<Begin Segment 20>

SY: And you, do you, when you, I still keep thinking about the fact that you would never back down when you were a child and someone confronted you, physically. Is that the same attitude you took into the assembly? I mean, do you feel that those are sort of the same kinds of...

GN: Yeah, and you don't always want to butt heads. You kind of take a half a step back and think about how you should deal with it. One of the issues that had to be strategized was Howard Coble, who, a congressman from North Carolina that made a statement that Japanese Americans were put into camps for their own protection. That and then I think he also said something about the... yeah, I think that was the main one. I think that he said for their own protection. And so anyway, we wanted a resolution from the state of California, because he was the chair of the subcommittee on, what is it, security, and wanted him to be removed from that position. And I think he might've said something about engaging in espionage and sabotage as well. So we put this resolution together. The first part of the resolution had about asking President Bush to facilitate, help getting him removed as the chair of the homeland security committee, second one was asking Speaker Hastert that was the speaker of the House at that time, and the third one was just outright asking him to remove himself. And turns out that -- I don't know, did I talk about this at the first one?

SY: No.

GN: Because of the layout of the assembly floor in the state capitol is set up that you'll have, you could have two Republicans behind you or two Republicans in front of you, and so happened that during one term David Cogdale sat right behind me. He eventually became chair of the, I mean vice chair of the rules committee. He also became, I think, the minority leader for a short time since I left, so he was one that was a potential leader. So I got to know him personally, but I also found him to be a very straightforward, honest person. And so when we put this resolution together, and it was in the rules committee, and he approached me and he said that he had some concerns with the resolution. And so at that time I told Wilma, 'cause I couldn't attend the meeting, "Why don't you propose, after they have them say their position first, and then respond by eliminating the first two paragraphs but sticking with the last one as a strategy." And so that's what happened, and as a result of that, what happens with resolutions and bills, you'll get a Democratic position on all the different bills and resolutions, you get a Republican position. The Republican positions came that they would support this resolution, and it's encouraging a Republican congressman to remove himself as chair of the subcommittee on homeland security.

SY: And it was done just with the wording and the putting together --

GN: What also helped was this -- this is another situation where all the planets lined up a certain way -- the staff person to Cogdale on the rules committee was a staff person to Nao Takasugi at one time, so he was very familiar with the whole incarceration that took place.

SY: I see.

GN: So that, so that's one small, another piece of it. The other piece is that Alan Nakanishi, the Republican assembly member from Modesto, well, he was in Tule Lake and he agreed with the resolution from the beginning to the end.

SY: Right. So there are certain things that are not party line.

GN: Yeah. And he's a Republican, and so all those little pieces kind helped.

SY: Interesting. Yeah, I also remember reading about your stand on Earl Warren, which I think was an unpopular one. Can you talk a little bit about that?

GN: Yeah, Merv Dimely was advocating for a statue of Earl Warren at the state capitol. It was being pushed by a Caucasian guy. And so I took Merv aside, I saw him in his office and I said, "Merv, I have a problem with Earl Warren, what you're doing." I said, "This guy never publically apologized for what he did," and I explained to him what he did. He used his position as an attorney general to advocate for evacuating from the Japanese Americans and he used that issue to propel himself to become governor. And I recognized the fact that what he did was desegregate the public schools, but he never apologized. So he found, so he dug up some information and says, no, he apologized. I said he apologized in writing after it was, he was dead. It was in his memoir. I said, if I did something wrong I want to be able to apologize when I'm alive.

SY: It's ironic too, because Merv Dimely was one of the big supporters --

GN: Yeah, supporter of redress. Yeah.

SY: So it, so what was the outcome on that?

GN: He withdrew his, what happened was the API caucus, he said he didn't want to buck the API caucus. So now we had Judy Chu and I think a few other people there.

SY: Interesting. Yeah, but you probably got some flack from others for that, right? That, that was not a popular stand that you took there.

GN: I didn't hear anything, though.

SY: Good. Very good. And certain things are above criticism for you. You don't really, what would, what do you do for people who come out strongly against, say, that position of not having the statue? Would you, do you confront them with it?

GN: Oh yeah. Yeah, I'll say the same thing to them as I, what I said to Merv.

SY: That's really something. Now it's, is that, do you think, is a requirement of being a politician? Is that important, an important part of being a politician, is just being able to fight for what you believe in, take a stand on certain things?

GN: Yeah, and then you don't always get exactly what you want. You have to compromise sometimes, and that's the reality. And you have to do that with budget.

SY: Very good.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.