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AI: When you talked to some of the legislators in Washington, D.C., what was their response to you? What was their reaction?

AS: You know, like we had a breakfast with some of the congress-, congressmen, congresswomen, and I think there were about fifteen of them, somewhere around fifteen, eighteen. And when I... well, Patsy Mink already knew my story, because we talked before, but Anna Eshoo, when she's told my story she says, "What?" She says, "I can't believe we did that to you." She said, "Really? It really happened? You got drafted in the army?" I says, "Yeah." "I can't believe that happened," she said. And this is, I think it was either Monday or Tuesday breakfast, by Thursday at noon, Patsy Mink and her -- oh, and then she said, "Hey Patsy," she said, "We have to help these people." And so then by Thursday noon, Patsy Mink and Anna Eshoo had written a letter to Clinton, President Clinton. And they had forty signatures already. And I think before this ended they had, they must've had about eighty or close to a hundred signatures. But then nothing came out of that.

AI: So even though you were able to get the congresspeople to listen to you, some of them were very supportive of you and willing to sign on to this letter, but it still didn't result in a... in actual equal redress for you.

AS: Uh-huh.

AI: So then, I think there was, on the Mochizuki case, then there was quite a bit of discussion about what to do, whether to accept the settlement offer from the U.S. government, or to continue, continue with the case and go to trial. And, tell me what you were thinking as this discussion went on of, to settle with the -- government was only offering, what?

AS: Five thousand, plus a little apology. And, well, five thousand is only a fourth of what Japanese Americans received and, in fact, we, when, may have had a harder case than theirs. And even the apology letter, you know, it doesn't say anything about taking us from Peru or even being a Peruvian Japanese or anything. So then, some of the people decided to accept the five thousand and the apology but seventeen of us opted out of it. And then we decided to sue the government for equal justice. But, I think this year, or last year, our case was dismissed. So then our lawyer said that, he said that we're going to the Supreme Court. He said we should go to the, to the international arena. So, she decided to, Karen Parker, our lawyer from San Francisco, decided to put our case in the Organization for American States. So that's, that's where it is now.

AI: And what do you think the next steps will be, or you're waiting to hear --

AS: We have to wait. Yeah, we have to, well, we just heard that, in fact, couple of weeks ago we just heard that a letter from them that they received our, our case. True, we don't know what's gonna happen.

AI: And have you also been trying to get some support through the United Nations for some comment on your case?

AS: Yeah, this month.

AI: That, right, through the Organization for the American States. Wow. So the, so you're involved in this international effort and then also, two of your brothers are also involved?

AS: Uh-huh, we all are in the same, we're with the same lawyer and it's the same case. We have the same number, so...

<End Segment 44> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.