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TI: Yeah, so any other thoughts in terms of... I just want to get a sense of the environment you're walking into, then we'll kind of go forward. But I was just thinking of... because you walked into, I think, a pretty historic moment in many ways in terms of the Japanese American, the Nikkei congressmen that were in place, the network that you just sort of described in terms of, in some ways, there was this coalition ready to be formed to be behind the redress movement. And in some ways, this emerging activist groups in places like Seattle and the Bay Area and elsewhere, that was emerging about this time, and you were kind of being dropped right into it, is what I saw. Because looking at your background, it wasn't like you had planned this, you had said, "Here's a job, I'm going to go take this," didn't really recognize, before, what was happening, and I'm just trying to... is there anything else that kind of strikes you, whether serendipity or, this was here that was just amazing?

RI: Well, I think... well, this is my feeling. When I went to school and I decided to become a lawyer, I don't know if you remember a cartoon series called Crusader Rabbit, you're always going out there, you're trying to, it's like chasing the windmills. It always appealed to me, always appealed to me. I didn't know this JACL job was going to be one of those things in which you're "Crusader Rabbit," but I did enjoy the part about civil rights, and I will fight you, I will die on it. It's just one of those things, because I don't like to lose on those things. And I found out later on there's no level playing field, there is no level table, and a lot of times things are just stacked against you, you just have to try harder, work harder, and work smarter. But this whole aspect of it, when you think about it, and it didn't really dawn on me 'til I saw that movie by Janice Tanaka about Right of Passage, and Brooke Shields says, oh, well, there was this "very green" Washington representative, Ron Ikejiri. So I'm thinking about it, okay, I was twenty-eight years old, I think at the time I saw it, I was sixty-eight. I says, "Gosh, I wish I was green again." But the whole part --

TI: Say that again. You wish you were green again, because why?

RI: Well, because if I know now, what I know now, if I could have used it when I was twenty-eight, a lot of things would be different. You would probably approach things differently, because it's a learning process. But in terms of timing, and I think if you look at it, redress will never pass today, in today's environment, it won't happen. It barely happened during the Reagan administration. But at that time, there was a lot of things that came together of why Reagan ended up being supportive of it. But if you look at history and how all of it came about, probably in 1948 when they had the Claims Act, most people said, "That was it." And the Walter-McCarran and the 1950 Immigration, well, that's probably it. But there was always this festering thing, how do we right this wrong? And I think -- and let me digress a little bit -- in 1980, I was on this Asian Pacific American advisory committee for the Department of Commerce for the 1980 census. So after they did the count, they had a meeting and they explained two things that just struck me. One, Japanese Americans, I believe at that time had a seventy-nine percent male outmarriage outside the Japanese American community. So that told me that the Japanese community would change dramatically because we're not going to marry other Japanese Americans. Maybe in Hawaii there's probably a better chance, maybe, but not certainly on, outside of Hawaii.

Number two -- and this part I cried -- I'm sitting in the audience, and it's probably a couple hundred people. And the director says, "The highest educational attainment of all males in the United States is Japanese Americans." I cried because Issei, Nisei, kodomo no tame ni, "for the good of the children." They sacrificed their lives, maybe a better life for themselves, by putting their resources into the education of their children. As it took one or two generations, but it paid off. So if you look at Yonsei and Gosei, other than them not knowing that there really is a glass ceiling, they can do anything, they just have to fight harder and break through it. So those things struck me as just being real positive parts, and a lot of that has to do with the Issei and Nisei, and it really goes back to redress. And because Japanese Americans became more educated, so to speak, we figured out what happened with EO 9066 was just plain wrong. There's no way to justify it. And when this issue was first brought up, I don't think Senator Inouye, Senator Matsunaga, Congressman Mineta, had run for office, okay, we're going to deal with redress, I don't think that was an issue at that time. Something maybe in the mind of how does this get resolved, but it was not forefront. In our early meetings -- this is before Congressman Bob Matsui was elected -- we had meetings. And the discussion went on, well, we have to figure out how to approach this. And then what happened, I'm not sure exactly what year Senator Hayakawa was elected senator.

TI: About...

RI: I think it's about that time, because I remember after I became Washington representative, I needed to go make a courtesy visit, and he represents California. So I went to Senator Hayakawa's office and met with him, said, "Okay, Ron, we're going to take a picture together." So we took a picture, shoots the picture, and then all of a sudden the staffperson says, "I'm sorry, we've got to take another picture." I said, "Why?" He says, "The Senator's zipper was down." And I said, "No, I want that first picture." [Laughs] Needless to say, that picture was deleted. But the Senator, he was very cordial. Unfortunately, as a senator, he's probably rated, out of one hundred senators, one hundredth most powerful senator. But nonetheless, later on, after Matsui, Congressman Matsui is elected, and there was that meeting for Nikkei congressional members, there was a discussion, and the discussion was that...

TI: I'm sorry, and did this include Hayakawa?

RI: No. The discussion was that Senator Inouye says, "Senator Matsunaga and I are not going to argue with Senator Hayakawa on the redress issue on the full U.S. Senate. This issue would be dead. Because if other senators look at it and say, 'You three that happen to be of Japanese American origin, or Japanese Canadian origin, represent Japanese Americans, cannot agree, why do we need to stick our necks out to support legislation like this?' So you folks figure it out." So at that time, there was a discussion that said, okay, all four, Senator Inouye, Senator Matsunaga, Congressmen Mineta and Matsui, will pay a courtesy visit to Senator Hayakawa and ask him to support redress.

[Interruption]

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