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MA: And I wanted to kind of ask you, then, about how you got involved with the redress movement and your activism that you became so involved with later on.

LN: Yeah, really. It was when we, when we moved to L.A., that's right, when we moved to L.A. And I didn't start teaching in L.A. at all. Because there were so many teachers here, and there was so much fraction and so much politics.

MA: In the community?

LN: Yeah.

MA: Or in the, like, music community?

LN: In culture community, yeah. Music community. Oh, it was terrible. They were all like so competitive with each other, you know. So if you're gonna get started, you don't want to get started with any particular group, because I don't know what the dynamics are yet. So I was just feeling my way around, and then my son, who was already living in L.A., said, "Oh, forget that shamisen for a while." He said, "You know what? There's all these different movements going on here." Because there was the anti-redevelopment movement in Little Tokyo. And then he said, "The Japanese hotels are taking over, and they're gonna start evicting all the small businesses." He gave me the whole history and I thought, "Wow, you know a lot about it, huh?" And he goes, "Yeah. So I'm gonna tell you that before you do anything, I want you to join this group called LTPRO."

MA: The Little Tokyo People's Rights Organization.

LN: People's Rights Organization. [Laughs] So I said, "Oh, no, I know nothing about politics." I said, "I'm apolitical, and so I'm gonna feel very uncomfortable. I don't know what I can do to help." He said, "Don't worry about that. Sanseis are very, very supportive, and they need Niseis out there. Because Niseis are the ones that are getting evicted, they are the ones that are hurting. But the Niseis, they don't want to come out. They're hesitant about going out there and protesting and all that." So I said, "Yeah, I can understand that, because I don't feel very comfortable doing it either." He said, "Well, you will after you get used to it." He was so persistent, I tell you. And Bert was, my husband, Bert, was a lot better than I. Because he is... how would you say it? He's more outgoing, and he has, he's not shy at all. So he says, so Eric said, "Dad's going to be there, so you don't have to worry. Both of you can..." so Bert says, "Yeah, what are you worried about? Let's go." And that's how we got involved.

MA: And how did you first get involved? What is, like, something that you worked on your first time kind of being active? So you started with LTPRO, and what...

LN: Just shortly after LTPRO... LTPRO was into the housing, redevelopment, anti-redevelopment, all that. So we were into that. There was already some movement in the community around redress. And JACL had started a little bit. They were talking about, oh, yeah, we should really try and get the government to reimburse all the victims and this and that, this and that was going on. So we said... so let's see. We were in LTPRO then, but Alan Nishio, they said, "Oh, Alan, you go out there and start this new group, this coalition." We called it LACCRR. [Laughs] It was like Los Angeles Community Coalition of Redress and Reparations. Okay, so we started that. Alan was the leadership, and we went out there. Bert said, "Yeah, great, okay." So that was the offshoot of LTPRO, but we hardly had any connection with LTPRO after that because we were too busy with NCRR -- I mean not NRCC, LACCRR. There was so much to do.

MA: And what was, you said the JACL was starting something of its own. I mean, what was the relationship of your organization, because it was started for people who did not want to be involved with JACL, is that right?

LN: Kind of that way, yeah. As far as we were concerned, it was okay. But we said, "No, well, anyway, we're not part of JACL. We're independent, we want to become independent." So we were okay as far as not working with, I mean, not really getting too close to them, or even collaborating. Later on we did, though. But at first, it's kind of like push and pull. A lot of people would say, "If you guys are going to have anything to do with them, I'm not having any part of this group." It was so bad.

MA: I was going to say, because JACL probably wasn't the most open to everyone. I don't know if everyone would have been comfortable being part of JACL, even if they were for redress.

LN: I know. That's why it's a shame, because that's how it was in the beginning. JACL was very closed and very, what is that word? Sectarian or whatever. So we said, "That's okay, we're just going to do our thing," which was a lot to do.

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