<Begin Segment 22>

MN: Okay, let's start talking about NCJAR. When talks of redress first started to surface on a national level, what did you think about that?

YH: I don't know. I don't think I had any thoughts about that.

MN: Did you think it was something that was possible?

YH: Well, I really didn't think very deeply about that.

MN: What did you think when William started to get involved with the Seattle JACL in trying to get redress?

YH: I thought it was okay.

MN: But you had no feelings here or there, okay. Now how did you and William decide to start the National Council for Japanese American Redress?

YH: I think it was William's decision.

MN: How did you get a board together and get all that organized?

YH: Gee, I don't remember. I think, oh, I think it was Nelson Kitsuse. He wanted to, he was the one who was pushing William for redress and he wanted to get people involved in redress, so that's why he was pushing William to get a board together.

MN: So Nelson Kitsuse, who were the other core people in NCJAR?

YH: It was Nelson and Taka Kitsuse, Bob and Yaeye Imon, Sam and Harue Ozaki, William and Yuriko Hohri, Sam Outlaw, Eddie and Doris Sato, (and Winnifred McGill).

MN: Can you share a little bit about Sam Outlaw?

YH: Sam Outlaw was a black person, and he and (Winnifred McGill) lived in a house with other people, and they shared all their meals. And he was an anti-Apartheid person, (Sam and Winnifred McGill), would picket this South African embassy in Chicago.

MN: Now how often did the NCJAR board meet?

YH: It met every month on the first Monday of the month.

MN: And when you started NCJAR, what sort of expectations did you have, or did you have any expectations?

YH: Well, we had hired a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and we knew we had to raise money to pay the lawyers to carry our case. And before that we had to find all the named plaintiffs who represented, one individual would represent a lot of individuals, like a minister, a Buddhist minister would represent a lot of people in camp who were Buddhist, and things like that.

MN: So how did you come up with the initial NCJAR mailing list?

YH: We, well, William and I sent people our Christmas card list. I don't know what the other people did on the board, but that's what we did.

[Interruption]

MN: So from your Christmas mailing list how big did the mailing list expand to?

YH: I think three thousand five hundred. I think a little less. Something like that, between three thousand and three thousand five hundred.

MN: And then you mentioned that you hired a lawyer in Washington, D.C., so what kind of fundraisers did you hold and how did you get funds?

YH: Well, we asked for ronins, and ronins would contribute a thousand dollars, and we had a lot of ronins and they were on our, the side of our letterhead. And then every month we sent out a newsletter and we sent it out first class mail, and -- to let them, let our contributors know what we were doing -- and every month they would have things that they might want to buy, like T-shirts and books and pamphlets, and then we would hold fundraisers in Chicago too. And at those fundraisers we would invite our lawyers to come, and they could update all the people who came to our fundraiser on what the, where the lawsuit was. And then in the newsletter we'd always let our contributors know what the money was for and how much money we needed, and so they always knew we were telling the truth and the money would be contributed. And we always sent thank you notes to all the people who contributed every month.

MN: Are you the one that sent out the thank you notes?

YH: No. Eddie Sato sent out the thank you notes, 'cause I always sent him a carbon copy of all the people who had contributed.

MN: Yeah, share with us your role in -- well, first of all, where did the donation checks go?

YH: The, this was a program of the United Methodist Church and so the checks all went into a fund, a redress legal fund of the United Methodist Church, so that's where I took all the checks and it went into their fund.

MN: So you got all the checks and then you typed up a list of the people, is that what you did?

YH: Yeah. And then I took all the checks to the United Methodist office at 77 West Washington Street in Chicago. That was downtown.

MN: And then the newsletter, what role did everybody have in getting that newsletter out?

YH: I typed the newsletter and then copies were made of it, and we went to the church Saturday morning from about nine to one o'clock and we assembled the newsletter, put the stamp on and put the mailing label on and took 'em to the post office.

MN: So you yourself, you typed out that newsletter. How long did it take you to type that out, 'cause this is before computers?

YH: Yeah.

MN: Did it take you, like a whole week to type it out?

YH: No. No. Maybe three hours. Took us longer to put together, collate it, fold it, put the label on and put the stamp on.

MN: And you did that every month?

YH: Yeah.

MN: And during the ten years that NCJAR was in existence did you have any problems with the donation checks?

YH: No, there was just one and that came from a man who had moved from one city to another in California, and so I sent his check back to him and told him that the check couldn't be endorsed and so he sent another check immediately. So we had, there's no checks that bounced. It's amazing, isn't it?

MN: In ten years. Now, William split with the JACL very early on to form NCJAR, and JACL didn't have a lot of nice things to say about him. What did you think about that?

YH: Well, I think that the JACL didn't understand that our government was divided into three parts, the legislative, the judicial, and the executive branch, and that we were going after redress through the judicial branch. They were going through it through the legislative branch. I don't think they understood this. They thought we were competing with them, but it was, we were going through a different branch of the government.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.