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TI: So the redress and coram nobis cases really helped to educate and make the story better known. As you said, it became more common knowledge.

RD: "Better known" is really a little weak. Made it known. Made it generally known, I guess is what we should say, because there were always some people who knew it. Nikkei knew it, although Sansei didn't for a while. And some Nisei didn't know it for a while. But, yes, that was very important, and it continues to be important. Whether it continues to be important or not in a generation or so is something that nobody can answer. But right now, there's no two ways about it. This is still... not at the tip of everyone's tongue, but at the conscious level of their unconscious mind, whatever that means. But it's there somewhere. Not in the front lobe, but somewhere back here, I have no doubt.

TI: Good. Is there anything comparable in U.S. history to the redress movement? What would you compare that with?

RD: Well, it's a little thing like the Emancipation Proclamation. Certainly it's, I think, even more significant.

TI: I'm sorry, redress is more significant?

RD: No, no, the other way around.

TI: Right, okay.

RD: There's not yet a stamp for redress, and right now I'm using Emancipation Proclamation stamps. And, of course, that has stayed important and become more important in the... it's the 150th anniversary this year, isn't it? Yes.

TI: So this is 2013.

RD: 2013.

TI: My math is not working...

RD: Sixty-three plus forty is oh-three plus ten is thirteen. I think that works. Long winded answer to a short question, but it's important. And I think that one of the responsibilities of Densho is to keep it alive.

TI: That's our mission. But going back to the redress, I'm trying to think, so one of the strengths of that would be if others can learn from it, and that similar things happen in the future. Do you see that happening? That's where I grapple with... it's great to study history, to document history, to make it available, but how do you keep it alive in a way that it helps move people to action?

RD: Well, this depends on historians and others who constantly help to shape and reshape the collective conscience of the nation. And this is done in all sorts of ways. And one of the ways we do it is by memorializing and by having anniversaries. And some of the anniversaries seem silly. Quite often we get nonsense in there, I mean, it's one thing to think about the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation, but some people think that having Civil War reenactments of Civil War battles, well, that may be fun and games for some people, but that's not what the Civil War was about. And unfortunately, much of what's written about the Civil War, and much of what's shown on television about the Civil War doesn't really talk about what the Civil War was really about. It was a war for freedom. That's enough. Maybe you want more.

TI: Well, I mean, going back in terms of how we keep the story alive, a question that we ask ourselves at Densho, so we kind of think about the hundredth anniversary of the signing of EO 9066, so that'd be 2042, so that's like thirty years from now. And we ask the question, and as a historian, you can help us think about this. How do you keep alive events that happened a hundred years ago? When I think about my knowledge of history, events that happened a hundred years ago, it's not really on my radar.

RD: Isn't the Civil War on your radar?

TI: So that's one of them.

RD: All right, well, that's it.

TI: But there are just very few.

RD: That's right, that's right. That's why you can get stupid public opinion polls that think Jack Kennedy and Bill Clinton are among the greatest Presidents. Neither one of them are anywhere near the top. But it's very dangerous, though, to sit here in 2013 and try to imagine what's going to be around in 2042, because a lot will depend upon what happens between now and then. Because in 1942 and 1967, if we were having a question, no matter how smart we were, none of us would have imagined in '67 that redress could possibly take place. It was unimaginable, and the circumstances of 2042 are unimaginable. It would depend on the state of the world in part. If we have a nuclear war or a global environmental disaster or a global economic disaster, that will refocus attention on other kinds of things. You can't predict the future.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2013 Densho. All Rights Reserved.