<Begin Segment 4>

BF: Well, like I said, we're gonna, we're gonna sort of jump a little bit.

WM: Sure.

BF: What were you doing when you got involved in redress? Were you practicing law, or...

WM: Yeah, I was a lawyer. By that time, I think, though, I had been appointed a judge in Pennsylvania. And when I came for a meeting with Cliff Uyeda and -- when she said, I was the one who said, "Raise it to twenty-five -- ten to twenty-five" -- I was a judge at that time.

BF: So, what approximate year was this, and what stage was...

WM: I think that must have been around 1978, mid-seventies.

BF: So the redress movement was still fairly young...

WM: Oh, yeah, we were just still talking about what our demand was gonna be, how much we were seeking.

BF: Why did you come up with that figure? Or, do you know...

WM: Well, I was very shocked that they were asking for only $10,000. That is terribly low, $10,000 per person for what happened to the Japanese Americans and their parents. But I realized that those who came up with $10,000, this was a little bit of a Japanese enryo -- don't ask for too much, just ask for a little. But under American standards, $10,000 is peanuts, even $25,000 is peanuts, a little bigger peanut, but still a peanut. But at the other end there were certain constraints that you have to take into consideration: if you're talking about 125,000 people at $25,000 -- what's that come to? Three billion? Three billion dollars -- that's a lot of money and you have to be realistic about it, whether or not you could get this kind of money from the government. Coupled with that, however, is a demand for an apology, which is part of the package. In the United States, an apology doesn't mean much, but under Oriental cultures, a sincere apology means a lot. An example of that, somewhat contemporary, I don't know whether you recall when the Korean Airline 007 was shot down over Russia? The president of the Korean Airlines went to a number of the victims' families and apologized. And under Korean culture -- and Japanese culture for that matter -- an apology is very, very important, it's more important than money, material things; but not in the United States, money is more important. Well, I shouldn't say more important, that's the coin of the realm, so to speak, in the United States.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.