Densho Digital Archive - William Marutani Interview

<Begin Segment 1>

BF: This is an interview of Judge William Marutani. The interviewers are Becky Fukuda, and Gary Kawaguchi of the Japanese American National Museum. This is a Densho interview conducted on September 11, 1997, and we are actually in UCLA at the Redress Conference. Anything else? Judge Marutani, are you currently still sitting on the...

WM: No, I resigned a number of years ago, to return to private practice of law.

BF: Oh, so you're practicing...

WM: I had been, yeah, I practiced civil law in Philadelphia.

BF: Do you mind if I ask how old you are?

WM: Seventy-four.

BF: And still practicing.

WM: Why not? [Laughs]

BF: I'd be tired. [Laughs] I'm actually, I'm actually a lawyer myself; although, I took time off from practicing to work on this project, so, it seems like a long time. How did you get to Philadelphia? Not a lot of Nikkei there.

WM: Do you mean why I went there? Went there to hopefully open up a business, start a business there.

BF: When did you re-, when did you move there?

WM: That was in 1954.

BF: Okay. Okay. So it was after camp and...

WM: After camp, after military service.

BF: Okay.

<Begin Segment 2>

BF: So what camp were you...

WM: Tule Lake.

BF: Tule Lake. And how long were you there?

WM: Well, actually, I was not in camp that long. I think about five and a half to six months. Total.

BF: Oh. And you went into military service?

WM: No, from there I went to college in the Midwest. Left Tule Lake in, in the fall of 1942. And by the fall of 1944 I was drafted into the army and trained as an infantryman.

BF: And did you see combat?

WM: Oh no, then what they did is they sent me up to Fort Snelling to study Japanese. So I missed all the bullets flying around. And by that time the war had ended and I was shipped over to Japan with the U.S. army of occupation.

BF: What was that like, serving in the occupation forces?

WM: Well, I don't know what you mean by what it was like, I mean, it was just another job as an American soldier. With different reactions from the Japanese, the Japanese looked upon me as a, just an American soldier, in fact, they were surprised that I could speak Nihongo.

BF: Really?

WM: Yeah.

<Begin Segment 3>

BF: So they knew right -- well, I guess you're in uniform.

WM: Facially, you know, I'm identical to everybody else in Japan, since both my parents are Japanese. But once they see a person in an American uniform speaking Japanese, for some reason they were very surprised.

BF: Hmm. So they didn't think of you as Japanese when you were in the uniform.

WM: They did not, except, I confronted racism in Japan, in the sense that I tried to go to the British headquarters in Tokyo. I don't know why I was headed there, I had something to do there. And I tried to get in, but the guards would block me, the British soldiers had bayonets that blocked my way. I was in military uniform, by the way, U.S. army. I happened to be a second lieutenant at that time. And they would not permit me to go in. And I asked why and they said, "Well, our orders are to keep all Orientals out." So he saw me as an Oriental, not as an American soldier.

BF: So your uniform wasn't persuasive.

WM: Yeah, that's right. And I, the thought that went through my mind at that time was, "My God, where do I find freedom, complete absence of racism?" I endured it all my life in the United States, my country, and yet I come now to the homeland of my ancestors and I run into the same. For being Japanese, I'm not allowed into a building. Can't figure that one out.

BF: Did you have family in Japan that you knew?

WM: Uh-huh. My sister was living in Hiroshima, actually Kure, which is just on the edge of Hiroshima. Her husband, I think, was a naval architect. She was raised in -- she was born in the United States but raised in Japan, because my mother thought that a good Japanese girl was not going to get a proper education in the United States, so she had to go to Japan and learn the koto and the flower arrangement and tea ceremony. Then she married a Japanese guy and had two children. He was killed in the August bombing, the atomic bomb. And the two children suffered, one suffered head injuries, burning, and the girl suffered injuries to her face by flying glass.

BF: What was that like, having such a close relative who suffered terribly during the war?

WM: Well, there was nothing I could do about it, I mean, war is hell, as they say, and this is part of it. I mean, you know, no use agonizing over it.

<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.

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BF: So at the time you got involved, were you fairly active in JACL and that got you involved, or...

WM: No, I was involved in JACL before that, before I became a judge. I was its national legal counsel from nineteen... for about eight years, until 1970, when I resigned as legal counsel. As a matter of fact, as legal counsel, I tried to check into how to get these cases re-opened and re-litigated. And you may have heard, Sho Sato, a professor at Boalt Hall in Berkeley, I talked with him and he got some students that researched this area to see if we had a basis for re-opening the cases of Hirabayashi, Korematsu, and so on.

BF: And what did you... what was the ultimate conclusion of that?

WM: The conclusion was you, we did not have what is called a "justiciable controversy." What that means is -- are you suffering from the conviction, what loss are you continuing to incur today? And Min Yasui, for example, said, "I'm not suffering any loss, I mean, I can get a job any place I want, I was admitted to the bar. In fact, I'm licensed as a lawyer." See, if they had withheld licensing him as a lawyer because of his conviction, his conviction, then we would have had a justiciable controversy, because he was now suffering losses as a result of having been unjustly convicted.

BF: And so a writ, then, of...

WM: coram nobis.

BF: coram nobis.

WM: Would not be applicable.

BF: Interesting. So, when you -- so obviously, being legal counsel and working on these cases to re-open -- redress was a fairly natural process for you to get involved in.

WM: Yeah, we were thinking about it. I mean, it's true we didn't act upon it, but we didn't act upon it because there was nothing to act upon, legally speaking. We didn't know that the government had lied. That's when the writ of error coram nobis would be coming to the fore, when the government cheats or lies, or there was some evidence that was withheld by the government, which was the case here.

BF: Uh-huh. Could you explain a little bit about how a writ works, for those who don't have a legal background?

WM: Well, a writ of error coram nobis is a very unusual piece of writ. If there is any evidence that you say you should have had, but you yourself could have had, had you not sat around, the writ would not be applicable, you could not get a relief. It is only that kind of evidence which -- and the evidence has to be substantial, it has to have meaning to it, not some little evidence, slight error, but an error which would change the, could have changed the result of the case. And in the writ of error coram nobis involving Yasui, Hirabayashi, etcetera, Korematsu, it was a substantial piece of evidence. The government lied on a critical point, that it was not military necessity, and it would have changed the result, could have changed the result of the case.

<Begin Segment 6>

GK: Could you talk about the Mitsuye Endo case again?

WM: Mitsuye Endo? Mitsuye Endo filed in 1942, July of 1942, a writ of habeas corpus. A writ of habeas corpus is quite common. A writ of habeas corpus is a piece of, a relief that you go to the government and say, "You know, you have arrested me and jailed me, but you haven't told me why. You must tell me why." And the court will listen to the reasons, so you go into court and the judge will listen to the reasons, and if there's no good reason, then you must release the person, because otherwise you could just keep the person in jail forever. In a democracy it doesn't work that way and that is why we have that relief. Because of the nature of the relief, you must give a hearing promptly -- three, four days. You just cannot have a person sitting around and, "I'll get to your case when I have time." You give it high priority, it comes from the very top. In Mitsuye Endo's case, the judge did not make a decision until one year later, twelve months later, in 1943, the judge finally made a decision. Well, there's a saying in jurisprudence that, "Justice delayed is justice denied." This is a classic example in Mitsuye Endo's case. When the judge decided against Mitsuye Endo, she took an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, directly. And the Supreme Court did not get around to deciding that, reversing the decision of the lower court, until another twelve months go by. Now in the meantime Mitsuye Endo's in prison, so to speak, she is behind the barbed wire. This is completely improper, this is a classic example of "justice delayed is justice denied." She is not given her day in court. They finally told her that she was right all along, but 24 months in prison while they come to that decision? It's so abundantly clear that it was unjust.

BF: So it looks as though all of the attempts to work through the judicial arena met up with dead ends.

WM: All failed, dismally so.

BF: Was that sort of the impetus for going after some sort of legislative action?

WM: Well, I would think it would be, to some extent. That's outrageous. To let a situation sit around for 24 months while a person... you know, you could be picked up, any of us could be picked up, just because the government wants -- the king, the government, whoever it might be, may not like you for whatever, your race, color of your hair, whatever. And keep you in prison for 24 months, and they say, "Oops, we're sorry, we got the wrong person, you're innocent, we were wrong." Can't do that.

BF: To this day, I assume that that's a fairly unprecedented, or a...

WM: Yeah, it's a gross violation. The government grossly violated the law of habeas corpus.

<Begin Segment 7>

BF: So, the court cases are meeting up with dead ends, so there's the... and then JACL gets the mandate from its membership to seek redress in some way. And I understand you were part of the group that actually voted on whether or not seek a redress bill for money directly or to go for a bill establishing a commission.

WM: Well, I had nothing to do with the commission part. I did push the demand from 10 to 25, $25,000, of course.

BF: Even though you didn't have necessarily a role in the establishment of the commission, do you have a opinion as to whether or not... well, did you have an opinion at the time, whether or not that was a good idea, as opposed to trying to --

WM: Well, I thought it was a good idea.

BF: Why did you think that?

WM: Because we had to get the evidence before the public. I also felt that we had to get the evidence before the Nikkei in the United States because they don't have all the information. I didn't have all the information. I sat through all of the hearings, every session, and I learned a lot of things listening. I couldn't believe some of the things I was hearing. But I know the people were telling the truth because I myself was in camp. And if they told a fib, I would be able to detect it. And, oh yeah, I think the commission route was okay.

<Begin Segment 8>

BF: To, to people who aren't Nikkei, it may seem somewhat surprising that a lot of Nikkei didn't know the full story, hadn't, over that many years, talked about it, realized that these things were happening, done studies, whatever. Does that surprise you at all? And if not, why, or...

WM: No, it doesn't surprise me that they didn't know, because I thought I was fairly knowledgeable of what happened in 1942 and thereafter. But when I heard the testimonies, so many new things came up, that I was, sometimes I was shocked. And when the testimony came forth before the commission itself, there was a combination of a number of emotions. Number one is shock, surprise, rage, anger. Rage and pity as to what happened to some of these people. Rage at what the government did blatantly against my people. And when you get this combination of emotions, I... I've never had it before. You know, I may become angry at somebody who, well, driving along the road -- just to give you an example, I don't do that -- but I can see where you can get angry at somebody who cuts in front of you, or takes your parking space. That's one kind of anger. When you get an anger of sorrow and rage and hate to some extent -- not hating the person, but hating what happened -- it's a terrible, terrible emotion. And I could not... I tried to keep from letting tears come to my eyes. They did, to be honest with you. But I was hoping that they wouldn't go down my cheeks because they were videotaping these sessions. And you know, here's a guy who's supposed to pass upon this issue and the guy's crying. And if he's crying, he's unstable. And anyhow, the way, at least most men are raised that way, men are not supposed to cry. You're supposed to be shikkari shite -- okay, very strong. But to fight back the tears -- I don't know if you've ever had a lump in your throat, periodically sometimes you will -- but it's a brief... you know, you feel a lump and it goes away. I sat through the San Francisco hearings with my throat sore. And it was painful. Because you hear some more and the anger comes up again, and the rage, and the fear -- they all come up at once.

BF: And as a judge and a member of the commission you felt you couldn't show the emotion?

WM: You shouldn't. As a judge, I sat through all kinds of cases. And I never showed my emotions. I never... well, people may laugh at a joke that may occur in the courtroom unexpectedly, but never your emotions, that, "I don't believe you," for example. Listening, you have to listen with a poker face.

<Begin Segment 9>

BF: Must have been, the hearings must have been emotionally, mentally, and physically draining.

WM: Draining. Oh yeah, it was.

BF: Did you go home and talk with anyone, or...

WM: No. When I was appointed to the commission, I cut off all relations with the JACL. I did not attend any of the sessions, I did not attend any meetings, attended no conventions that they had, either district or national, cut it all off. Because I didn't want people... whatever I may say or do, I didn't want anybody be able to say, "Well, he's being influenced by JACL." I cannot be influenced by outside factors.

BF: So at the same time, you were cutting off all your friends and support.

WM: Yeah. To some extent. It certainly diminished.

<Begin Segment 10>

BF: Now, let's back up a little, to how the commission was actually selected. How were members selected?

WM: Well, the commission ended up being nine people. Three of them were selected by the House of Representatives leadership, three selected by the Senate leadership, and three selected by the President of the United States -- Jimmy Carter, at that time.

BF: Was there any groups that gave recommendations? Because I assume a lot of them didn't know...

WM: I really don't know. Within the Nikkei community I'm sure they did. I'm sure there were other candidates other than myself whose names were submitted for consideration. Why they selected me, I don't know. I was asked whether or not I'd be willing to serve at one point. I pondered over that, because... I don't know how well you know the Japanese community, well, obviously you wouldn't know the Japanese community back at that point. But I knew this was a very emotional issue in the Japanese, Japanese American community. I knew, I felt that the people would watch me like a -- anybody who was a Nikkei on that commission would be watched like a hawk. Whatever he said, did, would be subject to scrutiny. And I thought to myself, "Who needs that?" No matter what you do, how sincerely you may act, people are gonna backbite you and shoot you down. Strangely enough, by a twist of that kind of thinking, I thought, "Well, I'm gonna do it." It's a challenge. It's gonna be tough, they'll criticize you. And this is why, among other things, you'll see in the report, on the official report -- and I think it's in the reprint -- there's a footnote on one of the pages that whatever payments or benefits that might be made to the victims, I would not accept any of it. I want to waive it here and now. Even before we talk about money. I don't know whether or not we're gonna talk about money, or if you do, how much money. 'Course, I had heard it was $25,000, that's what the JACL was seeking, because I was part of that, I make no secret about that. But I didn't want it... they may have decided otherwise, the commission may have said, "No, we're gonna raise it to $250,000," but whatever it was -- I cut my ties completely to any material --

BF: And what made you decide to do that? Because you were in camp, you had a right as much as anyone.

WM: Well, I think it's improper for a person to make a decision -- that so-and-so should get $25,000, whatever it is, $20,000, then run around and collect his money at the other end. I did not want to be subjected to that kind of criticism. Some people have said, "Well, you could give your, assign your $20,000 to some charity, like the Salvation Army, some worthy charity." And indeed there are. But I wanted to be in a position that I have nothing to do with collecting any money, either directly or indirectly. I did not benefit.

<Begin Segment 11>

BF: And do you feel during the time that you served as a commissioner that you did face some of that criticism and scrutiny, or was it better than you thought?

WM: If they did -- well, no, there was a lot of pressure brought on me by some people. They wanted individual payments, there was no question about that, they made that well-known. But I had decided early on that what I've got to do, that it is... I have to decide what I feel right. If I make mistakes -- it's too bad, I'm only human. But I've got to make my own mistakes, I can't let other people make my mistakes for me. So I finally decided, I'm going to have to make my own decisions, according to my own conscience and judgment. It's the only way I can do it, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. And if people want to shoot me, they'll have to shoot me.

BF: So you had to, I assume, sort of separate yourself as a commissioner, from yourself as someone who was interned and...

WM: Yeah. Hard to do, though, because I knew that life in camp was not fun. That I knew for certain, no matter who said what. I knew that was inappropriate.

<Begin Segment 12>

BF: Now, you were the only Japanese American on the commission. Do you have any opinions or speculations as to why there weren't more?

WM: Oh, no. I think there's no question that if you have too many on there, they'll say, "Well, they awarded this money of $20,000 -- what do you expect?" But you gotta have at least one Japanese American on there, because if the result is to the dislike of some people, they'll say, "Well, what do you expect, they didn't appoint any Japanese American on there, and they ran roughshod over it -- there, they did it again." And you have to cut out that kind of vulnerability.

BF: Did you find yourself ever sort of forced, or asked by the other commissioners to play the role of being the resident expert on the commission, to clarify things?

WM: Oh, I think to a large extent, sure. Not constantly, but periodically. And if they didn't and if they stepped out of line, I would speak up. I remember one time when one of the staff persons was writing a report, preparing the final report of the commission itself. And it was very preliminary. And I looked at the draft and I said, my goodness. I asked this person, "Where did you get this information?" One of the information she had written was that on each of the trains there was a nurse -- all trains had a nurse. And I knew that wasn't so. I said, "Where did you get that information?" And she said, "I got it from the final report of General DeWitt." I said, "My goodness." And so I stepped in, I said, "Oh no." I also stepped in, frankly, on the matter of using the word "evacuation," "relocation camps," "assembly centers," -- this sounds like we're going on a Boy Scout jamboree, not to a barbed wire concentration camp with guard towers with machine guns and you're held in there. "Assembly center," "Tule Lake," there's no lake at Tule. Pinedale Assembly Center, there were no trees, no trees or any vegetation. I also objected to words like, "voluntary evacuation." You don't force people out and call it voluntary because they left, "If you don't go, we're gonna do this to you." And the jargon... so you will notice that in the report, in the very beginning of the report they refer to the fact that we understand that some of these terms are inappropriate, but were gonna use them because they were used in the context of that time of 1942. But that's a warning at the beginning, that this, it was not really an evacuation, it was an uprooting and expulsion, that's what it was, and so on.

<Begin Segment 13>

BF: As you would bring up these points, these errors either in fact, or sort of the incorrect use of words, were other commission members, were they sort of also doing the same? Were they supportive, or were you sort of carrying the burden of doing this?

WM: No, I think something like that, is, you have to be, I think, have a comprehension of what the facts were -- and I knew what the facts were. And I mentioned for example, the term, "repatriation." You don't send a Japanese American Nisei, to Japan and call it repatriation. That's a misnomer. It's a very devious misnomer. As a matter of fact, if you look at the posters -- large letters "JAPANESE" in there -- telling the people they are going to be sent out, shipped out -- if you look on there it says "alien" and "non-alien." Now I know what an alien is, an alien is a person whose citizenship is with some other country than the United States. Tell me, what is a non-alien? Tell me, c'mon.

BF: An American.

WM: Yeah, it's a citizen. And it's a very devious effort on the part of authorities, because they don't want to deal with shipping American citizens into camp, but you can if you call them "non-aliens." Who cares about non-aliens? This actually carries over into other fields, for example, in the war in Korea, for example. Our troops were there not killing Koreans, North Koreans, or whatever it is, we were there killing "gooks," "slopes." What you do is you dehumanize people and then it's easier to kick them around, you dehumanize them. As a matter of fact, if you look at these... what happened in... shortly following Pearl Harbor, the FBI swept out Buddhist priests, head of the businessmen associations in Japantown, teachers, schoolteachers. If you look to see what happened, what happened is that they took all the leaders of our community -- people who had some power, who had control, they removed those. And what did they leave? They left the women and the youngsters, and the people like myself who were still teenagers, hadn't become twenty yet. And we didn't know what to do, I as a teenager wouldn't know what to do. I do now, but not then. And so another tactic is you remove, you remove their leaders and leave them helpless. The Canadian government did something like this. What the Canadian government did is they removed all the men, not just the leaders, all the men away from the women and they did not put the women in prison, behind barbed wire camps, they just said, "Well, you go wherever you want." Very clever.

BF: Very military.

WM: Devious, very devious.

<Begin Segment 14>

BF: So going back to the commission, this is sort of, probably a hard question because it's been a while. But if you go back and remember some of the first meetings of that group of commissioners, that group of nine, did you have a feeling from the beginning whether this was going to be a group that was fairly open and sympathetic to the cause of redress, or did you have a feeling at all either way?

WM: Oh, I didn't have a feeling whether or not they were going to be sympathetic. I knew that what happened to the Japanese Americans and their parents was wrong. And knowing enough of the facts already, I could not sense that any of these people could disagree with that. You just can't. I mean, how can you, how can you possibly justify what happened to Japanese Americans and their parents as being okay?

BF: So you had a lot of faith in the facts, that the facts would win out and...

WM: Well, I did not come to any decision myself, but someone would have to prove a whole lot of things to me before I would change my mind, knowing what I know. I knew that the people did not commit espionage, sabotage. Our culture is not that kind. Our culture is a commitment to a nation and my commitment was to the United States of America. And people have to understand, that's my only country. A Japanese interviewer for the Nippon Hosokyoku, asked me one time, "How could you" -- I served in the U.S. army -- "how could you have fought against Japan? Seeing a Japanese face." I said, "You've got this wrong. I wasn't fighting against Japan, I was fighting for my country, and my country is the United States of America. And no matter who it was attacking my country, Russians, Germans, Italians, Japanese -- yeah, I'm going to defend it. I was fighting for my country. So the orientation has to be proper. You have to look at what is being done and for whom.

BF: Did you feel that, did you see a process occur while you were on the commission, as the information came out, of then getting an idea of how people felt or...

WM: Yeah, what happened is that... I think, first of all, all the commissioners, tentatively, knew that what had happened to the Issei and Nisei in the United States was wrong. When they began hearing the live testimony of the witnesses, I think their suspicions, tentative conclusions, were confirmed. That was established by the fact, in my mind, that fewer and fewer questions were being asked by the commissioners. 'Cause they heard various different versions of what happened, at different levels, different people, different ways. And there is no point in really asking questions as if you're really seeking out, the truth must be somewhere else. They were hearing the truth and they knew that they were hearing the truth.

<Begin Segment 15>

BF: A couple of detail questions, just because in my readings I have yet to really get a grasp of how the commission worked. Did you, obviously, everyone for the most part attended and was together for the hearings, both the expert hearings and the community hearings, was there also, I assume, regular meetings where the staff brought forth new information from the archives?

WM: There were, but they weren't that regular, they weren't that frequent. We would be... but to answer your question, yes, there were.

BF: And at those, albeit, infrequent meetings, was there much discussion, much kind of arguing?

WM: No, not really. I mean, nobody really, we didn't sit around and rehash the testimony of a certain witness, or anything like that. I think by then we all knew. I think we were a little stunned. I was stunned anyway. And I think the others were, too. 'Cause we didn't talk about it. There was no need to talk about it. You heard it and we knew it was the truth.

<Begin Segment 16>

BF: I've heard from a number of people at this conference how important in many different ways those commission hearings were -- now I'm talking about the ones for the Nikkei population. What do you think, sort of, what impact did those hearings have on the Nikkei community?

WM: Well, one example that I can cite to you that I think is illustrative, it that a number of the witnesses, after they testified, stayed around to listen to other people testify, with tears streaming down their face. And that may be understandable, but when they come back the second day, and the third day, and listen, you know that something is going on here, inside. And with tears coming down, you know that something is going on. I remember one witness in particular in San Francisco, her name is Noriko Bridges, I think it is. She's married to, I think she's the wife of Harry Bridges who's now deceased. I think Harry Bridges was a union leader of the International Warehousemen and Longshoremen, something like that, in Hawaii. Harry Bridges was, whether justifiably or not -- I think unjustifiably -- was considered to be a communist party member. I don't know whether it was true or not, but who cares, that's not my problem. But anyway, she came to the hearings, and she sat through and I remember her just crying. And she came back the following day. And it was a kind of a washing away of pent-up feelings, I think.

BF: Does this level of, gosh, the level of what people were revealing and the volume, the amount of people who came and were willing to talk this openly -- did that surprise you?

WM: Yup. It did surprise me, because the culture, which is part of my culture, the Japanese culture, forgetting about the country of Japan, I have a culture which is Japanese and also American, of course. And there is a merging of the two somehow. But in the Japanese culture, at my stage of life anyway, you did not talk about weaknesses in the family. If you had problems, you kept them to yourself. If you had a sister who was mentally deficient slightly, you didn't let the people know, although the community would probably find out about it. If you had a brother or sister or any member of the family with a touch of tuberculosis, you did not reveal that. They would go away to say, Arizona for awhile on a "vacation," with quotes around it, come back and heal and back in the community. But you did not reveal these kinds of things. And you didn't do that because you wanted to, a family should be strong. If you want to have your daughters marry well, you want to send a healthy woman, because if you're weak, they don't want you. And all these shibboleths went by the board when they testified. They testified about a mother who was mentally ill and spending time in that mental institution. They testified about a sister who had tuberculosis and therefore was kept in a place in Oregon. And this is an actual situation, the girl the witness testified that she had heard that her, she... mother had been -- died in Oregon, while they were in camp in a so-called assembly center. And when they got word that the mother had died they sought permission to go visit... I'm sorry, the mother had not died, the mother was seriously ill, had taken a turn for the worse. So they tried to get a permit from the WRA to go out to Oregon to visit the mother before she died, or see how bad she was. By the time they got there, the mother had died. And nobody told, nobody knew where the mother was. So, you know, how tragic can it be for... you know I think about stuff like that, and I do cry. Just the rage and the anger for what they did. Excuse me. [Cries]

<Begin Segment 17>

BF: Were there also, I assume there must have been people opposed to redress who came to these hearings?

WM: Oh, sure.

BF: Well, how much, on average, was there? Was it still sort of overwhelmed by the...

WM: Yeah, I think so. I think many people thought that...

BF: Were there any particularly memorable opponents who stood out?

WM: Well, Hayakawa was said to be one of them -- Senator Hayakawa from California was opposed to redress. I guess there were other people who were, but I hadn't, I hadn't heard from many of them.

BF: I assume that probably some of these folks were a bit intimidated from coming to these public hearings.

WM: They may have been, I've heard that, but I don't know that to be a fact.

BF: I assume that there must have been some discussions with, well, I guess I should ask, were there any commission members who stayed somewhat opposed to redress along the way? I'm thinking of...

WM: Well, Daniel Lungren is on record as being opposed to redress, yeah.

BF: And did you and him have discussions, heart-to-hearts?

WM: Well, I wouldn't say much discussion. We did have... he voiced his difference with me. And he and I had some friction, nothing serious. But I knew that he was opposed to it, and I was in favor of it, of course, as were the other (seven) commissioners.

<Begin Segment 18>

BF: Do you think that the hearings, obviously they had an, they had an impact on the Nikkei community as you just spoke about, what about the larger community -- the non-Nikkei community?

WM: The non-Nikkei community? Some people appeared before the commission and testified that they would be in favor. But largely, they were opposed. We had some veterans, Caucasian veterans, appear before the commission and opposed it.

BF: As they waited their turn, they had to be listening to the testimony that was given. Do you think any of them...

WM: Oh yeah. They weren't convinced at all.

BF: Hard, hard hearts.

<Begin Segment 19>

BF: Some folks, early on in the movement, were opposed to the idea of a commission because they thought that it was obviously a way of stalling, or eventually would maybe be a dead-end. It didn't. It didn't work as a dead-end. When you look back, what do you think are some of the reasons for why?

WM: Well, I think the principal reason was that, "C'mon, let's stop horsing around" -- to use a slang phrase. "We all know it was wrong, you know it's wrong, why are we going up to Congress to make a determination, that first of all they got to determine that it was wrong? Let's just go for the money, ask for the damages." That's totally unrealistic in its purest point of view -- it's a haughty point of view. If they stopped and listened a little bit they'd know that there are many, many, ignorant people in Congress, as well as elsewhere for that matter. Also, they have to, they don't understand how Congress works, or they didn't think about it. If you had a bill determining whether or not there was anything that required compensation, redress, a proposal, a bill like that would go to chair -- to some subcommittee or committee. And if you have one chairman in one of those committees who decides, "Oh no, my people back in Georgia would not go for this." All you need is one veteran's post in Georgia writing to his Congressman who is the chair of this committee or subcommittee, and say, "George, we're opposed to this." American Legion Post in Georgia, whatever it is, I'm just giving you an example -- that would kill it. One Congressman could kill any effort, or Senator for that matter. And for us to walk into that kind of a trap and think that we can avoid all these pitfalls, is unrealistic.

BF: Whereas the commission, if you trust in the facts, and you trust that the truth is going to come out during a commission process, then I assume their recommendations because it's mandated from Congress, are a little bit stronger against things like, things like that...

WM: Sure, sure.

<Begin Segment 20>

BF: How did the recommendations... how did that process work -- the recommendations following the report?

WM: Well, I think you've heard Angus Macbeth describe it, maybe he didn't. I think he described it... were you at the general session? Where Angus --

BF: Yeah...

WM: -- Macbeth spoke? Well, the redress part was cut apart from what had happened. First a determination was made of what had happened, and was this right or wrong, was it a violation. And the answer to that was a unanimous yes, including Dan Lungren. Then the second part was issued six months later as to what the remedy should be. The remedy of $20,000 per person, and an apology. And this was deliberately done that way so that the two would not get confused. If we had issued the report that this was wrong, and in addition to that included $20,000 payment which would result in 120,000 people at $2.4 billion, the focus would be upon the money. Everybody would, "Holy smokes, these guys are getting 2.4 billion dollars? They're recommending that?" And nobody'd pay attention to what happened, that this was wrong. So there was a severance there. A decision was made as to whether it was right or wrong, and then Congressman Dan Lungren went along -- it was unanimous. It was only six months later when we got to the amount that he broke ranks, and he did not want to pay the money.

<Begin Segment 21>

BF: So the, but, so that was, the timing as when to announce, or publicize the report, or make the findings known. And the recommendations were separated. But the recommendations, how were they drafted? Was that Angus Macbeth who drafted them, then brought it forward to the commission and said, "What do you think?"

WM: Yes, the staff would prepare that, we would review it.

BF: Was there must discussion? I assume there must have been about the recommendations.

WM: Well, beforehand there was. But not much -- there was not much really to discuss. I mean, what else can you do? I mean, it's going to be some money, reparations, apology... and the only question is how much money?

BF: Was that the issue that had some discussion on it, the amount?

WM: Well, you have to understand, I forgot who said it, but once you come up with... just about all the witnesses wanted $25,000. There were a couple who said, $250,000. But by then the commissioners had heard $25,000. So it's not going to be more than $25,000 as a political matter. And what are you going to do -- the victims seek $25,000, you gonna award them $45,000 or $50,000? So that was the ceiling, and that's exactly what happened. And do you come in with exactly $25,000? Some may view that as, well, they're only listening to the witnesses, they're not listening to any other things. So you cut it down to $20,000 as a compromise, and you don't come up with $25,460 -- I mean, that sounds like you're awarding exactly the amount of damages that they suffered, so you round it off the $20,000.

BF: A lot of these decisions sound really, really pragmatic.

WM: They have to be. They have to go through Congress. And Congress is a very pragmatic institution when it wants to be.

<Begin Segment 22>

BF: When you look, when you look back now, and you think about what redress hoped to accomplish... I guess I should ask you, what do you think, when you first got involved, what do you think the goals were for redress?

WM: You mean at the commission level? Or what level?

BF: Um, more on a personal level. Like what would you hope that redress would accomplish?

WM: Well, redress would hopefully accomplish as a reminder to the nation and our people -- when I say our people, our Americans -- what happened. I mean, why is the government paying? Those who do not know anything about what happened in 1942 -- would learn. And the long-range goal, that the government would not do this again to other peoples, other people within our midst, because of race, creed, color, whatever.

BF: And looking back, kind of being retrospective, do you think it accomplished that?

WM: I hope so. I hope so. I can't say that it has accomplished it. It has educated a lot of people, including the Nikkei, by the way. But whether the country will, the nation will have learned a lesson -- I'm not sure. I'll have to wait and see.

BF: I guess the same question, or a similar question would be, do you think it could happen again?

WM: Yes. Yes. If you don't watch your guard, it will happen again.

<Begin Segment 23>

GK: When you, one of the things about the civil rights, Civil Liberties Act, is that it stopped any litigation after that. So I was wondering if you thought that the coram nobis cases, which didn't really set a precedent, whether they were stopped, they should have gone on? Or do you think the Civil Liberties Act stopped a process that could have come to some kind of fruition, other than what happened?

WM: Well, the lawsuits, first of all, in my opinion, could not have hurt the redress program in Congress. Could not have hurt, that's a negative compliment. Whether or not it actually helped, which is now a positive, I can't say, I really can't say. But at the very least, it was not a negative. It could only have helped, as a practical matter. As to whether they should or should not have continued, like Bill Hohri, whether... I want to say that I have a great deal of respect for what Bill Hohri did, recognition, whether you happen to agree with him or not, he did it. The coram nobis case... I also... my hat's off to Dale Minami and the lawyers who handled that. And I think it comes with very poor grace for people to be criticizing either one. They were doing what they thought was right, and who's to say they're wrong? Their motivation was correct, proper. And as I said before, it did not hurt the redress drive in Congress.

<Begin Segment 24>

BF: My last question. Most of the experts, I mean, we heard Mr. Irons say that he, most people didn't think there was a chance in the world for redress to pass. And most people I talked to still are surprised. What do you think -- it's a big question -- what do you think ultimately were the reasons for its success?

WM: Well, once the facts were out and Congress knew what the facts were, no person of any goodwill could say, you know, "Let bygones be bygones." Although Dan Lungren in effect did. But there were more people who knew that this was wrong and something has to be done -- for the honor of this country. To have not responded would be a dishonor to our country.

<Begin Segment 25>

BF: Was there anything you wanted to add, like a question you thought we should have asked or something you would like on the record, so to speak?

WM: Well, I guess on the record, the only thing I can say is that getting into my old age I get much more emotional. This is the first time I've ever cried about this, about this affair. And I find I'm getting weak doing this.

BF: I don't see that as a sign of weakness, but I guess it's generational or gender, or... [laughs]

WM: Well, it's a bit of that. But I'm of that generation that you just, men don't show their emotions, you know. But God, you hear this testimony and it just rips you apart. And it's true, when you get old you get a little bit more emotional, I find.

BF: Well, I appreciate you sitting through this and giving up your time at the conference here. I really enjoyed it.

WM: Well, good luck on your project.

BF: Thank you, thank you very much.