<Begin Segment 23>

TI: How about the Imai group, you mentioned them earlier. Did they ever reappear?

OK: No. They... once the serious discussion started, and the negotiations started with the NACJ, they just simply fell off the table. That once the government said, "We are negotiating with the NACJ, we think they are the legitimate representatives of the community," George and company simply faded into the background. And George had his own agenda. I think that he really thought that he would benefit individually if he could persuade the government to negotiate with him and get a minimal settlement, that he would be a hero to a lot of the people in the liberal party, and that's where his ties were. But he, he became a non-entity in the whole process, justifiably. I mean, his, some of the meetings I had with him were, he wasn't pleasant about his denunciation of others. And I think that you find that, and it's not unlike what's happening, for example, with the whole First World War situation and the lack of agreement in some communities about the whole issue of what should or shouldn't be done in terms of recognition, remembrance and that. There are a lot of people in the Ukrainian community, "That had nothing to do with me. Why are you bothering me with this? Why are you raising it? Why are you making us visible on this issue? We don't want to be visible on this issue, so go away." So those kinds of disagreements within communities... the Chinese Canadian community over the whole question of the head tax. I mean, strong, strong divisions within the community. A significant number who said, "We don't want this issue raised, there is no issue in terms of the head tax, go away." Others said, "The government had got to acknowledge this."

TI: Well, what's kind of interesting to me, in some ways, NACJ dodged the bullet. Because if they had settled earlier, for, say, the 75 million dollars before the United States had settled with Japanese Americans, they would have come under huge criticism for selling for less than what the Americans did.

OK: Yes and no.

TI: And there, again, the divisions of the community, how that would have all come out, versus the way it played out.

OK: They would have come under severe criticism from some elements of the community who saw anything less than individual compensation as unacceptable. There would have been a significant portion of the community that said, "We didn't get a bad deal. Yes, they got something in the U.S. that we didn't get," but then don't forget, there were the Henry Shimizus in the country who said, "Individual compensation isn't an essential in terms of redress." To them, the most important thing was acknowledgement and an apology, which they never got. They got the acknowledgement, but they didn't get the apology in the way they wanted it. They got the recognition in the House of Commons, which was an important symbolic thing that the government did. I think that certainly people like Roy and others would have been bitterly disappointed, bitterly disappointed at the settlement of a foundation and endowment than accept it and no individual compensation. And it wasn't, from the point of view of Roy and others, the getting the money, that wasn't the issue of getting the check, it was the recognition that this happened to individual people. And the only way you can fully acknowledge what happened is to compensate individuals. It happened to the community and that, there's an element to recognize the compensation to the community, but you had to recognize individuals suffered. And I'm thankful that it happened in the time, the timelines that it did happen. That I'm thankful they didn't accept the 75 million because it would have deeply hurt some people. Deeply hurt some people. Others would have been quite fine with it.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.