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MA: I wanted to ask you about redress and your thoughts about, I guess, the historical legacy of redress and the importance of redress not only for Japanese Americans, but for other groups, and what your thoughts are about that.

IK: Yeah, unfortunately, and maybe it's true in other countries, but I don't know what happens in other countries so much. But it seems to be that in the United States, people don't sit up and pay attention if there isn't money attached, right? That's why I think there are so many lawsuits, because people go, "Whoa, that's a lot of money." People pay attention and notice when there's money attached. Now, $20,000 wasn't a whole lot, but I think for the average person, that sounds like a lot, because they don't really understand what it represented. Meaning it should have been a lot more. And I think what's his name, William Hohri, he was in Chicago at the time, when he was with NCJAR. And he was asking for, was it $100,000? $50,000, huge amount. And so, and I do know that Aiko mentioned, probably, to you, to that the redress was not enough to matter to the powers that be, to those who are in seats of power, to legislate change, to observe human and civil rights. And so in terms of the effectiveness, I'm pretty sure that there are many people who are in the knowledgeable group, the ramifications of everything. They probably would say, "Okay, it was good. There was compensation, but yet, it's not enough yet." But then we have a huge community, the population, who are not in that line of thinking or of knowledge. 'Cause I've learned a lot, really, about this redress thing, just in the last year. It's like, whoa, I never thought of that. And so I'm thinking that the average person would probably say, "Oh, yeah, that $20,000 was really good. I got a car," or, "it went to my college education." Because most of the times, I think the grandparents did give it to their kids and grandkids. And I don't know if they really appreciated what that represented, which is a shame, too. But I think that, I think our government really doesn't take it seriously, because with the Japanese Latin Americans, I mean, they kidnapped them and finally offered them $5,000.

MA: But after a long struggle.

IK: Yeah, right. Long, long time. But that $5,000 is like saying, okay, here's some pocket change, right? So was there a lesson learned? I don't really know. I think it's good that the different groups, NCRR from the L.A. area, they really worked hard. And so what I don't want to insinuate is that their efforts were... because their efforts were really, really important. But if the question is about what did the redress mean, in terms of what I've heard from different people in the last year, for the JAs who received it, for the JAs who fought for it, it has meaning. For the people who decided $20,000 is enough, I don't know if this is where their work in the long run mattered to these guys over here.

MA: Well, is there anything else you'd like to share? Final thoughts or anything at all?

IK: No, I don't think so. [Laughs]

MA: Okay. Well, this was just a wonderful interview, so thank you.

IK: Thank you very much.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.