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MN: How did you get involved with the National Council for Japanese American Redress, and how did you meet William Hohri?

CO: Well, I was active in the redress thing that was going on in Seattle, which they called a coalition. And I have to hand it to Cherry Kinoshita and the people in Seattle who were getting into this, that they started out in a very inclusive manner in which they wanted to involve the Aleuts, all of them, and all kinds of groups, church groups and everybody. So I was doing work there, one of them recruited me, one of the JACL people there recruited me into it. And I thought, "Oh, this is not the JACL, they're being, involving a lot of everybody." And so I got active in that, and at one point, volunteers were asked for to be named plaintiffs in this lawsuit. Nobody would volunteer, you know, we never want to put ourselves forward or anything. Nobody does. So finally, Cherry, she said, "Will you?" And I said, "Well, what does it mean?" And she says, "Well, your name is just representing, that's all. It doesn't mean that you're, tying you down to a lot of work or anything." "Does it mean a lot of travel and everything?" and she said, "No." So I said, "Well, okay, put my name on there," like it was just going to be a name. And Teresa... what was her last name? I can't remember. Anyway, a few of us, they chose us as a group because we didn't say no or object strenuously. So it was just accidental, just accidental. But then, that's a well-organized group, you know, and they were putting out newsletters and meetings, they had meetings on various things. And so I started getting really interested in what they were doing. And I don't know. I must have been asked to write something or something, but William and I struck up a correspondence. We did it pretty much by just letters, that's how we got to know each other, really. And he said, I mean, he was very nice and he says, "She knows how to think," he said about me. So I felt like, wow, that's nice. [Laughs] But that more than many of the others.

MN: Well, that's quite a compliment from William Hohri.

CO: Yeah, it was. So I met Aiko and Jack and Michi Weglyn and all these people within the context of the lawsuit, pretty much.

MN: Did you travel to Washington, D.C. when they had hearings at the Appeals Court?

CO: Not Appeals Court. I went to the one at the Supreme Court. But they sent out newsletters informing everybody. I mean, once a month, a very good newsletter came out from that group, and then I would get these briefs and things, printed out things from the lawyers running the lawsuit. And William and that young lady...

MN: Helen Carson?

CO: Godbey-Carson, yeah. They came out to Seattle at one time and we had a group gathering and they were explaining everything about what was going on. So there was a lot of information being exchanged all the time. So I got more and more interested in it. And then the Seattle chapter was very active in redress, so we met pretty often and we put out our own newsletter. So there was just a lot of activity going on. We would do things like, in Seattle, write our congressmen and have meetings with our congressmen and stuff like that so, I mean, writing was kind of easy for me. So I would just dash off all these letters and do that kind of thing with the Seattle committee.

MN: Now, were you doing this with the thought that, "Well, I'm doing this but we may not win"? but did you do it with the thought that, "Maybe we have a chance to win"?

CO: No. I never thought we would win. [Laughs] No. I mean, we had so much opposition within our own community, that oh my god... so I looked upon it as an educational project and it turned out to be a very educational project of myself more than anybody else. But I mean, for the outside group because for instance, when they had those hearings, and ours was very well-organized. They had mock hearings and all that, so we all went though the mock hearings. I volunteered to take testimony for especially Issei who didn't have the language. So I did go around and write down testimony for a bunch of people. And like I say, we met once a month, very regularly, and we would have fundraisers. We were having candlelit ceremonies on February 19th. So there was a lot going on, so that was my... I was working at the time, but that was my outside activity, redress or whatever it was called at the time. The redress people would come out, too. Bob...

MN: Bratt?

CO: Bob Bratt used to come out, yeah. I had quite a nice chat with him. And you know, somebody told me that the JACL people were giving Bob Bratt a hard time in D.C. So I wrote him a personal letter and I said, "They do not represent all of us. In fact, they don't represent very many of us, so do not be discouraged by that group of people." And I got back a nice letter from him saying, "Oh, I needed that. That was good to hear, thanks." So you know, I did not hesitate to voice my opinions from time to time. [Laughs] But anyway, so William and I became like pen pals. I have a whole bunch of his old letters and one of these days I'll look at 'em. Like I'd been writing for Hisaye for over fifty years, too, I have some of those old letters, too. But anyway, so we did go to the Supreme Court hearings. All of the named plaintiffs who could go, they paid our way to go and all that. So our chapter, the Seattle chapter, paid my way to go there, and they provided the room and all that there in D.C. So it was good 'cause I was pretty broke at that time, so I was glad that they helped out.

MN: Now, didn't the Seattle JACL chapter sort of break away from national over all this redress issue?

CO: Well, that was earlier on, yeah. They were ready to break off from the JACL, right. You know, like Henry Miyatake and Shosuke and those guys were active at that time, and they were really mad at getting the runaround from the national and all that, yeah. And there were enough backers in Seattle that they would have broken away. I don't know why they didn't, but they didn't.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.