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TI: So we're going to start up again, John, so we're going to jump. I mentioned earlier, ten and a half years ago we interviewed you about when you first started JACL in September, and you became the, Cliff Uyeda appointed you the head of the National Redress Committee. And then we talked about a couple of key meetings, one meeting with the congressional members, Senator Inouye, Senator Matsunaga, Representative Mineta and Representative Matsui, that led to kind of going down this path of the commission hearings. But then a key meeting following that was for your committee to decide which way to go, and you talked about that meeting and how, with a 4-2 vote, the decision was go forward with the commission hearings. So I just wanted to pick it up there, and this next part, it doesn't have to be necessarily just a retelling, because we can look at books and find out all the details, I'm really looking from your perspective, the important things that aren't being talked about, or people don't know about, or maybe some of the feelings you felt or how you felt. So just as a start, what was the reaction from the decision of the committee? Let's do the hearings, how did people react to that?

JT: Well, you know, quite honestly, I really didn't want to do a commission. My feeling was, this is about honor. I mean, redress to me was always about honor and giving the Nisei something. And for me, the feeling was, they deserve to have us go fight this thing on the hill. Everyone has said it's impossible, you're never going to be able to do this. So we've gotten farther than anyone would have expected. By that point in time, I was already starting to do a lot of public stuff. I launched this thing into a public arena, because my belief was, until the American public agreed with us, or the majority, we would never get any bill passed. There was so much hatred against us. This was during the trade wars between the U.S. and Japan. So I thought we only had a limited amount of time and resources and energy, let's just go to the hill and slug this one out. And if we lose, then we're losing, we're doing what was expected, but at least we give the Nisei the sense that we tried our best. But then I realized, we deserve, or they deserve for us to give them more than "we tried our best." And I was convinced... I was convinced by Dan Inouye when he said, "You'll get more publicity out of this than all the money the JACL could ever raise. If you do this right, and you get the kind of publicity you can get. If it's done right, then that's one of the most important things you're gonna do whether you get money or not." And I believed what he was saying, because I'd already started doing a lot of that exploration and sending press releases. It's shooting from the hip, you don't know who's going to accept what, and you can be as provocative in press releases as you want, but if they don't want to talk to you, they don't talk to you. You don't get on the air and all of that. So I thought, "This is a good avenue for us to take. At least this way we get this debate out in the public. What I really wanted was to have a sense of direction, whatever it was. My sense was compensation bill, but we had this vote that said commission. I was convinced this was the right decision. I didn't like it, but I realized, this is what we had to do.

And so what happened to me was Ikejiri called me about four days after the meeting on the hill, and said Norm Mineta has changed his mind. Norm says, "Oh, the hell with a commission," in this meeting with the big four. He said, "Let's just go for it," and Sparky agreed with him. But Ikejiri called me and said, "Norm's changed his mind, he thinks this is really the wise path to take." That changed everything for me. I mean, when Norm Mineta tells you, "This is what I think is best for us," he's not saying, "for you guys who are Japanese Americans," he's saying, "for us who grovel at the base level of the community and fight for what we get." He was part of what we were fighting for. And so he was the one who, for me, was really convincing, that this was the route we had to take. So when we made that decision and we publicized it, we sent out a press release, this was the JACL decision, I knew there would be hell to pay. And I told everyone on the committee, "I want you guys to stand up to what's going to happen, because it's going to get really ugly out there."

TI: Because what you thought would happen is, so 1978, the resolution was passed to push for legislation, and then you guys go behind the scenes and all of a sudden something else was being proposed that actually takes them sideways, so that's what you were anticipating.

JT: Yeah. And we already knew that people like William Hohri and some of the others were on the attack.

TI: Well, the whole Seattle community, right?

JT: Yeah, this was a bloody mess up in Seattle. I mean, I kind of gained a reputation up there like, "Don't ever come into our territory again."

TI: Just a side note, when we first started Densho twenty-three years ago, there was a meeting, said, "Well, we should get national JACL involved," right? And the comments that rained down on that person, like, "Oh, they can't be trusted," I think it all came from this, because there were some people that were involved with the redress, still feeling betrayed, even though redress had passed, right?

JT: Yeah. What really kind of bothered me a lot, quite honestly, was, I started seeing letters to the editor or started seeing articles one place or another. And what I saw was "Masaoka in cooperation in '42, and Tateishi and commission in '78," or '80, I guess it was. And I just, it really, really bothered me. And I thought, "Is this the legacy my kids are going to grow up with, knowing that this is what people thought of me?" And it wasn't that I cared that much, it just bothered me.

TI: Why were you so aligned with that decision? Was it overall JACL, you had Cliff Uyeda and all these other people, why were you kind of painted as the villain?

JT: Because I was the chair, and it was known that I stacked the deck. I don't know if I mentioned this before --

TI: You did, you talked about all that. But that was all sort of behind the scenes, though, people didn't really know, right?

JT: People knew. You cannot hide the fact that all of a sudden you have Bill Marutani on the committee, that I appointed him to be there, knowing that Bill would only vote one way. It was an absolute guaranteed vote. You know, he's a friend of the four Nikkeis on the hill, so of course he's going to vote for what they think is the right course. And I didn't expect it to split the way it did, because Ray Okumura was the one person I thought was going to go the other way.

TI: Right, so you were expecting 3-3, and that you would break the tie.

JT: Yeah. That's why I needed Bill to get that 3-3 vote, otherwise it would have been 4-2 the other way, or 3-2. I needed that tying vote. So that's why I bought Bill on. And so the word going on was, "Tateishi stacked the committee to get this commission, he's kowtowing to Inouye." What nobody knows is that the person who made me really convinced this was the way to go was Norm Mineta saying, "I think this is probably the best way to do it." That convinced me absolutely, because once Norm said that, and I found out from Ikejiri, I realized, to go any other direction would be foolish. Because it wasn't... what I realized about the politics of all this, is that it wasn't to make a good show, it was to do the right thing and make it right for the Nisei. We need to take this as far as we can. I wasn't convinced still that we would win this battle, because everyone said, "You can't do it." I mean, anyone who knew politics, who I knew, said, "It's impossible. You have to get to Congress."

TI: And so in some ways, you took a more difficult path just to, in some ways, like you said earlier, almost prolong the discussion, debate on a national level by having the commission hearings, it would stay visible.

JT: Yeah, that was the whole thing. I mean, there was a power struggle within the JACL between the traditional JACL, us, and the LEC, the other group that wanted to push harder on the legislation. So what they said was, "Well, John's had his time, he can do education because that's what he does," forgetting that for five year, I'd been lobbying the Congress. But education, to me, was really important, because I thought, okay, if we don't get the money, and everyone's saying we'll never get the money, what's important is that the American public understand who and what we were, and that we were the ones who were betrayed, and that we never betrayed this country. We were never traitors to the United States, it was the United States that undercut the foundations of democracy. They threw us into prison as a racist act, and that's the legacy the Nisei had.

TI: Right.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.