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TI: Well, let's keep moving, because there's more stories I want to make sure we get to. So the summer you're about twenty-five years old was a very pivotal sort of time period for you to, to work in New York as a social worker, in East Harlem, exposed to all these different ideas, Norman Thomas in particular. At this point, you go back to Nebraska?

JI: Yeah, I went back to Nebraska and continued my work. And then, and then I resigned the following spring, summer, after term was over, I resigned to go back to New York. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I thought New York is a vital place. And maybe I was... 'cause I don't know whether you knew Joe Oyama or not, but he was kind of a radical Japanese in L.A., and he had come back from New York and said, "New York is a wonderful place." And he was so ecstatic about it I thought, "Well, I'll go..." and I had found it a very exciting place in '44, so I went back in '45 to work there. And I got a job with the Post War World Council, which was headed by Norman Thomas. And it was such a privilege working for him. He had a very characteristic script that was hard to read, but once you got it, it was so consistent you could read it very easily. And so I was, my work was mostly typing up his scripts. And besides that, he got me jobs, other job working, editing for Workers Defense League, radical publications. And just, just have conversations -- he never treated me like an underling, nor did he treat anybody else in the office like an underling, we were equals. And he would, would... oh, let's see. When Syngman Rhee became president of Korea, he asked me about it and what I thought. I says, "I know very little about Korean politics, but Syngman Rhee strikes me as kind of a fascist." And he says, "I think so, too." [Laughs] And then when, when peace, when the atom bomb was dropped, he was so angry. And just a week later or so, when John Hersey wrote that monumental copy of New Yorker, which was entirely devoted to Hiroshima, he got a copy and gave it to me. And so he was aware of everything that was going on.

I was telling you about how quick he is on his feet. One time -- we lived on the, we were, our office was on the nineteenth floor of a building, and one time a window washer came and knocked on the window. So I opened it and he says, "Is this where Norman Thomas works?" And I said, "Yeah." And says, "Would you like to come in and meet him?" He said, "Yeah, can I?" So he climbed in and I took him in to Norman's office and I said, "Norman, this is our window washer, and he'd like to meet you." And Norman was a big guy and had a big voice, and he says, "Indeed, I'm glad to meet you," and he came up and shook, put his big paw out to shake hands with this guy. This guy just absolutely awestruck, and he says, "I've heard a great deal about you, and I've always wanted to meet you, but I must say, I've never voted for you." And Norman threw back his head and laughed, had a big, booming laugh. And says, "Indeed, and a great many good men have never voted for me." [Laughs] Just like that.

TI: Earlier, you mentioned Joe Oyama talking about things happening in New York. Did you meet with other Niseis in New York during this time period?

JI: Yes, mostly through my brother. But there was, George Yuzawa was a guy we knew as children, and as a matter of fact, I was telling you I was always flipping off. And one time -- he played for a basketball team called Spartans, and one time I wrote an editorial about how dirty Spartans played. They were going to come down and beat me up. And Yuzie was a Spartan, he wouldn't let them. [Laughs] But anyway, he was running a flower shop in New York, so met him a couple times.

TI: But during this time, maybe it was more, a little bit more after the war, there was kind of this group of Japanese Americans who politically, and I think in the art circle also, they were pretty progressive. And I was just curious if you...

JI: Yeah, well, the Oyama, the whole family, Molly Oyama, Mary Oyama, we called her Molly, they were all fledgling writers who wanted to write. But Joe was running a fruit stand up by Columbia University, and I would see him now and then. But he, he had, from being unsuccessful in wanting to write, I think it kind of depressed him, and he was quite different from when I knew him in L.A. Other than that...

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.