Densho Digital Archive - Bob Santos Interview II (denshovh-sbob

<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So, Bob, we're gonna get going again, and we just finished up with how Roberto was occupying Beacon Hill School and Bernie was doing Fort Lawton.

BS: Yeah. Fort Lawton.

TI: And we were just gonna start now transitioning, talking more about the Asian American movement, things happening, so let's pick it up there.

BS: And as I mentioned, John Eng and Larry Matsuda and some of these other guys were, had talked about the occupation of Beacon Hill School prior to the, to the Latino occupation, but it was still a movement of Asians, Phil Hayasaka, Lois Fleming, who married Phil later on, a couple of young Filipinos started up Filipino Americans for Equality. Joan Kis and Tony Oglivie and those folks, they started talking about more, they wanted to be more included in some of the issues going on at the schools. They wanted ethnic studies, Asian studies, and they were forming groups there. And the Asian Coalition for Equality was starting up then with, as I say, John Eng and those folks, Dave Okimoto, Joe Okimoto. And there was an issue that came about when Senator Jackson during his campaign wanted to have his kickoff at the Everett Elks Club, and the Elks Club was an exclusionary club. Only white males could join the Elks Club. And the conversation started that, well, they're, they can't be an exclusive club. If they apply for an H license through the state and if they're granted an H license, then we have, we should be able to join the club or at least take advantage of the services at the club because it's actually, they're opening it up to public, using public services to serve their members, the Class H licensing which licenses liquor. So I don't know exactly how it, how it was organized, but a group of Asians led by a lot of Niseis, Phil Hayasaka, Reverend Katagiri, and they worked with Tony Oglivie and the Filipino Americans for Equality and we picketed the Elks Club because of their exclusionary practices.

TI: And this is right during his kickoff event or reelection?

BS: This was during his kickoff event, and it was one of the very first times I remember that an Asian group was out in public picketing or involved in a demonstration against a private white club. And that picked up quite a bit of publicity, particularly in the Asian community because finally the Asians were involved in a movement. Well, we were saying all along the Filipinos were involved in the movement at the, during the United Farm Workers boycott, walkout of the fields of California in the mid '60s. It was the Filipino farm workers who first walked out of the fields before Cesar Chavez, and when they walked out Cesar Chavez joined them and they formed the United Farm Workers association. So Asians were involved very early on. Indian fishing rights, we're telling the other, blacks and Latinos, "We've been involved for many years, even before now, but we're really joining forces with you." Seattle was --

TI: And prior to that, I'm curious, was there, what's the right word, a push from the black or the Latino community to the Asians, like, "Hey guys, you guys have to get more in the game. I mean, we're out there doing things. Where are you?" Was there any of that talk going on?

BS: That might've been internally, but this is, we're talking about the same era, the Black Panthers, the United Construction Workers meeting at St. Peter Claver Center, the Oriental, ACE, Asian Coalition for Equality were meeting there, and the Asian activists were joining the Latino activists, the Asian activists were joining Tyree Scott. Michael Woo, Doug Chin, I forgot his name, Steve Locke, Steve Louie, they were, they were also going out on the marches that Tyree Scott was organizing for the construction workers, so the Asians started to get involved in that movement, and then the Asians started to show up at Fort Lawton when Bernie was occupying that fort. And so you saw a lot of the Asian activists starting to support other ethnic demonstrations, other movements. So Seattle was very unique in that happening, 'cause much of the meetings were at St. Peter Claver Center, so if you had the Asian Coalition for Equality meeting and then you had United Construction people meeting and then they joined forces for various events, demonstrations, rallies, and so it became a multiracial movement. It's never happened before anywhere else in the nation.

TI: And it sounds like it's because of the place. I mean, having everyone meeting at the same place, there could be that, that cross, that collaboration.

BS: Yeah. We were sharing each other's knowledge. And it's as if people didn't want to miss out on hitting the streets, and when, when Roberto occupied Beacon Hill, Beacon Hill School, all the other minority groups were following him and helping him occupy that building. They had it to one winner. And we always joked to El Centro people, we said if the Asians occupy a building it would be in the springtime, not in the dead of winter when there's no heat, and then we'd get a big laugh about that. But demonstrations that were happening, Tyree Scott at Seattle Central Community College, eighty people, hundred people, two hundred people, and it was a multiethnic, it wasn't just blacks. It was the war movement, white hippies, it was the Asians, the Indians, the Latinos, and then when -- that's at Seattle Central Community College and the construction industry demonstrations -- and then when we moved to the Native Americans, Fort Lawton, the whole, the two hundred people would go up to Fort Lawton, two hundred people would go to...

TI: Beacon Hill?

BS: Beacon Hill School, and those two hundred people would come down to the ID when I called for help. So the media was saying, god, we've got thousands of people out there demonstrating; it was the same two hundred people, really. The core group was all these groups supporting each other. So Larry Gossett was now head of CAMP, and this is when we start the Gang of Four cooperation.

TI: And before we go there, I just wanted to finish up this story, the Everett Elks Club, and you had that demonstration, the picketing. What, whatever happened? What happened?

BS: That, that was the first demonstration, locally, against an all white men's club, and that sort of spurred a movement called the Coalition Against Discrimination, Coalition Against Discrimination. So that first group that went to the Elks Club, they formed this Coalition Against Discrimination, and it brought in the American Jewish Committee. It brought in all the, the Oriental Student Union, the Asian Coalition for Equality, Filipino Coalition for Equality, and a lot of fringe groups, and they formed this group to fight the discriminatory practices of all these private clubs, including the Washington Athletic Club, the Rainier Club, the Elks, the Eagles, the Moose. And so this became a citywide movement that one demonstration led to this, and it forced, eventually forced the clubs to open up.