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BT: And still part of JACL, I was also on the committee to put the wording on the plaque for Tule Lake, because there were, a lot of the camps and so on were beginning to make plaques to commemorate their existence and so on. And so we looked at the Manzanar plaque that was already done, and started out with, "This was one of ten America's concentration camps," and so on. And even the word "American's concentration camps" was sensitive because the people, the Jewish people, felt that we shouldn't use the term "America's concentration camps." But we differentiate that by saying that, well, the camps in Europe were death camps and not concentration camps, and ours were concentration camps. So we defined it and made it separate, and it was acceptable then to use "America's concentration camps," and that's what we started to use. And then, because of my experience in Tule Lake, and I was on the committee going to Sacramento for these meetings, and I wanted to put, add to the plaque wording that, "it later became a segregated camp," for Tule Lake, because it was a segregated camp. But the committee refused to accept that, and the Nisei person that was representing the state plaque committee or whatever it was, he said, "Ben, it's too wordy," and won't accept that. So I resigned from the committee to try to make a point of adding that. And I said, "You guys are not working with history. History says that it became a segregated camp." Said, "No, we don't want people to have to ask questions about it," and they wanted to let it go. And a lot of the people that were on the committee went from Sacramento to Tule Lake directly and then left because they answered "yes-yes" and then left camp. And so they didn't want the bad name of "segregated camp" as a bad name for Tule Lake, and that's why I understand was the reason. But anyway, so even the wording, right now, it just says like any other camp without the word "segregated camp." So I was governor at the time, so I had to make the dedication at that time. So in the program, I was able to put "and later became a segregated camp," so I was able to get away with it that way, but I couldn't get the wording on the plaque. And the plaque is with a monument and everything, it looks nice right now, but it has nothing to do with describing that as a segregated camp. In fact, there was another group that put up another camp that says it was a segregated camp. And, in fact, the town of Tule Lake, which is nearby there, calls it a segregated camp. So even on the road sign it says it's a segregated camp, but on the plaque that we had to develop, it says nothing about segregated camp.

So that's the sensitivity of all that, the controversy that occurred when how to answer these questions, in the 1960s, it's, all those came together. And now, finally, we're talking about maybe JACL will learn to at least forgive us, forgive the Tule Lake dissenters and recognize the fact that many of them did it as a form of protest and not because of disloyalty to the United States. So we're hoping that that resolution will eventually pass. About three years ago when they had the San Jose Council, National Council meeting in San Jose, I went over there and tried to get a microphone to use so that I could tell the people to go back to their respective homes and find out, find the people that answered the "loyalty question," and find out why they answered the question. That's all I wanted to say on the microphone, and Floyd Shimomura was the national president when I was elected to become the national vice president of general operations. So I worked under him, and so I met him in San Jose at that conference, so I had lunch with him and I explained to him what I was planning to do, and explained to him, and he admitted that, "Yeah, if I had to answer that question, I would have problems myself." So I thought he understood what I was talking about, and that he would yield me the microphone, because I was not a delegate and therefore I could not just stand up and talk. So I wanted them to yield the microphone to me so that I could ask the people to go back and find out why they answered "no-no," because I knew that the answers would be very interesting. But Floyd Shimomura just won't yield me the microphone, and I found out later that there were veterans who were in the JACL organization, and they had told the office of JACL officers that, "If you appease the 'no-no' group at any time," that they will drop their membership with JACL. And JACL, at that time, was having a rough time losing membership, and their budget was very tight as a result because they were losing it, so they didn't want to lose any more people, so they just backed off and didn't even mention it at all about Tule Lake and all that. So that's the reason that I got, that they didn't yield me the microphone.

So I've been fighting and trying to get the thing about, because the Kibeis got a wrong deal because of their experience in Japan, and the reason that they protested was because they protested in Japan and they recognized it, and here our own government did not recognize that American citizenship. So I'm trying to justify and at least get the people to know that that's probably why most of the Kibeis answered, and then they get there and they try to convince others to answer the questions "no-no" or not at all. And that's my duty now, and on the last Thursday of each month, I go to the Rosie the Riveter in Richmond, the Rosie the Riveter Museum, where at Thursday at two p.m., we show the Blossoms and Thorns DVD on the cut flower business on the Japanese Americans' experience before and after the war, and then after that twenty-minute movie, then I go into the story about Tule Lake and about the "loyalty questionnaire" and why people answered these questions in the negative as a form of protest, and our constitution guarantees individual rights to protest as part of the constitution. So that's my story, Virginia. I hope people will learn something from this. [Laughs]

VY: Well, thank you so much for being here today and telling us all this information and telling us your story. Before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to share with us?

BT: I think I covered everything. It's been a long while. But as long as I can, my mind stays active, I want to continue to do this because of the fact that some politicians are still talking about using our Japanese American experience as a precedent to do the same thing to other racial groups like Muslims or people with different sexual orientation and so on. So I figured I'd better keep telling people that, hey, it happened to us here in our U.S. history, and we don't want it to happen again to anybody, any person or any individuals, any groups, this is in our constitution. So that's why I'm alive.

VY: Thank you.

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