<Begin Segment 9>

MN: Let me ask you about your drug addiction and how you got into the Red Rose. When you were at the Community Workers Collective, you started to break ties with a lot of the organizations. Why did you start doing that?

Mo N: Well, at the time, I viewed it as a political problem with the leadership of the revolutionary organization that I was a part of would agree to what we had come to a unanimous decision around, and then turn right around and do his own thing contrary to what the agreement was that everybody agreed on. And nobody stood up to him. I thought that was bullshit. At that time, we were talking about this thing, the "cult of personality" we called it, right? When you put somebody up on a pedestal and then they become the boss, absolute boss. That's not a revolutionary way. So I left because of that. And they were drifting away from working in the, really talking about base building. They had become a part of a larger organization, and then the larger organization started dictating to what was going on. That's where the LTPRO business starts, LTPRO to NCRR. In fact, they dropped, they betrayed the people of J-town, become this overall Japanese community leader in the redress movement. "Betray" may be a strong word, but I felt in a sense that it was. And they left a lot of people who were still loyal to the people of J-town, left them in limbo, and eventually they just dropped out.

Then I got divorced at that time, and the collective was falling apart, people wanted to move on to new and better things I guess. So for me, it was leaving the guidance of a political organization, leaving my marriage, which wasn't much of a marriage. We lived in the collective. And so I guess I wasn't a very cool guy either at that time. She was ready to leave me, and I didn't even know she was mad at me. That's how dense I was. So can't say much of a marriage out of that, but I still loved her. Then collective falling apart, so my living situation was in limbo. So I opted to move to J-town, and she wouldn't come with me, so that broke that up. We went to counseling and stuff like that, got together for about a year after.

Yeah, so I came to J-town, I thought I was gonna come home and be the savior, save J-town for us. Shit. People wouldn't even talk to me for a couple of years. This is a village. Villagers don't like outsiders coming in acting big. [Laughs] So man, I got shot down, so I thought, well, I needed company. A couple of guys down here were dope fiends just like me, so we used to get loaded together all the time. I got into drugs more and more to the point where I couldn't even hold a job anymore. I spent about ten years on the run.

MN: What was your relationship with your family at that time?

Mo N: About nonexistent, yeah. Towards the end of my run, my mother had kidney failure so she was, had to go to dialysis. My dad was getting old, so then I started to help him, he was gardening around and stuff like that. So I made some amends, but I never recovered my dad's trust, and I wasn't clean when my mother passed away. So when she left, she knew she had a fucking dope addict son that would leave her hanging at the dialysis center when he's supposed to come by and pick her up and take her places. And the last straw was when I forgot about her. I was out there running around, then I remembered her, so I went back to the hospital and it was four hours after she was supposed to be done, she was still there. I picked her up, took her, they told me to take her to the hospital because her blood pressure or something was not well. I took her home to my house, told my dad, "Better take her to the hospital, they said she has to go." I let them take her. But about then my dad put the word out that he didn't need to see me come down there and worry my mom, make her sick, stopped me from visiting my mom, and he would disown me. That's when I figured, "Well, maybe I'm a little sick. I better go see somebody about trying to figure out what the hell's going on." That started my road to recovery, and it took about three years after that.

MN: Which group did you first try to get help from?

Mo N: Well, ADAP was what was available, so that's what I did. I went there and did some outpatient counseling there with some young dude out of college, and it helped some. It helped just to release the pressure but not getting deeper understanding. Then I stopped for a while, then I went back, "Shit, I got to do something." So I went back and then I got Mike Watanabe, he's the director, and he agreed to be my counselor. So he was good, 'cause he's an ex-junkie, too. He comes out of the recovery program, so that was good, so I would be able to develop insight. The young guy was good but he didn't have no insight. He didn't have no experience at nothing. So I was able to kick the angel dust with their help, but I was still smoking a lot of weed, probably doing some psychedelics and stuff like that, smoking tobacco.

MN: Were you going in and out of jail at this time, too?

Mo N: Yeah, yeah.

MN: How did you protect yourself in jail?

Mo N: What?

MN: How did you protect yourself in jail?

Mo N: Oh, I was working out. I've been into judo and martial arts and stuff all my life, so just take that into the jailhouse so I wouldn't get messed with too much. If you have to fight, you have to fight, fuck it, yeah.

MN: Did you have any incidents like that where you did have to...

Mo N: Sure. Most people in jail, they'll mean mouth you, but that's about it. You stand up and fight back, then they'll back off, most of 'em. Unless it's something bigger rather than just they're trying to bully your ass, then something else might happen. I was never in that kind of situation.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.