<Begin Segment 36>

MN: I'm gonna skip, okay? Let's go to the 1980s. You testified before the CWRIC commission. Okay. How did that come about that you would go before the Commission?

CH: Yeah. They pick me because I talk a lot. The Long Beach State University, Long Beach University, Northridge State University, UCLA, and SC, the four college guys, they came to our meeting, one meeting, because somebody got to represent Terminal Island and say something against the government. So they pick me. So, "What are you going to do?" You know what they tell me? "We're gonna write everything for you, everything what you should say," they told me. But I told those guys, "You guys are Sanseis. You don't, you guys don't know what the hell is going on. You get all the goddamn words from somebody tell you this, and from book, everything. I talk from my own mind," I told those guys. So, you know, I don't want this. But take it anyway. So when that thing started, I had a couple sheets. That thing, no sense, so I threw it away. I didn't go according to what they tell me. But I told everything, this and that and everything. [Claps] Da-da-da. Okay. The main point came to, the Hayakawa. Hayakawa didn't like Nisei to collect, at that time, twenty-five thousand. Twenty-five thousand, Hayakawa, okay. So what I told that guy, that board from Washington, D.C., I told the guy, "Hayakawa, he's rich. He don't need no twenty-five thousand dollar. And besides that, he's a Canadian citizen, so what the hell he got to say about us guys getting twenty-five thousand?" But besides, the point I'm trying to make is, I told 'em, the thing, okay. You put twenty-five thousand, and Japanese people, they got lot of pride. You put twenty-five thousand, this pride kind of thing. P-R-I-D-E. The word or the twenty-five thousand? Hey, where you gonna take everybody? Not everyone gonna take the twenty-five thousand dollars instead of the word, that's what I told 'em. Then I told 'em about Evelyn Baker. Was it...

MN: Lillian.

TI: Lillian.

CH: Oh, yeah, Lillian Baker. Good thing she wasn't there. I talked bad about that guy, you know. She said Japanese people in Terminal Island, they had torpedo and they know all the fishing ground and everything, that Japan fleet come in, they're gonna guide you here and there and everything, no good. Besides, what do you call, Japanese navy, they didn't want to come. So I told him, "Hey, you know Baker-Faker?" I tell 'em "Baker-Faker." "Baker-Faker, you think I'm gonna get that flag up there? We ain't got no radio, no speaker or nothing. Flag and wave this, come this way and come that way and how deep the water is? And you think all the fishing boat carry torpedo? In the first place, were are we gonna get the torpedo, and how're we gonna launch the damn thing?" I told Baker-Faker, "You know what? Hey, you're the only person that antagonized Japanese people in Gardena or Southern Cal. You know why? You don't want Japanese to take over Gardena, that's why you're jealous. Besides, somebody must have got killed in that Japan, that war, World War Second. That's why maybe you're talking like this." After that, it was all over. So that's why Warren Furutani, he called me to say more. But I didn't say no more. Well, I just say anything I feel like saying.

MN: After you testified, did you get hate mail?

CH: Yeah. "From Freedom Road," it said. Something like that, "From Freedom Road." I opened the letter: "Why don't you go back to your own country?" You know, I got letter. I was going to take it to Rafu Shimpo, take it to Hirohata...

MN: Hirahara.

CH: Hirahara.

MN: Naomi.

CH: Yeah, yeah. I was gonna tell 'em about that but I didn't do it. I got a couple of 'em. But you know, some people offer me a job because I testified against it.

<End Segment 36> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.