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TI: So you have these two approaches sort of in progress. You have the Collins group and then the Wirin group. So what happens next? I mean, what...

TN: Well, finally, the appellate court said we would have to go through administrative hearing to decide every one of these cases. So the task was big, really big. That took us around five to ten years. So we prepared an affidavit for every, each one, and presented it to the Justice Department, and they would review it. And if they rejected it, we'd get the affidavit back, so we filed it again and reword the amount. Then, in the end, they agreed to restore their citizenship, so we get our judgment from the courts. So we did that for five, six years.

TI: So you're talking, again, thousands of cases over five years. How, how was the team supported? I mean, how were you compensated during this time?

TN: Well, only thing is, I asked, we increased our pledges from a hundred dollars to three hundred dollars for people in this country. And people went to Japan, we asked them five hundred dollars, 'cause it would take us more effort, you know. Because postage alone was a lot of money in those days. The whole program was financed by only about two thousand, two thousand or three thousand people that paid in three hundred dollars. We raised around seven or eight hundred thousand dollars.

TI: And what would happen to those who could not afford?

TN: We joined them anyway. [Laughs]

TI: So you would help everyone. Even if they couldn't afford it, you would do this.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.