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TI: So going back to the resolution, 1978, what was the reaction of people? Or maybe "reaction" is not the right word. What were people thinking in terms of the likelihood of it happening? I'm thinking of, Mitch Maki, in his book, I think he calls it the "impossible dream," and he's talking about those early days of redress. What were you thinking and others internally at JACL?

FS: I think by the 1978 convention, the national council, the delegates, they were ready for it. I mean, it wasn't like it was a close vote. It wasn't unanimous, but it was very strong. It's like, we've been talking about this for eight years now, now we've got to do something. But that's kind of the delegates. Now, there's a lot of people, JACL members and other people in the community that, they weren't up to speed yet, so I'm not sure what they thought about it.

TI: But how about you and the ones close to it in terms of just, is this really going to happen? I mean, happen in terms of passing.

FS: Oh, I think everybody knew that it was a long shot. But that didn't really matter, because for us, it was, we weren't doing the smart thing, we were doing the right thing. And for the people in that campaign, redress was a quest. A quest is something where you go out and you search and you try and get something, when you're not even sure exactly where it is.

TI: So is that the feeling? That's what I'm trying to understand.

FS: I think that was the feeling.

TI: So it was almost like, this is almost like tilting at windmills.

FS: It was kind of like that, and then there was this feeling -- this is my personal feeling, okay? Because by now, my thinking on this has really matured, and I was getting into that really pissed off kind of attitude. The more you learn, it gets to you. And it's kind of like, to not do anything would be dishonorable. That if we don't get it, which was probably highly likely, at least our children can't say that we didn't try. And if there is no redress, it's not because we didn't try to get it or demand it, it's because Congress wouldn't give it to us. I mean, it's just kind of like Victory High School, you demand it, and you try and get it, whether you get it or not, it's different. But the main point is that we tried to get it. And that was... there's a saying that virtue is its own reward, and I never really knew what that meant until I worked on the redress campaign. Because the people worked on redress, just working on it was the reward. You didn't actually have to get it, but it made you feel that you were honoring all the people who suffered. I think the only thing worse than that is not trying to get it. I really, it kind of gets down to it.

TI: Yeah, I like that. In those early days, who were the champions for redress in that, kind of that '78 to '80 biennium?

FS: Well, there were a lot of people, and some people are more visible than others, and I don't even know who all the people are.

TI: But the ones who impacted you?

FS: I would say that Clifford Uyeda, to me he's like, when I think of redress, he's the guy who, between 1976 and 1978, and then even after that, he wrote all these articles in the PC about redress. I don't think I've maybe read a lot of them... and a lot of it was just educating people on what happened and how bad it was, and then very systematically talked about all these different aspects of it. I remember reading that, thinking, gosh, how does he have the energy to research and write this stuff every week and get it published, and come up with other interesting things to say in his article? I mean, he was very committed to this.

TI: And so I'm trying to remember my JACL history, so Cliff, when was he national president, what period was that?

FS: He was president from 1978 until 1980, so in the same year they passed the resolution.

TI: It was just two years? For some reason, I thought it might be longer, but it was just the two-year period?

FS: Just those two years. Because in 1980, Jim Tsujimura was elected president, from Portland.

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