<Begin Segment 23>

MN: I'm going to change the subject again.

Mo N: Okay.

MN: We're still in 1968, and the East L.A. students, they had the Chicano walkouts from Roosevelt, Garfield, and other high schools. What was your participation in that?

Mo N: Well, for one, we supported the students and the aims of the walkout. And the aims were what we were fighting for on the college campuses: studies, the true history of the people, all of that kind of thing. Right to organize, Chicano teachers, all of that, the whole thing. And the PTSA of the school was mainly run by Japanese, they were honors students and blah, blah, blah, all that bullshit, right? So that the Japanese parents were the ones that were out there heckling the strikers and stuff like that. So since we supported the aims and the goals of what the students were doing, then we got out there and began to counter demonstrate and point out, tried to reason with the people that what they were doing was not good, right? I mean, at best they ought to just step back. No need to sit up there and fuckin' agitate or guess what people were saying, 'cause that's what we want for our people, kind of thing. So also to show the Chicanos that there were Asians that stood on their side, too. And, yeah, one of the things we always were cognizant of was that the main route for all demonstrations coming from Boyle Heights and East L.A. was down First Street. So they'd have to go to J-town, and they're going fuck up someplace else. The first place they'll fuck up is J-town. So we always had to put a Buddhahead face, and also when the demonstrations and marches came down, that they were the kind of people, hospitality people, give 'em water and shit like that. So, yeah, so we had to counter that right wing and that kind of boot licking thing that our community is famous for. Show that there was a dialectic there, and we weren't all any one way.

MN: Okay. Now, the following year, '69, you became involved with JACS, Japanese American Community Services, Asian Involvement. Can you share with us what JACS did... or let's start with how you got involved with JACS.

Mo N: Well, my involvement, I think, stems from my work with the JACL. I worked fairly extensively with the JACL because there wasn't anything else to turn to at the very beginnings of our movement. And they had an executive director for the Pacific Southwest District Council, a staff man named Jeff Matsui, who was really a progressive guy. So he formed the Ethnic Concerns Committee, and that was the civil rights group of that time, the JACL. And so we used to go around and hit up these Japanese businesses that were prejudiced, that wouldn't serve blacks and do all that kind of shit like Crenshaw Square. That Yo Tanizaki, those guys were all, yeah, trying to support the white man's thing, right? And doing all those mean things, so we'd go out there and talk to those owners there, and Yo, and different situations. So in process, the JACS board people, the JACS comes from the Shonien, the children's home. After the government closes it, there's money leftover and so there's a fund. The left liberals and progressives, mostly. There were some conservatives on there, too, but mostly formed that board, and so they're part of JACL, they're part of... if not part of Ethnic Concerns, at least sympathetic to it. So it's through that I get to know them on a personal level.

But what the JACS board did in order to modernize itself, then what they did was they co-opted two people, and one was Alan Nishio and the other was Miya Iwatake. So Alan and Miya suggest that they put some money out and have a office so that we could have an office to work from. That time we had Asian Hardcore, so we were doing stuff in the community, supporting the Pioneer Project and working with the drug abusing youth and stuff like that. JACS board considers that a good idea so they put some money together and they fund an office and they fund two staffpersons. One was a... one was a secretarial help, and that was Marlene Lee, and the other one was Ray Tasaki, and he was supposed to be the field organizer. So we had two paid positions and our rent paid, and then we bring on the Hardcore and other people and start recruiting people.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.