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BT: Well, would you explain a little bit more about the Goodman decision? When Abo v. Clark was the big class action, and then Goodman decided that case. And would you describe a little bit more about the meaning and the impact of that decision?

TN: Well, the impact of the decision was that Judge Goodman figured that it was the government that was to be blamed for everything that happened. And the government didn't provide proper protection to, in protecting the internees. So you figured that these people didn't know what they were doing, and they were duressed by the government, they didn't provide protection. So he set the whole thing aside and restored the citizenship to all the people in the class action suit.

BT: That was the Abo Nishio.

TN: Yeah, Abo Nishio. So, and then the one thing I realized when we went to Crystal City, I forgot his name, but he was a Department of Justice head. He said that when they came to accept them, Justice Department people came to accept the renunciation for people in Crystal City, he said he wouldn't let 'em in. He said, "These people don't know what they're doing." So none of the people in Crystal renounced at all.

TI: And that was the Department of Justice, I think you mentioned his name. So not Mr. Burling, but someone else?

TN: Yeah, Rosteen or something. No, no --

BT: It was the camp director.

TN: Camp director.

TI: Camp director, okay, very good.

TN: Getting old now, I can't remember all the names. He was a really nice fellow.

BT: So back to the Goodman decision, he basically returned everybody's citizenship.

TN: Oh, yeah.

BT: And so that was a tremendous victory.

TN: Oh, yeah, that was tremendous victory. So naturally, the northern California Civil Liberties Union was backing us up, so the southern California people figured they lost out on the civil liberties issue, previous civil liberties. Because Mr. Collins took the Korematsu case, remember? And he wanted to vindicate, take a revenge on the government on the Korematsu case. And I remember the other attorney for Endo -- Endo was... I don't know what's the Caucasian lawyer that was in [inaudible]. And Mr. Collins mentioned that the Korematsu case should have been, you know, should have been decided for Korematsu at that time. He took that case personally up to the Supreme Court.

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