<Begin Segment 27>

MN: Now, you also have an arrest record. Can you share with us what happened?

LW: [Laughs] Yeah, an arrest record, well, it really happened out of the, in San Francisco we had a, a strong group of anti martial law in the Philippines. It was an anti Marcos, during the anti-Marcos regime, and so I was related to that movement. It was my son who became involved with the anti-martial law group very intentionally, and he put a lot of effort and commitment to that, here in the San Francisco area and then later it broadened out to, across the, like a national organization. But what got him going in the anti-martial law group was he spent two, I think two months as an intern in a youth program of the World Council of Churches that supported youth to go to different countries to spend time, and so I asked him if he would be willing, interested in going to the Philippines on a two months' internship, as a student. He said, "Yes, I would be," so he and another person, colleague, Norman Fong of San Francisco, a Presbyterian minister, Presbyterian minister who was doing community work. The two of them spent time in the Philippines meeting with the people, specifically up in the mountains that were experiencing some of the repression and the problems with Ferdinand Marcos and his regime. So he came back really committed to the ending of the martial law, or getting rid of Marcos in the Philippines, so he and a group had decided to sit in at the Philippine consulate on a given day, on a certain morning. They had this all planned out. They had the committee of about six people, and they walked into my office, two of them walked into my office at Glide on that morning, and they said, "Well, would you be willing to go with us to a sit-in at the Philippine consulate? We had asked a Catholic minister to join us, but we don't know where he is. We can't find him. We need a clergyman to be with us." So I said, well, and I thought, well, all those times we talked about supporting each other, supportive of each other, during the Third World Strike I supported Steve, Steve and my family supported me, I need to be, put my feet where my, my mouth has been, so I said, "Okay, I'll go."

And so we went into the office and he got, they got in, we all got in because they were, two of them that led the way, they were asked, they had asked for visas to go to the Philippines. "We've come in to see if we can get visas to the Philippines." And that's how the entrance was made. As soon as we moved in we said, the leaders of that were Steve and Weldon Bello, said, "We're not going to leave until you call Ferdinand Marcos to lift martial law." Well, a ridiculous request. [Laughs] But they were, that was the thing that would, the reason why we would not leave, because that was the reason for our sit-in, so we did not move and eventually after half hour or so of stand off the consulate called in the, at that time they called it the TAC Squad, people who, police who were trained to take care of situations like this. So they carried us all out one by one and booked us at the county, city jail here. We were booked there, and after several hours there they released us on own recognizance. Because before they asked me, when I, they asked me about joining them they said, "If you join us you'll need to call some friend or relative who would vouch for you so you can, if they give it to us, get out on 'own recognizance,'" so I, when I said okay I called Marion, my wife, and told her what was going on and that, "You may get a call from the police department about OR, own recognizance." So after a couple of hours there we were able to go out, I mean, we were released.

But we were brought to trial about ten days later, maybe two weeks later in preparation for the trial, so we went through the one week trail and the charges were disrupting lawful, yeah, disrupting lawful business and resisting... no, what was it? I forget what, there were two charges, I already forgot. Anyway, so the sentencing took place several days later, which was prison terms for the, for all, and I said I will plead community service, and I told the rest of the group, the other six, "I can't go to jail with you guys." This is the busiest time at Glide Church. It was Christmas, just before the Christmas season, "and we've got so many community things going I've got to be there, so I'm gonna (plead 'community service.'") So they agreed to that, so they spent the time in jail. We got them, they were able to get out prior to the full sentence because of the community, Philippine community, anti-martial law community got together and put the pressure on the sheriff to let them out early. I think they served probably about four to five weeks. In addition to that they went on a hunger strike, the six of them. That got a lot of publicity.

MN: Did this experience make your bond with your son Steve stronger?

LW: Oh yes, I think so. I think he recognized that, that there were things that, well, and Steve has remained, actually, our whole family, I'm very proud of them, they are progressive. Steve went on to do some great things with the Philippine community nationally, and then he decided he's got to settle down and start a family. So he went to work in, as a, in the Post Office, started out from the bottom, gradually worked himself up, and then he decided to quit the Post Office. Because he was a UC graduate and working in the parts department, kind of a high level job in the Oakland Post Office, and they gave him a job of being the post, being in charge of the environmental, what do they call it, meeting all the environmental requirements, EPA requirements. But as a young man trying to tell these old guys that, "You got to shape up environmentally, do some of the things that are required in order for us to be environmentally, meet the requirements, you've got to shape up," but he found so much resistance he gave that up and became, got into public school teaching. [Laughs] So he's one of the, of our (four) children with whom I feel very close to because all of them have supported Marion, myself, and we've supported them in their very, what I would call progressive movements, progressive vocations or progressive, supportive of progressive movements.

MN: Now, when you met your wife, Marion, was she already progressive, or did she evolve as, after you got married?

LW: Well, I think all of us grew in our awareness and consciousness of issues. Yes, Marion, has really been very, very progressive, both in terms of her religious faith, her religious commitments, and also community and political commitments.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.