<Begin Segment 21>

TI: So, so I'm thinking in 1988, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was signed by President Reagan.

HM: Right.

TI: Which offered an apology and twenty thousand dollars per person, and it was to pay redress to those individuals who were affected by Executive Order 9066.

HM: Oh, I hated the, still today I don't like Executive 9066. I hate it.

TI: And so the money would start coming out in 1990, 1991, first payments, and I think about this time there was some activity in Hawaii to start addressing some of the issues that, that affected you and others.

HM: Right.

TI: So can you talk about that, how that got started?

HM: The first meeting was held, the Japanese, you know where the Japanese Cultural Center is? The building that used to be called Pango, Pango, they used to have dances. I used to go there dancing every weekend. And we went there and found out, so talked about it, so right away Mr. Nishioka, Charlie Nishioka, he was a, he raised chickens down the street -- I couldn't see him, I didn't know he was my neighbor until that day -- he said, "Okay, let's work together." Then Bill Kaneko, who was in, helped us out, the Puuloa group, he said, "In order to advance you're gonna have to work as a group," so he gave us a good, so we got together and Mr. Nishioka had a service station in Waipahu. He said, "You can use my office." So we decided that we're going to charge every family twenty-five dollars, for stamps, correspondence and whatever we needed, so some families didn't want to. They wanted to get onto the wagon but not paying the twenty-five dollars. Well, that's okay, so we decided to, Mr. Nishioka was really nice about that, so everybody, so we started to go and, gee, I can't think of her name now... isn't that something? I can't think of the woman who helped, isn't that terrible? She's on the tip of my tongue. (Narr. note: It was Mrs. Ruth Yamaguchi.) Well, she and I both worked on it, and we dug out, we went to university and we sat at Hemingway and the... we went to university, we sat there until we were really freezing to find what it, but we found out that some of the materials, even at that time, were still frozen. We couldn't get it.

TI: And what information were you looking for? What were you researching?

HM: Anything we could find to help us, why we were thrown out, who lived in the properties, so we went to Bureau of Conveyance. I was very fortunate. My cousin was working there, so she said, "What do you need?" and she'd jot it down, so I didn't have to wait. So we got map of Puuloa, who lived there, she gave us all that. Of course, we had to pay a little money for that, so we went to Bureau of Conveyance, went to archives, we went everywhere to find information, then we heard rumors -- my husband was really nice, he was my chauffeur -- went to hear the story, thinking it's, be connected to us. So whatever we did we went crazy. We went all over to find whatever materials we can get, and it really paid off.

TI: And so all this information came back to that office at the service station, you would organize it, and then what would you do with all this information?

HM: And then we had to send it to Washington, D.C., so what we did is we made photostat copy for most of the families, because we were fortunate to get, so those days making, Mr. Nishioka just volunteered, so we photostat copied and everybody sent the same information, the people that belonged to our group, so there were no two different stories.

KN: So how many families total?

HM: There were about twenty-five or so, I think. I forgot the number, but there were quite a few.

KN: So these were all former residents that all sent the same --

HM: Lived in Puuloa.

KN: -- materials in their petitions to D.C.?

HM: Right, uh-huh. So we, you'd be surprised the stories we got between them, all that.

TI: And then what happened? So you sent this all out, all the families sent their petitions there, then what happened?

HM: Then we got denied. Then we got denied. They said there's someone living in that property.

TI: I'm sorry, say it again. They said someone's living there?

HM: Yeah. What, what do you call someone that keeps bees?

KN: A beekeeper?

HM: Yeah. He was white man, of course, so he stayed there. Okay, now we were denied. Now someone told Mr. Nishioka that, Mr. Nishioka's a businessman, so probably, when he must've mentioned to somebody the story must've come out. I don't know how we found, his name was Mr. Hennigan. He lived, he was... so Mr. Nishioka, being a businessman, he said, "Let's go to the post office and find out," because those days everybody had P.O. Box number, no mail delivery. So we all went to Ewa plantation and Mr. Ching was the postmaster. Said, "Yeah, he comes for mail all the time." Ah, he was there during the war days. So we got back into the bandwagon.

TI: So let me make sure I understand this, so the ORA, the Office of Redress Administration, denied your petitions, and the reason they denied it was --

HM: Mr. Hennigan was at the, was still there.

TI: But then he was, he was not Japanese, so wouldn't that, wouldn't that help your case because it was really only the Japanese had to leave and Mr. Hennigan, who was white, was allowed to stay there?

HM: Right.

TI: So that's what you were trying to establish, that he was allowed to stay there?

HM: Uh-huh. So Mr. Nishioka, being a smart man, he said, "Ah, let's go to the post office."

TI: Okay, I understand, so you want to track him down and find him. Okay, so then, so did you find Mr. Hennigan?

HM: Yes, I went to university and found his article at the university. I have it with me. But so that's when we went back to the... Then we had to do the whole ritual again, but we already had the papers with us, so we sent it back and so that's when we got back to the bandwagon.

TI: So you resubmitted your petition establishing that Mr. Hennigan was allowed to stay but the Japanese had to leave, submitted that to the ORA again. And then what happened?

HM: Then I think it took about two years, if I'm not mistaken, to... well, in the meantime there were quite a few correspondence and they sent us the same old questions. So I wrote on the paper one time, "You threw me out. You have my, why do you need?" I was getting nasty by that time, so my husband said, "Watch it, you're gonna get thrown in jail. They're gonna throw the key away." [Laughs] But that's what they did to us. I cannot understand that they would do things like that, the government, knowing that we had nothing to do with it.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.