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TI: In terms of, I wanted to ask some, just final questions, and one question is your, your feelings toward the U.S. government.

MY: U.S.?

TI: Government. After all that has happened to you, what are your feelings towards the U.S. government and how they do things?

MY: Well, probably I could best answer that question, after teaching this course, essentially I ended the course by saying in spite of all this I believe United States is the best government, best country to live in, so in a way that answers your question.

TI: But did your incarceration experience change your perspective of the U.S. government? Maybe that's a better question.

MY: No, I feel that the American government reacted in its own way, primarily hysteria, in terms of the treatment of the Japanese Americans, Japanese and Japanese American. It was a hysterical reaction of not knowing what to do, what the whole issue was about. And there was the troublemakers and warmongers of the Hearst Press, as represented by such as the Hearst Press, many of the Hollywood leading stars.

TI: And then my, my last question I have is, you were involved in the redress movement in the 1980s.

MY: Yes.

TI: Why was that important to you, that redress happen?

MY: Well, I became, I was anti JACL from pretty much the beginning of the, when Masaoka and others, in a way, dealt with their relationship with the U.S. government in what they felt was the best way for them, and they, I don't think, necessarily said, "We speak for the Japanese Americans," but I think everybody else said, "They're speaking for us." So because of their role, and I came under that impression that JACL was working for the government, giving names and addresses, which is, some of it was true, a lot of it was BS, until the JACL, I think for lack of better issues to hold onto, said it was gonna put this emphasis in this coming year, I think better conditions for Issei, and that was about ten years ago, I suppose, and I said, well, something finally I could go along with JACL. And so I started becoming a little bit more co-JACL to the point that I was one of the few leaders, along with John Tateishi and others, in creating the Golden Gate Chapter JACL. I think there were four of us, which was no dancing, no golf tournament, but issue oriented, and whenever there was an issue we would take action. No issue no meeting, so it was, the role of the president became somewhat important, to become alert as to some of the issues we could get involved in, and along with a few others I became the president for a while there. So that was the beginning of my being a little bit more involved with JACL.

So when the redress became an issue with the meeting in Salt Lake City, and then I think next one, is it San Francisco? Well, it became that we should do something about this whole area of, in quotes, "redress." There was no specific idea where to go. When it became little bit more congealed, by the government, when they had those hearings, I became a little involved in trying to encourage certain people to go and talk, address themselves at the meeting in San Francisco. And then when the redress became a local issue also, we got to do something at the local level, and I knew John by then to the point that I was supposed to be a, I signed up to be a speaker at the San Francisco meeting of that group, and I said to John, "You're not speaking, I noticed." Said, "Well, I used my space." Well, use my space. So we were like this, John and I knew what each other were doing. And then John became more involved with redress and I knew him quite well then, when he was the faculty at City College, English teacher, to the point that he was neglecting his studies. And John and I talked about this. "John, you've got to do something. You can't continue this being absent from your class and not doing your job over there." So he felt, and he decided what he did, and then out of that, when the redress issue came he asked me whether I would be the area chair and the district chair. Area was the nine area counties, so I became the chair of the, getting the JACL of the nine Bay Area counties more involved in redress. And I was also chair of the northern California and western Nevada. I wasn't too involved with that group. JACL didn't have the money, and I didn't have the money or the time to go to Alaska, Hawaii, and such, but I was locally involved, and to the point that I made essentially a pact with Ruthie, my wife, said, "Give me six months to get involved in this issue of redress. In six months I'll give it all up, success or not." And Ruthie said, "Fine, I think it's important issue for you," and so that's how I became very involved. I was seldom home evening time with the kids and such, but Ruthie did not make an issue about that, knowing where I was. And so that's how I became involved.

TI: And during this time with redress, did the issue of you being a "no-no" and a renunciant ever come into play? Did that ever come up?

MY: Never became an issue with anybody, even including some of the diehard anti "no-nos."

TI: Yeah, I was curious, because the JACL didn't always look favorably on "no-nos" or renunciants, and so I was curious.

MY: True. But my point is they didn't know what the hell, being against "no-no" because they didn't know what "no-no" was all about.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.