<Begin Segment 12>

VY: So, David, before the break, we were talking about... well, actually, let's back up a little bit and let's go back to finishing up talking about redress on the East Coast. And you had some things to share about what people did with their redress funds. And thought you might want to describe what that was all about, and how people received the letter and the compensation.

DS: Right. Well, I think the historical record will show that Congress passed legislation that would provide redress payments to the survivors of the internment camps, and I think there were about sixty thousand out of the hundred and twenty-thousand survivors that received a payment. The amount of redress was about one-point five billion dollars which, by today's standards, is a rounding error. But at the time, it was quite controversial to make a redress payment to individuals who perceived they were wronged by the U.S. government. And it brings up the whole question today about redress and how redress could be done to those who suffered from slavery. But that's a whole different story. I think the redress payments were distributed, and I received mine as well as a letter of apology signed by George Herbert Walker Bush. That letter was signed in 1990, almost ten years after the whole concept of redress began. And it was a long, I was a little taken aback today when I realized it took almost ten years, a decade of effort, by thousands of people to result in this letter as well as the monetary payment. When I speak to high school groups, I talk about redress and how important redress is. But the redress contains several parts, including funding for some of the work, I believe, that Densho is involved with, with the grant monies. But also individual payments as a recognition that the government performed a wrong and needed to create, to apologize. I sometimes ask high school students, what would they take if they had a choice? Either the payment, the twenty-thousand dollar payment, or the letter of apology. And it varies. I think at the beginning, most of the students would opt to take the money. But that seems to be changing, where more and more of the students would appreciate the value of the letter. And I have to, I would remind the students that a twenty-thousand dollar payment wouldn't buy you a new car these days. And so was that an underpayment for all the pain and suffering that the internees suffered? And so it creates a good basis for discussion among the listeners, the high school students. So I'm told that many people, recipients signed their check and spent it, or put it in a savings account. There was a group of Nisei here in New England, again, who decided that they would pay it back and pass it forward to new generations of students. Because when they were students, college age students, they were part of a program that enabled them to leave the camps and to continue their higher education at various colleges throughout the East Coast. And many of, some of these students ended up in fairly responsible, very responsible positions in New England. And so they banded together and created a fund where they pooled their twenty-thousand dollar redress payment into a scholarship fund, which is the Nisei Student Scholarship. New England Student Nisei Scholarship Fund.

VY: Is that the same as the Nisei Student Relocation Commemorative Fund?

DS: Yes, it is. So I don't know the official name, but to my embarrassment, I do sit on the investment committee for the fund, and I've been on the committee for over, about ten years of more. And so the investment committee is chaired by a Sansei who is absolutely brilliant, and he reports to the board of the scholarship fund. And we look at the investment strategy and the performance of the fund going forward. So it's an exciting program, because we begin to see next generation Asian Americans, first generation, second generation Asian Americans. And I was very lucky to attend one of the award ceremonies here in Massachusetts, and I sat next to a first new arrival family from Vietnam, and their daughter was the first to go to college, and she was a recipient of a scholarship from the fund, and, of course, she's going to Harvard.

VY: That's amazing. That's such meaningful work. I mean, to make those resources available to people that way, that's amazing.

DS: But it's a legacy of the Nisei, those that were supportive of JANE and the JACL and the Nisei Retirement Fund people, all banded together and created this fund that is still distributing scholarship monies as we speak.

VY: It sounds like it's doing quite well. Do you remember what brought you to become part of the investment committee?

DS: Well, there was another sort of, what can I say? A group called the Nisei Retirement Group, that was formed at about the time of JANE. And there was a study from maybe even the University of Washington circulating among the Japanese American community about issues relating to retirement. So there was a disparate group of Niseis who are not quite ready for retirement, but found the questionnaire interesting, so they formed an ad hoc group, the Nisei Retirement Group, and they began discussing retirement. But like many Japanese, the discussion quickly turned to Japanese cuisine and food. And the whole concept of the Nisei Retirement Group here in New England devolved or evolved into the annual Oshogatsu celebration in January of each year. And so Oshogatsu is a celebration here in New England that's been going on for well over forty years, and what's remarkable is that many if not the original founders of the Nisei group have passed on, but their progeny, their offspring, and then their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren are still having the Oshogatsu. So it's another example of how difficult it is here in New England to assemble a critical mass on any issue. But having home cooked Japanese food is a compelling reason to get together at least once a year. So it was the nucleus of the Nisei Retirement Group that funded the scholarship program.

VY: That's so interesting. And for some reason, when you were talking about the Oshogatsu, it reminded me of, way back in our previous conversation when you were talking about, there was like a small... I think it was like a community fair kind of thing, and your mom brought Japanese food to the fair?

DS: Yeah. It was in Milwaukee, they would have some kind of cross-cultural festival, and my mother would always bring sushi or whatever, Japanese foods. I think it was very popular at the Folk Fair Festival in Milwaukee.

VY: That's interesting. Everybody enjoys good food.

DS: Correct. Well, if you look at the popularity of sushi...

VY: That's true, that's true.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.