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VY: Is there any more you wanted to say about the people you mentioned? Or are there others that come to mind at the moment who were influential at this period of time?

DS: I think it was Alex and Glen Fukushima who continued, who brought the concept together. I'm not sure where they got the idea, what the origins of the idea came, but there was this organization, JANE, that seemed to provide the framework for the next step forward and that was the reestablishment of the JACL.

VY: And you say reestablishment, because it's my understanding that there was a JACL chapter there many years ago, like in the late '40s, but it was dormant for a long time.

DS: That's right, dormant for a long time. And what's interesting is that they're in a discussion revolving around the formation of the reformation of the JACL. There were some naysayers who still held some hostility toward the organization because of its support or non-support during the internment.

VY: Were those strong voices? Were those voices in the group itself of JANE?

DS: Yes. I can think of one individual who was quite vocal about the sense of abandonment by the JACL during those difficult years during the internment. But I think that was the, perhaps, the only strong voice in opposition for rejoining the JACL.

VY: Can I ask if that person was, what generation that person was? Were they Nisei?

DS: He was... he's a Nisei. He was a Silver Star, he was a member of the 442nd, fought bravely in Italy and France, won the Silver Star for bravery. Came back and was very angry because his family was in, I believe, Minidoka, while he was risking his life in France. So he harbored this anger until the day he died, passed away.

VY: And was that anger directed at the JACL because he felt like he kind of did what he was told to do?

DS: Well, I think there was anger directed to the JACL, but I think superseding his anger or overcoming his anger, he headed up, he was the co-head of the redress subcommittee within the New England chapter of the JACL. So he channeled, I think, part of his anger toward the organization by focusing on the organization's soon to become primary focus, and that is on the redress issue.

VY: So did this individual, he went ahead and became part of the JACL, the New England chapter?

DS: Oh yes, very much so. He was an outspoken critic, but also a staunch supporter of the redress issue. And he was a critical member of the team that drove the redress, support for redress here in New England.

VY: And was this the first time that you began to learn about redress, or had you been talking about it before?

DS: I think it was only during the early years of the New England JACL that, in February of '79, '80 timeframe where redress became more of a national issue, and the chapter, the New England chapter, picked up the issue of redress. And there began discussions about whether, what to do for their redress effort. And as the concept of the Commission on Redress began to take shape, there began a growing enthusiasm about holding the redress, the commission hearings in Boston.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.