<Begin Segment 19>

AI: Well, now as we discussed earlier, at the very beginning of the redress movement, there was some controversy, some Nisei who were not for the movement toward redress. But it seemed that as time went on, there was increased feeling that these hearings were very important. Now, at the same time, I know that even with my own father who was in camp also, that many Nisei were reluctant to talk about their experiences. Did you have any concern that, at these hearings that you would not get sufficient testimony or that perhaps the testimony would not be detailed enough or really tell the whole story? Did you have a concern about that?

PB: Well, there were naturally some people that were reluctant if the government situation is not a private thing. So there were reluctancy on some of the people. Since this was a voluntary thing that we didn't force anyone -- in fact, on the subpoena part where there were people in government that we would like to have heard from very much so, even if they turned us down for whatever reason, we accepted that. So it was the same way with the people that should have testified and told us about how, what they experienced and the loss that they had, we didn't insist on that. There was no way that we could say, "Hey, you gotta do it." But there was a sufficiency of people that we contacted that wanted to tell the story, and that was the main thing. And it was sufficient enough to bring out the fact that first of all, that the government ruling of evacuation was very unfair and brought on by people that didn't know the whole story, and it was completely wrong. Secondly, that there was losses sustained by people because of their action, and a result, that the government made a big mistake and we should do something about it. And that was the main object of the legislation that was passed, and we as the Commission on Wartime Relocation and the evacuation proved that. That came out in the report, which I guess everybody knows. If you haven't read it, it's interesting. And if you have the report, you know what we studied and what we arrived at and how we arrived at that decision.

AI: Now, during the hearings was there anything that came out or anything about the hearings that surprised you?

PB: Well, in some of the hearings, although they were more one-sided, there was a negative -- as you know, one of our members was fairly negative. Whenever he showed up at our commission hearings, his questions were, you might say, frowned upon by the witnesses that were testifying. But all the way through including the last vote, when we voted for reparations and he voted against it, that individual was totally against it. Also in Los Angeles, I happened to be there when some of the veterans were testifying, and we had one lady go up there and say that it was a lie and all that. We had to ask her to be escorted out by the guards that we had as security people.

AI: So she actually believed that the camps were, that there were...

PB: There, it wasn't...

AI: ...no internment camps.

PB: Yeah.

AI: She --

PB: She happened to be an individual that came from my home city of Gardena, but she was the same way when we had city council meetings. She was very anti-Japanese -- [laughs] -- and so I could understand that she would want to come down when we were having a hearing and try to arouse people to be against anything that we would gain as Japanese Americans. But that was the only incident that I know of that was kind of upset, hearing. All the rest of the hearings went very well. The hearings, I think were necessary. They worked out, and as a result of it there were a lot of people that knew about it that were not Japanese Americans that attended, and when they went there, I talked to several of them, and they said, gee, they didn't know that happened. This was something they were not aware of. So I think that it brought out to the public not only to Japanese Americans, but to the public other than Japanese Americans that we were discriminated against in the wrong way and that there should be something done. And of course, as you know, Congress then took the report and took the action to do what they felt was right. And I think it was proper.

AI: Well, now something interesting that happened at this time was that there was Senator S.I. Hayakawa, also of Japanese ancestry, originally Canadian, but he became a senator in the U.S. Senate.

PB: Right.

AI: And he was very outspoken against the redress. What was your opinion of his stand at that time?

PB: Well, we knew about it, and he's originally, I guess, Canadian, didn't experience the fact of being evacuated, of losing anything, and it may have been his own personal idea or it may be a political situation. It's hard to say. But nevertheless, a lot of people did not listen to him and went by without it. Unfortunately the one person that was on the commission, the, Dan Lundgren, lot of people did listen to, but he was one lone voice that was speaking against giving us reparations and things of this nature. So the majority in this country rules, and I think that that's the rule that we go by, the law we go by, and when we say the majority made that decision, it was the right decision, and I'll have to go along with it.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.