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Title: Helene J. Minehira Interview
Narrator: Helene J. Minehira
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda, Kelli Nakamura
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: March 2, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-mhelene-01-0023

<Begin Segment 23>

TI: I wanted to ask about the involvement of the JACL, the Japanese American Citizens League, in this effort.

HM: Oh, they were terrific.

TI: So describe what they did. What was their role?

HM: They, they worked bono, right? And we had Bill Kaneko with us. Oh, that guy, you could ask him the most stupid question, you know it's stupid, and he never showed in his face, never, never showed it. We could have asked the same question thousand times, thousand and one times, but Bill Kaneko never showed in his face. And he was such a young man yet. I used to say, "You have milk on the corner of your mouth," that's what Japanese say when you're young, "Oh, you still have milk on the corner of your mouth." That's a phrase the Japanese use. But Bill, he was different for a young man.

KN: So what kind of things did the JACL do besides answer questions?

HM: Japanese American Citizen League, yeah.

KN: So what other things did they do?

HM: They, they gave us a lot of backing. They helped us. That time we were so disappointed and yet Bill was there lifting us up all the time, so I cannot forget Bill Kaneko.

TI: Was this the Honolulu chapter JACL?

HM: Yeah.

TI: How about the national JACL, did they help out, too?

HM: I don't think, I don't know about that, but I know the local did. But they were young attorneys, they were working, and yet unselfishly they helped us.

TI: Did you ever get any resistance from within the Japanese American community, like people saying, people who weren't eligible for the money or anything but said, "Oh, Helene, don't do this. Don't do this"?

HM: "Oh, you want, you're doing it just because you want the twenty thousand dollars."

TI: Right, things like that. Did you get a lot of that?

HM: A lot of that.

TI: And what would you, how would you respond to them?

HM: At first I was very upset. I said, "You didn't go through what my parents went through." I didn't say, "what I went through," but what my parents... because I'm sure a lot of parents, they want to buy property and for the children and all that, but my parents were so advanced in thinking about that and they, their dreams were just slashed, so I, when I started to work on it I didn't think about collecting that. Honestly, I didn't. I wanted my parents to get it. But they were already gone.

KN: Are you telling this story because -- and maybe this is the resistance towards people who are asking to be, in a sense, reimbursed for what had happened -- because people don't know your story here in Hawaii?

HM: You mean the other people?

KN: Yeah.

HM: Well, the, I don't know about the outside, but what my, some of my friends said, "Oh, you only want the twenty thousand dollars." That's all they said. But they didn't know the real, why I was doing that.

KN: And you still feel that there's a stigma here that you pushed this through, even though it was rightfully deserved?

HM: I don't know what people are thinking these days, but I'm sure it's in the back of some people's mind, I'm sure. I'm sure about that. But that's okay what they think about. I did what I was supposed to do.

TI: You know, there's a question that on the mainland I ask about people receive their check, I said, so what did you do with the money, the twenty thousand dollars? What did you do?

HM: Oh, it's, before going there, one step. The group that worked with Mr. Nishioka and myself, we decided how much we're gonna give to the Japanese American Citizens League, so we gave all the members in our group a choice, ten percent, fifteen percent, none at all. So the first thing I did, I got, my husband said, "Yoku yatta," was very proud, and I was very proud that he said that because I gave him bad time. Days he didn't want to go out, "Come on, Bert, let's go." So he was a backer for me. So the first thing I did, I cashed the check. In fact, the following day I went to the bank, I cashed it. I made a check for a thousand dollars and I gave it to JACL. That's just a little small portion. They said, "We don't need it," so, but that's what we, our group decided that we're going to do, so I think a couple of us, I know I can say it that we did that. But that was a small, just a pin drop in a bucket.

TI: To show your appreciation for them?

HM: Yeah. I really, I, but if it wasn't for them and the help that was given I don't think we'd have been that successful. I don't think so.

TI: And then the rest of the money, what did you do?

HM: Okay, so guess what I did? My husband and I, we were lovers, we were good friends, we had a wonderful life. I said, "Bert, I'm gonna take you to Japan." "You sure?" I said, "Yeah, I'm taking you to Japan," so I took him to Japan.

KN: And where did you go? Did you go to meet family members or just for pleasure?

HM: Pleasure. Yeah, so that's what I did. I took him to Japan. So I was the boss when I went. [Laughs] But since he didn't squawk or anything, he was willing to help me out -- of course we got into squabble once in a while, but he helped me. He said, "Do it for Mom and Dad," so here again, he was thinking about my parents.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.