti-Japanese hostility that has existed on the West Coast for many years, especially came to a head, of course, in the Immigration Act of 1924. In that setting, the Issei were, and the Nihonjinkai were very keenly interested in organizing the Nisei in some political fashion so that they could counter the anti-Japanese hostility that was seriously affecting the position of the Issei immigrants and the Nisei community here in Seattle. Clarence was one of the oldest of the Nisei here. James Sakamoto, who came back in 1928 to establish the Japanese American Courier, was another of the people, of the Nisei of this age, and several others. But when the Nihonjinkai proposed a -- oh, forgotten what it was called -- progressive citizen's league or something, that would represent the Japanese point of view, that is to say, a Nisei organization. And this then became the basis for the Japanese American Citizens League, which was organized here and also in California sometime in the late 1920s. And as such, as I recall, Clarence Arai was named the first president of JACL.

So, Clarence was, in this sense, then, a political or, at least a community leader in the Japanese community, both for the Issei and the Nisei. I must say that I always, contrary to what I had felt about his MA thesis, which I thought was intelligent and well-written, interesting... I always felt regarding his political role in the community, that he was, as I felt, something of a windbag, shooting off in a fashion that didn't, in my view, mean a great deal. And perhaps this reflected the kind of difficult position, politically, that he saw himself in. As a lawyer for Japanese companies and for the Issei of the local community, he had to represent the Japanese point of view, and at the same time, in appealing to the American society and trying -- as a political leader who would establish some kind of power of the Japanese within the American system, he had to appeal to the American system, and this ambiguous situation for him, I think, created more of a problem than he was readily able to deal with. And therefore, as I say, I thought to some extent he was something of a windbag when it came to political pronouncements about what the Nisei should do concerning this and that and so on. Reflecting, I suspect, the kind of paradoxical situation he found himself in, of representing, or being, being pressed by two quite different political orientations: the Japanese on the one hand and the American on the other. Nevertheless, he was a leader of the JACL from early on.

He, I... curiously, I have a sense that he was also, also a member of the University Officer's Training Course. I may be wrong about this. Somehow, I have a sense that he represented the, what was called on campus, the ROTC, the Officer's Training Course. He was, was he? Yes. And you know, he would wear his uniform and so on. He represented, so to speak, the American military on the one hand and then he represented the Japanese companies on the other. This is the kind of contradiction that I think bore on him and he, in trying to deal with this contradiction, he sounded, as I say, to me, a bit of a windbag, and didn't make much sense, spouting off all kinds of things. Hundred-ten percent Americanism on the one hand and then saying or stating things that I thought were totally unconnected with that kind of a view. He was, however, prominent enough to become appointed by the city as a Japanese -- or a member of the Seattle Public Library board. And at the same time he had union connections, as I recall, AF of L union connections dating back to the pre-union, cannery unionization issue. He somehow, in my mind, is connected up with the AF of L to some extent, or Dave Beck's organization, or something in a fashion that tells me he was, had some connection of this kind. As I say, I think all this had to do with the fact that his legal opportunities came up in this area or that and so on and he would represent that point of view. But, those attitudes were not the attitudes of those... organizations were not necessarily, however, compatible with each other, and therefore he would be saying things this way or that and so on, that, to me, did not make consistent sense.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.