<Begin Segment 13>

TI: How about the role of Mike Masaoka? Because he was still around during that time, he was still active in D.C. What was his role?

RW: I think it was diminishing. Mike was used to being godfather, because there was a time period where you just watched where Mike was going... [nods]. I mean, the board would vote that way, that's quite remarkable. But I think his role was diminishing. I think he had a hard time embracing that, because I think it is hard. When you're used to being in that number one spot, because he had that for a really long time.

TI: So was there an instance where you two clashed?

RW: No, I didn't clash with Mike, not really. There was clearly some differences, but like the clash really happened with other people who were raising it, and there were sort of just personalities that were going to clash on the issue of who wanted to throw down on it. I didn't particularly want to throw down. And then I found some other avenues that worked better for me. See, during that time, I get involved with another thing. Remember there was all that unfortunate language, like the finance ministers, minister makes a statement like, "The U.S. has a disadvantage because, Japan's at an advantage because we're homogenous, and you guys in the U.S. are mongrelized." That's an unfortunate word, right? And there were things like that. And the NAACP was upset with black mannequins, and then Sanrio, of all people, you know Dakko-chan?

TI: No.

RW: Dakko-chan is a prewar inflatable doll, that you blow it up, and it looks graphically like Black Sambo. But when you inflate it, the arms hug, and you stick it on your arm. That's been a thing that existed in Japan a long time. So Sanrio's main line was Hello Kitty, but this Dakko-chan doll becomes controversial. And it turns out that Sanrio had their main distribution in south San Francisco, so I just did a cold call. And my call to them, I talked to this guy Frank Lopes, this Portuguese guy, but he got it right away. I said, "Hey look, this is sort of the backlash, this situation in history. When this happens with Japan, we get beat up, so my interest is, I'd like to be helpful, to help manage that for you." And what I didn't know was that Sanrio was a family-owned thing, not a public corporation. So I met the executive VP, we talked, and he says, "What would you do?" And I gave him kind of a basic plan, and damn, he comes back and he says, "Okay, we're going to do it."

TI: And what was that plan?

RW: One is publicly take back all the inventory, publicly apologize. But included in the apology is explaining your misunderstanding of it, and then creating an apparatus to help your company prevent that from happening again. Because as Japan is entering this new market with the United States and American diversity, there were things you recognized we don't understand and we need to understand better. Because even if it's inadvertent, if you hurt people, we don't want to do that. But Old Man Tsuji, from Sanrio, he says, "Okay, we'll do it." Because initially that's going to cost him millions, they're not going to do it, but he said, "Let's throw it out there." But because it was family-owned, turns out, this guy's a romantic, he really is. If you read his stuff, it's not like he doesn't have flaws, but he's a romantic, he says, "We're going to do this." And we did it, and so the back end of that story is the Congressional Black Caucus gets involved...

TI: And did you manage that?

RW: Yeah, I met with Jesse Jackson on it. And it ends up successful for them, and so we started doing this, we have this, with Sanrio we carried the Young Ambassador program, I bring eight high school students from L.A. to Japan, but I'm also bringing eight escorts, but they're the heads of MALDEF and LULAC and NAACP. I'm bringing them as escorts, but we're interacting with Keidanren, and saying, "Look, American diversity is more..." I brought Muslims, I brought probably early transgender folks, the Japanese were freaked out. And we had women as the co-chairs of our delegation, there was a lot of learning for them.

TI: That's an amazing story. Do you think it was too fast for the Japanese? Because I think about where they are, and even their embracing of diversity, it's happening, but it's very gradual. And what you were doing is so many steps ahead of where they are now.

RW: Yeah, it's like you could recognize, like Fukushima was really helpful.

TI: We're talking about Glen Fukushima?

RW: Yeah. And sort of recognizing the difference, because I knew what I was as a Japanese Americans, but there's kind of discoveries like the lens for a person from Japan, it's really different than my lens, and learning that. And Sen, because he was there, learned a lot of it. And in fact, in some ways, he became too Japanese for me. Like, "I don't agree with you, Sen," this is stuff that people need to take on. But the Japanese environment is, companies need to take care of their workers, and that was the focus, right? And it wasn't in any kind of philanthropy, and you check the philanthropy here, their giving was to, like, theater. It was safe stuff, or things, and they were putting, their customer base was increasingly communities of color. And they, on one hand, recognized their vulnerability, and Sanrio in particular was, their retail operation was the kid stuff. They need to maintain a certain degree view as innocent, right? And so Keidanren had us do workshops with them while we were there, but it was done quietly.

TI: I've never heard this, this is really interesting.

RW: So it comes back, and the kids were really a large part of their learning. It's like, this is American diversity, and the kids don't hold back.

TI: But again, so all this happened, this is back in the '80s, right?

RW: Yeah. Most of this takes off after I leave JACL. I mean, I started the contact with them when we were helping them work with their contract, but that takes a few years. But it's when I leave JACL that they recontacted me and... because just upon leaving, there was this incident where they came and they were going to give me money, I said, "I can't take this. Give it to Keiro or get something else, and I appreciate the gesture," but what I didn't understand is in the Japanese sense, if I took it, we're done. Because I didn't take it, they said, "Would you come back and talk?"

TI: There's something that...

RW: And I said, "Yeah," and we talked about this program. And he says, "Keidanren has approached us," and actually, Sanrio was too small to be a member of Keidanren, and they get invited in. So it worked for them, their status elevates. But I get to take fifteen delegations eventually to Japan, so that's well over a hundred kids, well over a hundred...

TI: All paid for by...

RW: Yeah, and they did remarkable hosting, just remarkable.

TI: And that was their way of thanking you and paying you back for...

RW: It was their way of continuing to learn. Because if you look at who I brought back, I mean, they're well-positioned people now. Like my first co-chairs involved, he's passed, but Harvey Lehman was the PR guy for what became Columbia Pictures that Sony eventually bought. And Monica Lozano, who was the publisher of La Opinión newspaper, and she's like California royalty, she's chair of the board of regents. That's royalty in California, right? But they weren't, early in their careers, they weren't --

TI: Part of your delegations that you would bring?

RW: They were the leaders that brought... but if you look back at that, it was helpful for me, too, right? Because it helps reinforce the relationships. Like with some of these folks, you're spending ten days in Japan, and you get a chance to talk to them about, like what we're doing now.

TI: And was MOFA, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, were they involved in this, or was this more the corporate...

RW: It was more corporate. Because even LDP and all those early -- I mean, I knew about them, but I kept in the lane that Sanrio wanted to stay in. And they weren't particularly interested in, sort of, the political lane.

TI: Because the reason I'm asking, because I'm thinking about the emphasis, and mostly from the Japanese government, to cater to Japanese Americans, almost, in some ways, for the reasons that you just described in terms of the connections that are made. But they have been, for the last, I think, fifteen years, sponsoring delegations of Japanese Americans to go there with Irene Hirano, and she's been doing that. And I was on one of those delegations, and I asked him, "So why are you doing this?" And he says, "Well, there's this belief that Japanese Americans can help us, one, understand this important market, this important partner, but also when we need it, just having friends in the United States is going to be important. So in many ways, you were fulfilling that role back in the '80s and '90s.

RW: And personally, the aspect that we brought into it with who we were bringing, was largely with communities of color, or identity communities, more than generally elites. Or the JAs, like I wasn't bringing... I mean, I had JAs there, but that wasn't my focus, it was to bring American diversity. And for the Japanese to understand -- but it was to bring American diversity. And for the Japanese to understand it, but equally, like when I had, like, MALDEF or LULAC folks, when the Japanese were doing something, I could explain something to them, so you're kind of a cultural interpreter, and saying, "This is significant." In the Japanese context, this is very difficult for them to do. They can't see that, but I can. So you can help give them that lens. And then it's like saying, "Okay, we appreciate what they do," so even the way they dance later on, it helps sort of magnify and elevate the cultural differences that they need to understand, at least. I mean, they could choose not to do it, but at least understand it.

TI: Right. That's fascinating.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.