<Begin Segment 34>

MN: Let me go back to the Manzanar 1969 pilgrimage, and then you went to TV and you got a lot of coverage.

JM: Lot of coverage.

MN: And you got this feedback from Fred Hirasuna.

JM: Right.

MN: Is that from that?

JM: Uh-huh.

MN: What was, how did he react to this?

JM: Oh, he was livid. He kept writing articles to the Rafu Shimpo, and, of course, the Rafu Shimpo was printing all of Fred's stuff lambasting me. Said, "What does this young punk know about..." he didn't know I was a Nisei and that I had spent time in there, you know. "What are these Sanseis" -- so he's ripping into the Sanseis, essentially. And then we got in, the tri-district people, and I guess a lot of 'em didn't like Fred either. They just thought he was too big for his britches. They wanted him to, drag him down a peg. So they arranged a situation where I would be a speaker and Fred would be over there. [Laughs] That was like throwing a pit bull and... it was like a, it was going to be a dog fight. And sure enough, boy, we got into it up there. It wasn't over Fred initially, we were all in there, in this meeting. And all the older folks, Nisei, were there. I guess they were all backing Fred. And all the younger people were there, and they were all backing me, I guess. So anyway, some younger person made a statement about something she was doing, and made something, she made an error in terms of something about Japan. So at that time, the president of the JACL ripped all over her, jumped all over her. Oh, he was browbeating, it was awful. She was, like, what, eighteen, you know, she was kind of new to the thing. And so man, if this goes on too long... you know, it was uncalled for. I couldn't take it anymore, so I said, "I'm going to give these chumps their money's worth." And I jumped up there and I walked up to the, he's president-elect of JACL. I ripped that microphone away from him, I took it from his hands. And I said, "Look," I said, "You keep telling everybody that she doesn't know where she is, because she doesn't know what's happening and she's got all her facts wrong." I said, "Well, I don't think you know where in the hell you are, 'cause this is the Japanese American league. This ain't no plain old American meeting. 'Cause if that's where you want to go, you ought to go down a block over there to the American Legion. But this is a Japanese American meeting," you know. By that time, the room erupted because all the Nisei were, like, shouting, "Boo, get him out of there." They were just screaming at me. And on the other hand, all the young people were like [makes sound effect]. You know, pandemonium and chaos broke out. And I'm just thinking in my mind, "They wanted something, they got it." And then I see Fred Hirasuna. He's got this, he's sitting there right off to the side, and he's got this tape recorder. And I said, "Man, I might as well burn everything while I'm here." And I walk over to him, and I got the microphone and I said, "Look," I told everybody, "I'll tell you what's wrong," and everybody quieted down. "I'll tell you what's wrong with you people down here. What's wrong is this chump here." I said, "This sucker with a tape recorder, he's the, he's the problem over here. He doesn't do nothing but cause trouble, you know, and he ain't got the guts to speak up for himself. Look at him. He's cowering in the corner with a tape recorder." I said, "I have nothing more to do with you people." I tossed the microphone out and walked out. That place blew up. But I made a chump out of Hirasuna, anyways. [Laughs]

MN: I think, for the record, too, I don't think he was ever in camp.

JM: Is that right?

MN: I believe so.

JM: I don't know. Him and the Chinese playwright used to go at each other all the time.

MN: Frank Chin?

JM: Frank Chin. [Laughs]

MN: Now, the JACL person that invited you over, was he pretty upset about what you did?

JM: I just told him, I said, "Look..." and I wasn't about to apologize. I just said, "When you invited me up here," I said, "you knew that there was going to be an open conflict." I said, "You knew that. So I just gave you your money's worth, and I just want to know whether you got your money's worth." And he said, "We got our money's worth." I said, "Thank you. I'll see you, take it easy," and I left.

MN: What year was this?

JM: That was about a year or two after... that was about '71, '72.

MN: Now, were you a JACL member?

JM: Uh-huh. In fact, they even flew me up to Burlingame to take part in a ten-year planning committee. Oh, I was so disgusted. We sat for two, three days talking about the future of the JACL, you know. And I really put my effort into it. I took everything seriously. And later on, after about two days, it was like, "Well, okay, we finished, we're gonna leave, and we're gonna all, we're all gonna go into San Francisco. Come on, we'll take you with, come on along." They were in a frenzy to leave. This was the leadership, now. So we all go into J-town, and where do you think we go? Those sleazy bars with the old Mama-sans. My jaws just dropped. They were in such a hurry, they wrapped everything up to go over there to these dingy bars like in J-town, Nihonmachi bars with these old retreads. I said, "Oh, my god," I said, "I can't believe what I'm looking at." I was disgusted. He was, the director at the time, I forget now, his name was Sato?

MN: Masao Sato?

JM: Mas Sato. Decent man, and he was embarrassed. He says, "Look," he says, "if you'd rather be somewhere else, I'd be glad to drive you." I said, "Oh, no, I can take -- " I said, "I'd rather be somewhere else, and the sooner I can get out of here, the better. I don't want to kill anything, but this isn't my cup of tea." But I was just totally disgusted with the leaders. I said, "No wonder these people are the way they are. They're shameless." That guy that was, I rode, he drove me to the place, he was in such a hurry to go, he bumped another car, and I think he was insurance commissioner. You know, he's sort of like, "Hell, I got to get going." So I had a lot of respect for the young people in JACL, but these old-timers, just forget 'em. They had too many bad habits.

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.