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GK: So you're talking about how NCJAR got involved in redress and the for redress, but how did the lawsuits start? Whose idea?

WH: Oh, the lawsuits started very easily. You know, we supported the first Lowry redress bill. We didn't think it would succeed, and it didn't. But I think it was very important for us to support it. It was important for Lowry to introduce it, for two reasons. First of all it showed that there were Japanese Americans who weren't interested in the Commission, they wanted redress. And the second thing was that it may have been the first time in Japanese American history that someone besides the Japanese American Citizen League was in Washington testifying. And I think that was very important, too. Because the thing I, one of the things I noticed and nobody, no one wants to talk too much about this. But I think it's very, very important for Japanese Americans. One of the by-products of the redress movement is there is a complete change in complexion in Washington. There's all kinds of different advocacy groups, there might be the Journalists Association, AA Journalists Association, they got this... I don't know the name of the organization, but they just got some coverage on anti-Asian crime, anti-Asian violence, national coverage on that. They were on the Lehrer Show. And you know, that's not JACL. And what's happening is that everybody is speaking for themselves -- various organizations and various interest groups. And that's much, much healthier than being controlled by a single organization. And a lot of the issues they get involved in are civil rights issues, very clearly. And one of the things that is interesting, I think, is the role of the JACL, nationally, is really declining on national issues. But I think it was important for other people to become involved. I think one of the problems that JACL has had is that they really haven't been able to nurture young leadership. I have a lot of Sansei friends and they all were in the JACL and then they left. Primarily with respect to the newspaper. And I think it's a tragedy that, you know, they can't relinquish their power to the younger generation. But I think it's very healthy, and I think that's one of the things that happened in the movement, just getting an alternative voice. Very important.

GK: Can you recall where the idea came from?

WH: Of the lawsuit?

GK: Yeah.

WH: Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't answer the question. I sort of got sidetracked.

GK: It was a good sidetrack.

WH: A lot of the things that happened were not that well-thought out in advance. And this was a situation where after the Commission had been established as law, July 30th or so, 1981, I think. No, 1980, excuse me, 1980. There was nothing to do. We couldn't introduce any more legislation because obviously we had to wait for the Commission. And so we says, "Well, why don't we try the courts?" And it was just like, "Well nothing to do, why don't we try the courts?" And Jack Herzig, who's here today, he says, "Well, I know an attorney that I can talk to about this and he might be able to point me to a law firm." Because in Washington, D.C., the problem in Washington, D.C. is finding a law firm. There's just too many of them. I call Washington, D.C. a city that is attorney-intensive, attorneys all over the place. And so he pointed us to Benjamin Zelenko, Benjamin Zelenko pointed us to his law firm. We went there for an interview and stated our case and talked to Michael Rauh. Rauh said, well, he'll let us know. He said, "There's a lot of problems here." And so we went back a couple of months later and he said, well, he'd be willing to work on this, but we'd have to pay in advance, $75,000. And he'd work on it for about a year, preparation, legal preparation. Because he says he always likes to be prepared before he goes into court. And then we were going to hire an attorney. That's where Ellen Carson comes in. And I told Ellen Carson about this and she just, she said, "I never knew this." We were going to hire an attorney to keep the costs down, so they were going to hire a young attorney. Well, you know, that's kind of an insult. I told her that, and she said, "Gee, I never heard that." [Laughs] It turns out she was a true gift, because she is really bright. Just take my word for it. She is very, very bright, very hard-working, does a huge amount of research, and she had tremendous education. I think she graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and magna cum laude or summa cum laude from University of Tennessee. She's very bright and a tremendous person. And she described her first day on the job was at this hearing in Washington, and I called it her the baptism of fire because all of these movers and shakers from the war period were there testifying. And oh god, it was really something to sit there and listen to these people your first day on the job. And it was just, oh, mind-boggling. But that's how the whole thing started, just sort of informally.

And then, you know, the $75,000 was a big hurdle, how were we going to raise it. And we decided that we would set ourselves a deadline, and set ourselves a goal, and we set the goal for, I think, March of '81. And we announced it in November, December of 1980 that we'd raise thirty, I think $30,000 by that date. If we didn't raise it then we would quit. And it would be all be pledges so we wouldn't have to give any money back. And we didn't quite make it by March, but we were almost there, just a few thousand dollars short. So everyone says, "Well, why don't you continue?" So we extended ourselves, gave ourselves a couple more months, and we made it in April. And signed our agreement with the lawsuit, retained them in early May, May 5, and that's when things began. The only bill we didn't pay on time was the first $75,000. We were about eight months late, but the law firm was about eight months, they were about eight months late in doing their research, so it came out even. And after that we paid every bill on time. And it was amazing because we just had a small group, but there were a lot of people who didn't, they either didn't trust the JACL or they didn't trust the Congress, and they preferred the legal route. And our whole philosophy was: we don't need to convince everybody, we don't need to raise a huge amount of money, we just need to convince enough people to keep going, to raise enough money to keep going.

And one of the things we did, which I think is maybe the first time it's ever been done, is that we never asked for money unless we needed it. If there was a specific thing involved we sent out a fund appeal. But if there wasn't, sometimes I think we went almost as long as a year without a fund appeal going out, because we had enough money. And that gave us credibility, because when we said we needed it, people knew that we needed it. And it turned out to be, fundraising was one of the most easiest things, the easiest thing to do. We said, "We need $10,000 for this." One of the big expenses of going to the Supreme Court, is the printing has to be done in a certain format, certain sized format, and you have to pay for... that isn't too bad because you can control that. But then we had this appendix, it was called the joint appendix, of documents relating to it. And both sides contributed to that, both sides paid for it. Well, that thing cost $10,000 to print. And maybe you only made a hundred copies of the thing. $10,000 bucks, you sit there and say, "Wow." So you know, we'd have to raise $10,000 for the joint appendix. And the firm would cost, charge us for all their fees. But I think we paid more for the printing than we did for the firm. The lawyers, it's crazy, you know. But I think that... and as the lawsuit progressed, I think people got more and more excited by it. But we never, we never ever misidentified the lawsuit. We always said it was high risk, and that the chances of getting your money back were zero, pretty close to zero. So the idea that the people were doing it for the money is just, that's just wrong. At least as far as the lawsuit was concerned it was wrong, because everybody knew it was high risk. But again, it was exciting when we did succeed. So that's important, you know, the various steps.

GK: And you worked closely with coram nobis cases, too, right?

WH: Yeah, see, the coram nobis thing was based on research and our lawsuit was based on research.

GK: Yeah.

WH: We had to do legal research, which is very, very involved and that was done by Ellen Carson. And the historical research was done by the Herzigs. And you know, you have to see the Herzig's master bedroom to believe. It's truly the Japanese American branch of the National Archives, there's no two ways about it. You know, if you get a chance, you know when I was talking about the computer, I think it will make some sense.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.