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AI: In fact, I do want to ask a little more detail about the Somali grocery stores and the suspicions that they were subjected to. But before we go there I wanted to just ask a little bit about the whole beginnings of the, the very beginning calls that you and your friend made. You were not, at that time, representing yourselves as being with an organization or part of any movement or... you were calling as individuals. And were you surprised that you got a meeting with Jim McDermott and at his response, his fairly immediate response?

PJ: Well, we got a meeting with, I got a meeting with Jim because of Akhtar Badshah, who was at the time at Digital Partners. And he, I called him because I had known him through Chaya. And I said, "This is what we want to do," and I didn't get a great response from other people, you know, people were just sort of like, "Well, talk to my office." And he said, "Well, I'll, I'm gonna see Jim McDermott tomorrow and let me get you, I'll get you a meeting with him." And that's, it's really thanks to Akhtar that... and I think I might have gotten a meeting with Jim anyway because Jim, I think, in some ways is much more accessible in that, in that way, particularly with this population, I think Jim has a deeper understanding than many people do. But I was surprised, I guess... well, I guess, in some ways I was surprised that people weren't responding, just as much as I was that people were. I have this innate belief in humanity and the ability of good people to see when things need to be done. And so then I get disappointed sometimes if it doesn't happen that way. But most of the time I find that if you really believe something, then it transmits itself and then people listen.

AI: And in this case it did, it did turn out that way.

PJ: Yeah.

AI: Congressman McDermott really put the use of his office and some of the resources of his office toward this purpose.

PJ: Yeah, he did. He was, he was pretty amazing and then there were also donors, people who had been involved in philanthropy for a long time and that I've known through my work, so it wasn't, they weren't new people, but Andrea Rabinowitz and some others, I remember being at... I think this was about a month later. I was at Andrea's house for dinner and I was exhausted, because, you know, there was no organization. I mean, there was no organization, there was no money, there was no office. I literally worked out of my desk, which I didn't have a desk because I had just moved. And I had given away my old desk and so I had to go to Ikea and buy a desk just so I would have somewhere to put a phone. [Laughs] I had to get my phone connected, I mean, all of that was happening at the same time and in fact I think I stayed in boxes for a year following September 11th. I didn't even have time to unpack because I was just working around the clock, literally around the clock. And part of it was also trying to figure out what existed, what didn't exist with this help line. I was told that the City of Seattle did have a help line for hate crimes and discrimination. I called it, it turned out it was the same line that you report, like if your garbage isn't picked up. They had no information about these cultures at all. So it wasn't like they could refer people. They would take complaints, but you had no idea what went on with them. So I had to work with the Office of Civil Rights. But I had, as you say, I had no stature, really. I wasn't, I was just a concerned citizen.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.