<Begin Segment 13>

MT: In fact, the first, at Thomas, they started the JACL when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. But he would take me with him. Tom Iseri was the president of -- we called it the Seattle, no, the White River Progressive League at that time, when they first started the JACL. And Tom Iseri was the president and my brother was the vice president and so he'd bring me along. So he said, "Min, you gotta learn to dance," and then the JACL started oratorical contests to, to teach citizenship to all of us younger Niseis. And so, my brother kinda led me along there so learning to dance, learning music, learning JACL, my JACL started in, back in the Thomas, Washington at the White River Progressive --

TI: Well this is interesting. Can you recall what those first meetings were like and what was said or done during those meetings?

MT: No, nothing especially. We attended the meetings and there were older Nisei men and Nisei girls --

TI: Like about how many people were there?

MT: Well, I imagine at that time there were probably around fifteen, between fifteen and twenty were the original nucleus of the White River Progressive League, JACL.

TI: Were they men and women or were --

MT: Uh-huh. The older Nisei girls and, because my brother was probably one of the older, Tom Iseri, they're all the older Nisei.

TI: Now, did they have like an adult supervisor or someone to help them, or was it just pretty much just the Niseis doing it?

MT: It was kinda touchy then because the Issei parents didn't particularly think that when we, the JACL would have dances at that time that it was a very good thing. But slowly the Niseis thought, well, we, I think Niseis did not attend high school dances or socialize that way, so us older, the older Niseis, which, my brother and Tom Iseri and the Tsujikawa girls and all that group gradually had their own social life that they built. And that, and the Buddhist Church, we didn't have dances at that time, so JACL we kinda, more Americanized group, the Christian people and Buddhist people and so we started dance. But I can, I felt at that time that the parents didn't really approve of dances going on and so, but we, it gradually crossed that barrier.

TI: Do you recall your mother and how she felt about it?

MT: She was quite against it and so when she found out my brother was taking me to have, say, one of the girls teach me how to dance, she was really upset about it. [Laughs] And I distinctly remember that. And so, that's why I know that the Isseis were, wasn't much approval about dancing in those days.

TK: If you couldn't dance at the Buddhist Church, where were the meetings held and where were the socials held?

MT: Well, I don't recall at the Buddhist Church that we had dances. It more started with the JACL because we had a mixed group of Christian and Buddhist people and it wasn't in Kent or Auburn, it was at Thomas right between, where the Buddhist Church was. But like I said, the Issei/Nisei real social life was at the Buddhist Church at the time because there were so many of 'em. But when JACL started it was a new era as far as being Americanized, I would say. So, but Mother definitely didn't think much of my brother taking me to...

TI: I'm curious, was your mother more angry at your brother or at you for doing this?

MT: My brother.

TI: And how did she show that?

MT: Well, she, well, she just came out and said that it wasn't right to be dancing, boys and girls to be dancing. So, because until then all the Niseis played baseball and baseball was very, very popular down in the valley, especially when Jimmy Sakamoto had his Japanese American Courier made all these baseball teams all through the valley, like Kent, Auburn and Fife and Tacoma, Yakima and all these different baseball teams that played and they're, of course, that was something that's very close, brought the Issei fathers closer to Niseis was the baseball because every Sunday they would play baseball and the Issei out there would, they were really rooting for their own team and so Jimmy Sakamoto really did a good job to keep all the older Niseis out of the street and, so-called street and got 'em into the baseball era.

TI: Well, did Jimmy Sakamoto, from Seattle, come down for any of these meetings of the JACL, White River JACL?

MT: Once in a while because Jimmy was the one that started the JACL in Seattle in what, in 1929? Along in there, but no, he attended once in a while he would attend to, to push that we should, we're Nisei Americans, born here, raised here, that we should be good American citizens. So Jimmy was very, very helpful that way as far as the early Niseis were concerned.

TI: Well, as we're talking about other people, there were other sort of contemporaries of yours in the White River Valley. About that time there were people like Gordon Hirabayashi, Minoru Yamasaki, people like that, who grew up. Did you know people like that as you were growing up and come in contact with them?

MT: I was, from Gordon's standpoint, I knew him because of the Boy Scouts because although we were Troop, Troop 450 in Kent, sometimes we'd have the Boy Scout Court of Honor at Thomas which would be between Auburn and Kent. And Gordy lived in, in the Thomas area so... but that's about the extent I knew Gordy, and then, I followed what he, kinda beliefs later, but I was really know, I didn't know him to extent that I really socialized with him outside of scouting and started from that era of, Gordon Hirabayashi and George Iseri and those people, probably stayed close to the, to the Thomas area there.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.