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GK: Well, how would you kind of assess personally the role of NCJAR? Just not... Sort of how, how do you feel about it? How do you feel about the accomplishments?

WH: Well, I think we did a great job. I think most of the people that were on the board feel very positive about it. And one of the things that we did, which I think is unique, too, was we... there was a lot of things being published, so we tried to invite the authors to Chicago and hold a meeting, sort of book party, you know, type of thing. But have them talk and stuff like that about why they did things. We invited Peter Irons and, well, various people who wrote books. Sometimes were couldn't hold public meetings because it was just too... like we had John Toland and we just invited him to a dinner, potluck dinner at someone's house. He was great. He had just published a book. So, you know, he came by and he talk to us. And he was one person who really believed in the courts versus the Congress. But he came in as a strong supporter of ours. We sort of mixed the literary stuff that was going on with the movement, too. And I think that was important. Because it was sort of related to all this business of, you know, what I said about people talking about their own experiences and stuff like that.

Because we, you know, one of the things that happened in the, in the redress movement, which people don't mention very often, was we began to, there was really a quantum improvement in understanding what had happened during the war. And that was a result of research, and primarily our research. Because nobody else, you didn't have to research for the legislative side. Congress doesn't do any research at all. The kind, the kind of research they do is they look at the hearings that they've conducted and that's it. But that's not, I wouldn't considered that good research because it's too selective. People present things that they... you want to do research, you got to go to the National Archives, and that's what we did. And I think the Herzigs did a... well, I keep telling people, it's worth a few PhDs what they've done when it comes to research. [Laughs]

I think overall... and the other thing is that we've made, we've made tremendous friends amongst ourselves. You know, people like Peter Irons, Ellen Carson, Herzigs and Chizu Omori, and people all over the place. And in New York, we got a lot of support in New York. I don't know why, but I guess it's because Michi Weglyn was behind us and other people were behind us. And in a way, in a curious sort of way, it seemed to sort of almost bring the community out, and to take a look at each other, because there weren't that many things that were going on in New York. New York, you know, New Yorkers pretty much stick to themselves. And I know in some instances I've asked people about a Nisei artist who was in New York, nobody knows him. Finally he moved out here. But I asked my brother, no one's never heard of him. That's New York, but here, this sort of brings everyone out and brings them together, these events. And that was, it wasn't just NCJAR, but that was... the redress thing was very good in New York in that sense and probably a little less so in Chicago. Maybe, I don't know about other places, but these various events brought people together and newspaper, so forth, helped. I think that was very important.

GK: Can you think of anything else that you might want to add to the whole thing? We're pretty much out of time.

WH: No, I really can't. I appreciate your interest and time.

TI: Yeah, we'll stop now, but thanks very much.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.