Densho Digital Repository
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Floyd Shimomura Interview
Narrator: Floyd Shimomura
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Emeryville, California
Date: March 11, 2019
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-466-13

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TI: So let's shift gears, and tell me how you first got involved in JACL.

FS: Well, my parents were members of the JACL, and primarily because of the health insurance program that they had. But when you become a member, you get the Pacific Citizen every week. So it used to come in and then it was just like it was always laying around someplace, and then when I got a little older, like in high school, I actually started reading. And I learned a lot about World War II and 442nd and things like that, and I learned a little bit more about camp, but even in the PC at that time, they really don't talk about what the camp experience was.

TI: Why do you think that was? I mean, there was no censorship.

FS: Yeah, I think there's a couple reasons. One is everybody knows how bad it was so you don't have to remind people of that. But to the extent that they would talk about camp, it would either be like a reunion thing, or they have some pictures of people at a dance or something like "Remember When." So it wasn't like they totally ignored it, but what they focused in on was more the happy side of camp. And there was no focus on, gee, it was bad, we were victims.

TI: There's this injustice that needs to be...

FS: No, they didn't focus on that. And then the 442nd and 100th, those guys were all heroes. So at that time, I learned about the JACL, and also I was thinking, gee, what an interesting time to live through. Because I thought, gee, being in the 442nd, that sounds like it would have been a real cool experience. I mean, now I don't think that way, but when you're in high school, you're thinking, that would have been a real opportunity to do something for the community. But then I said, well, that was the old days and now the community is going down. So I said, by the time I get big, there will be no real community. There won't be anything left to do, of that same kind of heroic thing. So you can see kind of where my mind was at that time, that I really wanted to do something of that same magnitude. But I just felt like the time for that crisis period had passed, and so everything would be just more day to day kind of thing, maybe individual achievement in your career as an artist or whatever. But no, I had no conception of the redress campaign or anything like that.

TI: Well, you're just getting involved in, it seems like the local chapter level.

FS: Yeah, you know. Like the local chapter level is that they have a crab feed in February and a picnic in June.

TI: So then what happened? What turned the light bulb on in terms of getting involved with the national level?

FS: Well, then after I went to university, I learned more about what happened in World War II. And then after I went to Japan, I got a big review of what happened in Japan during the war and how poor people were. I mean, we suffered, but they suffered, too. Not only that, they had people dropping bombs and everything. It was a bad place all over. I mean, it was so bad that, as poor as we were after we got out of camp, we were sending them stuff. And I started thinking, boy, they must have really been hard up, because we had almost nothing ourselves, right? So I think my whole thinking kind of widened and deepened a little bit more. And then I learned more in law school about the law and the Constitution. And although they did hardly anything on the internment cases or anything, it was like a little footnote thing. But after I graduated, I moved to Sacramento and I took a job at the state attorney general's office and I joined the Sacramento chapter of the JACL. And there was a guy named Percy Masaki there, who was in real estate, and he was like Mr. JACL. And he kept all the books and records and money and everything, and then after I was there two years, he said, "Hey, Floyd, you want to be president?" I said, "I don't really know anybody, or I don't know what to do." And he said, "Don't worry about that. I know everything, I'll help you. You'll do a good job." And so I said, "Oh, okay."

TI: You were like in your late twenties at this point?

FS: Yeah, well, I was twenty-five when I graduated from law school, so I was maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven. And became president. And then after I got sworn in, I was meeting with Percy and I said, "What do I need to do?" And he said, "You only have one thing that you have to do as president. Just remember this and you'll be okay." And I said, "What is it?" He says, "You have to find your successor." [Laughs] And that's when I kind of had this feeling like I was probably the sixteenth person that he tried to get to be president.

TI: Well, I was going to say, it does feel extraordinary, I'm thinking back to that time, this is like mid-'70s. And at least in Seattle, the Niseis weren't that willing to give up their power, right? I mean, a lot of times they really wanted to control things like the JACL or the other JA organizations in places like Seattle and Sacramento. And that as a Sansei, it wasn't that, you make it sound like they didn't want it, but in many ways, didn't they still want control?

FS: Oh, they always knew they had the control. I mean, Percy really was the president, right, I was just like the puppet here. But, see, that was okay with me, because he knew what I was supposed to do, so he made me look good. But I think the other thing is I was a lawyer, and Bob Matsui, who later became a congressman, he was the chapter president maybe four or five years before me, and so they saw me and they said, okay, we'll get another guy like Bob Matsui, because Bob was a good president and these young lawyer types are always real ambitious and energetic and want to do something. But I always had this concern, it's like nobody knows who I am, because I grew up in Winters, I didn't grow up in Sacramento. I mean, how do they know, why trust me with this kind of job? So when I used go to around and talk to people and introduce myself, like, "Hi, I'm your chapter president, my name is Floyd Shimomura," they always would ask me, "Oh, where are you from?" I don't know why, they don't ask me what I do for a living or anything. And I said, "Oh, I'm not Sacramento, I grew up in Winters." And they go, "Oh, okay." And I got the feeling that, like, "You're okay now." I didn't have to tell them anything else. And later on, I ran into a couple people who used to live in Winters. So in hindsight... at that time I didn't know about VJ Day and all this stuff that happened in Winters, and the "we don't want Japs" signs and everything. But thinking back on it, I think what their thinking was, anybody that grew up there, he must be one of us.

TI: Interesting. So you think he had, like, street cred by...

FS: Like I came out of that place.

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