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BN: When you say "youth," how was the organization defining youth at that time? Like what age range?

AK: High school would be the norm, but junior high might be the lowest level. I would say maybe seventeen, eighteen, to twenty-two. Our leadership consisted of kids in their mid-twenties, that type of thing. So Ross Urano was pretty old, Russ Obama was pretty old, they were in their twenties.

BN: So demographically this is really the baby boom.

AK: Yeah.

BN: You guys are a little bit, just a few years older than them.

AK: Yeah. So it was interesting because, as a, quote, "adult," you would hang out with the adults for certain functions and things, but you would be with the kids for some other things. So if there was a youth dance and so forth, you might be at an activity until midnight, but you would go to the adult after-party that somebody was having in their hotel room where they had ochazuke and things, and you would be able to fit in, or 1000 Club Wingding or some of these other events that were taking place. So you would bridge both. You wouldn't be able to drink with the kids, but you could drink with the adults later, kind of thing. And then when you circled back, you find the rowdier kids hanging out yet, and so forth, being at places they shouldn't be and things like that. So you had this funny balancing act. But that's why the National Youth Commission helped in having some of these other advisors. Although there were shenanigans going on there, too. It was just an interesting time. It was also during that time that I was going around with Joe Grant Masaoka, and he was talking about the History Project, and I was talking about youth. So we did a tour, a couple of tours, where we would go to several cities, and he would have the adults for a while, I would have the kids, but we'd swap so that we would use our time, and whatever number of people we'd be somewhere. So that's how we got acquainted really well. And then he's the one that recommended me or suggested that I be part of that, forming the Study Center at UCLA. So it all sort of jives and things. During the five years that I was National Youth Director, one of the things that happens is... because it was '65 to '70, that was the timeframe that I was National Youth Director. Because during that time, I hired Hayashi... minister's son from Portland to be my intern. So I got monies for additional support. Then I divided that money, my salary plus that, and I was able to create two positions, one for services and one for the youth. So I hired Victor Shibata to be the services guy... no, not the services, but the organization guy, and he was Yellow Brotherhood, and Ron Wakabayashi to be the other half. So we had two split roles, and that was what happened afterwards. Then I was giving them mentorship, mentoring, and that all ended in 1970.

So when I left, I think I left maybe formally in '68 or '69, but my contract was up at the national convention in '70, so I still had a role with JACL when the murders took place in Chicago, because I had been the youth director up until that point. So when we came back to the hotel, because we were at one Hilton for the banquet, and we came back to the other Hilton, the Palmer House, and that was where the murder took place. So the police were there, and the reporters were trying to break the police barriers. And I remember distinctly that this one reporter was with this police captain, he said, "I'm with him." I said, "No, you're a reporter." And at that time, all the kids were in the telephone booths at the hotel making calls home, and so forth, and this guy was trying to listen in what was going on. So the person who backed me up was Norm Mineta, because he was there at the convention. Anyway, there was a lot of chaos and things like that, and that was my ending for my formal career with JACL.

BN: On that note...

AK: Yeah. So you talk about milestones or something that is so significant.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.