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BN: I wanted to talk about your time at JACL.

AK: Yeah, so what happens is remember that HICO? HICO gets a reputation within the national youth serving because Intermountain Plains, Salt Lake, that whole area, Midwest, East Coast, a lot of those, Northern Cal, Pacific Northwest, they don't have Junior JACL chapters, but they have youth groups. So not real formed, but loose. Because kids are following their conventions or conferences, so they have an activity when the regions get together. So the only group in Southern California is HICO. I mean, that's the only semi-organized activity that JACL can recognize. So we get together, and so the leaders, because some of these are more formal, Midwest, Northern Cal are more formal, they have a structure. And so we get together -- this is all volunteer -- and by then, I'm maybe JACL chapter president or something, I'm a member of Hollywood and all that kind of stuff. So the National Youth Director position is created, somebody hired part time, or part of their responsibility. And so this position opens up for National Youth Director, and since I had been meeting with this group, and because I didn't want to go to jail because of all the price fixing and all this other stuff, I said, maybe I'll apply for it. So it was a drop in salary, all this kind of stuff, but what they did was they gave me car insurance. But I had one of these funny little squatty cars, and it's called the Porsche, and a lot of people didn't know what it was, number one, or what the value of it was. So I remember Clarence Nishizu and some of these other guys would be at district meetings and things, and I'd drive up with my little tin can and they'd say, "Oh, that's a nice cute little car." He'd have a Cadillac or something. His car was like five thousand, mine was like seven thousand for a little funny thing. So the insurance, likewise, was more expensive on my car than even his. And most people would be driving Fords or Chevys or something else. So that's why I took it.

BN: I hope you still have that car. [Laughs]

AK: Oh, we went through several.

BN: Because those models are pretty valuable now.

AK: That was a '63, '64, 356 C, and what I did was I traded it in just before I got married in '65, to get a 911, the first Carrera. And my wife never forgave me.

BN: So what year was it then that you started at JACL as the youth director?

AK: '63. Maybe '64.

BN: Okay, somewhere in there. So that position didn't exist before, right?

AK: It existed on paper, and there was a person who preceded me, but he didn't last very long. So my job as National Youth Director was two things. Sort of formalize a national youth organization, and the second thing was to take care of the services scholarship, oratorical contests, the speech and the writing. So that was my job. It took me a couple of years to get everything fairly well done, but one of the key things I did -- and Jerry Enomoto was one of these -- I created a National Youth Commission. And these are... okay, so for each chapter you have an adult youth advisor. Those youth advisors sit together at the regional level and have a district or a regional person, and you have a national. So these people then sit on the boards, so I don't have to plead my case, because I've got peer people, adults, members, who are on the boards pleading for the youth, and everybody would support you, but then if I came in and I said, "I need this and this," it wouldn't work. So Ray Uno was the National Youth Commissioner, he became national JACL president, Jerry Enomoto was my National Youth Commissioner. So anyway, there was a meaning to the madness. And they'd give him a position on the board. That was one of the major strategies, we put together a constitution and all that kind of stuff, they have to go out and start to populate the chapters or whatever you want to call them.

BN: Did you work out of an office in Little Tokyo?

AK: Yeah. So all my conditions of hiring have been Los Angeles, whether it's international, national or local, I always wanted to have a local office. So in this case, there was a regional office here, so I said, "I'll work out of the regional office, you don't have to pay for moving me to San Francisco," I didn't want to work out of the San Francisco office anyway.

BN: Who was the regional director?

AK: That's what I was trying to think of, who that person would be.

BN: Was it Tats Kushima, or was that later?

AK: That was... this is '63. I know Jeff Matsui was the one that I was closest to.

BN: But he was later.

AK: Yeah, but this is the time that he was also there, because he had to be there between the '60s and 1970. Because we also started the Lunch Bunch, we also started other activities.

BN: So he was already there?

AK: I think he, almost simultaneously. There was a little gap, but I don't remember who preceded who.

BN: So who else was in that office, then, with you?

AK: Well, so it was Jeff Matsui and myself who were the principals, and then next door was Harry Honda and the Kamayatsus with the Pacific Citizen and so forth. So we had a little cozy group, so that's why I wrote for the Pacific Citizen and everything.

BN: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that, because Densho has actually digitized the entire run of the Pacific Citizen up to, I think up 'til about 2000. So I was wondering if you would talk a little bit about that, just because people are going to be now accessing that, to provide a little context about what you were trying to do.

AK: Yes, so part of that effort was, again, during that five-year framework, was to try to stimulate conversation about youth activities, and it's like staring at a blank wall, you don't get any real feedback. But weekly, religiously you'd write an article about youth, and hopefully it reaches people. You get feedback in strange ways, because you ask for feedback, you never get it, but you're at some event or something and, "Oh, read your article on such-and-such." So it wasn't anything to put fire under people, but at least keep them informed, get 'em active and so forth. A lot of times it was what was going on, but we needed some kind of mechanism to get information out, so that became another vehicle for that kind of thing.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.