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TI: Okay, so Roger, let's get started again on the second part. And I wanted to shift gears and talk more about immigration and your work with immigration history. But as a starting point, why don't we start with the McCarran-Walter Act, which, from a Japanese American perspective, growing up, it was sort of told to me that this was this very important law that was passed that allowed my grandparents to become citizens. And so it was always viewed in a very positive light. It wasn't until much later, as I started reading more about immigration, that, in fact, this was a pretty controversial law that was passed in the early '50s. Can you tell me about that act and what you know about that?

RD: Well, I can tell you a lot about the act, but I can tell you about that particular aspect of the act best, I think, by telling you a story. In 1960 I got married, I finished my dissertation, as you know, my mentor, the historian of Greek immigration Theodore Saloutos, among other things, Greek immigration, was in Germany so I couldn't get my degree. And I had this job working for the Institute of Industrial Relations at UCLA. I learned a lot of things in that year. It was a part time job, I had two other part time jobs. But one day, shortly before the West Virginia primary in the 1960 presidential election took place, a man who worked with the Institute of Industrial Relations, like many people in Industrial Relations had all kinds of political contacts, asked me to come see him, to come to his office. And we got in the office and he closed the door, he says, "This is confidential. Do you know who Paul Ziffren is?" he asked me. And I sort of knew who he was. He was the Southern California boss of Democratic politics. Big boss was Jesse Unruh. Says, "He's got a problem he needs some answers for, and I think you may have some of the answers." And we went into a lot of things, and I won't do that. I had never met Paul Ziffren, and I've still never met him, he's dead now, but we spoke on the telephone.

And he called me up and he said, "This is confidential." He said, "I understand you'll keep it confidential." I said, " Yes, I will, at least for a while." He said, "Jack Kennedy's brother was on the phone with me, and he wanted to know why his brother got such a poor reception from the Japanese American community of Los Angeles." I said, "He did?" He said yes. I said, "Well, they're mostly Republicans, you know." He said, "Yeah, I know that," but he says, "this was different." I said, "Okay." So I got on the telephone and I found out right away what it was. He'd talked to Japanese Americans and he'd trashed the McCarran-Walter Act, which was only two years old at that particular time... no, it was older than that. It was ten years old. "Oh," he said. And there was a long pause, and he said, "You know, his campaign manager, his brother, Robert, is very interested in this. Would it be all right if he talked to you about it?" He said, "Why don't you give me your home phone number and he'll call you." I said okay. I understood what was going on. He was already notorious, but like the emperor of Persia, Robert Kennedy did not like getting bad news. It wasn't a good idea to give him bad news if you could help it, especially if maybe you had something to do with it. So I said okay, and nothing happened for a couple of days and I said, well, he's not going to call me.

And a few days later... and the West Virginia primary was going on, which was a primary in which Kennedy had to win because he had to beat Humphrey in a Protestant state. He'd beaten him in Minnesota, but he'd only carried the Catholic parts of the state, and Humphrey had won the Protestant parts of the state, and most of the country was Protestant, and West Virginia was Protestant, so that was it. And I'm not thinking of anything else. Judith had just gone to bed, and it's midnight, and the phone rings. And I pick it up and it's Robert Kennedy. He introduces himself, says, "Professor, it's a little late, I hope you don't mind." I said, "Yes, it's late, it's midnight." He says, "Well, yes, it's three o'clock here." So he's up at three o'clock in the morning and he's finally getting around to this particular call. So he says, "I think you can tell me." I said, "Yes, it's very simple. Your brother came out, and in good Democratic politics and tradition, he trashed the McCarran-Walter Act. However, there's a little part of the McCarran-Walter Act that even Truman liked." Truman had vetoed it in a brutal message. "And that was it ended the barring of American citizens, including the parents and grandparents of most of the people he was talking to. They've come to think of that as a very important act." "Oh, the dumb sons of bitches," he said. And he wasn't talking about them, he was talking about the people... nobody told him that. "Nobody told me that," and his voice got very... he said, "I'm sorry, Professor, I appreciate this very, very much. And I apologized that I disturbed you." I said, "I was up. You woke up my wife, but that's okay." And he said, "Oh, I'm very sorry about that," etcetera. Anyway, that's the story. Ziffren survived. I don't know what happened to the advance man who let him do that, but at least he knew now.

So the McCarran-Walter Act deserved the veto that it got from Truman, and Truman, in his veto, went so far as to do something I don't think a President ever has done. He apologized to the Issei. It was put right into his message, that he's sorry, that he'd asked for the bar, what it was was a little clause in the 1924 Immigration Act which had just been continued by every other subsequent, or ignored by any subsequent piece of immigration limit done, that barred the naturalization of any "alien ineligible to citizenship." In other words, it didn't mention Japanese, it just said, "alien ineligible to citizenship." When that bill first passed, there were riots in Tokyo. And it was one of the things that helped discredit the very weak, lowercase, democratic political movement in Japan. Most historians feel that it was probably a doomed movement anyway, but this didn't do it any good. And among others, George Kinnon writes that that's an important factor in understanding why Japan was ready to go to war with the United States. So it was important, and since I had written about that in the Politics of Prejudice, I knew all about it and knew what it was like. So it was important. And this was, again, wonderfully typical of American politics in that politicians go out appealing for votes on what they think ethnic prejudices are, and they sometimes run very badly afoul of them. I mean, Republicans are finding that very hard. Do all this stuff about blocking immigration reform, or change, or positive change, and then try to get Mexican American votes, and it doesn't work very well. And it didn't work very well for Kennedy. It's very clear, Kennedy probably would have carried California regardless, but it's very clear that, although California voted slightly for Nixon, and therefore against Kennedy, it's quite clear that Japanese Americans voted in very, very large numbers against Kennedy.

TI: Against Kennedy?

RD: Oh, yes, it's quite clear, quite clear. Hawaiians, for whom the McCarran-Walter Act didn't mean a thing, voted for Kennedy very, very strongly.

TI: Well, it's kind of interesting, just in terms of Japanese American politics, Southern California, as you mentioned, is more Republican, but Honolulu, San Francisco, Seattle, is more Democratic, the Japanese American community.

RD: Well, I'm not sure the Japanese Americans in Seattle... I don't know the demographics of the 1960 election in Washington, so I don't want to say anything about it. But I think the Japanese Americans generally didn't vote, they voted Republican. The few Japanese Americans who were in camp and voted that I know about, three instances, voted for Roosevelt.

TI: Oh, that's interesting.

RD: They had to be people who were already on the registered rolls, it was all but impossible to register in camp if you weren't registered. But if you were registered, and if you wrote and applied for an absentee ballot, you could get one and vote it. And I know of three instances of people who told me, or in one case wrote in a document that they voted for Roosevelt. They voted against Roosevelt, I beg your pardon, and I suspect that most in camp did, but I have no evidence for this. But it's clear that in 1960, most Japanese in Southern California voted, and it's very difficult to isolate Japanese American votes in other settings.

TI: I'm wondering, could you do something just in terms of whether or not they registered Republican versus Democrat?

RD: But you got to know who they are. All you can get in the records is the precinct and the numbers. And in Los Angeles more than anywhere else, it's true a little in San Francisco, but the San Francisco Nihonmachi was broken up very badly, so was it there. But there's nothing comparable to Gardena anywhere else that I know. And I don't know if it's possible for one to isolate and identify Japanese American votes from the available Washington data, so I just don't know.

TI: That's interesting. Mine is more anecdotal.

RD: But it's quite clear that all the prewar people who were active in politics in Seattle, Japanese Americans, were Republicans. There was no room for them. The labor movement was very anti, with the exception of the union for the Red Caps. You know about that, don't you?

TI: Right.

RD: Do you have anything on Willard Townsend?

TI: Not that I recall, no.

RD: He's the Chicago-based president of the Red Caps union. It wasn't called that, but that's what they did. And he was very outspoken in defense of his members there, and the treatment they were getting, which was almost unique in the labor movement. Not quite, but almost unique.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2013 Densho. All Rights Reserved.