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BN: So in the last issue, you wrote this long essay kind of outlining the history of Gidra. And you wrote that there was kind of this philosophical dispute that led to a split of this original group a few months in. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. I know some of the early founders of the group kind of move on at this point, and then other new people come in as well.

MM: Yeah. So the original group included, as I mentioned, Colin Watanabe, but also, there were three Chinese American women who, they didn't come as a group either, but they were each individually very political, very persuasive. That was Dinora Gil, Suzie Wong, and Laura Ho. And they, I think they were in that mix because they were at UCLA and they were relating to the whole student movement there. But I think from the beginning, I think we had, I wouldn't say political differences, but differences in priority about what we wanted to do during that time. And I think some were more interested in immediate organizing, like maybe labor organizing on campus, the kind of confrontational things, well, different things. But we thought of a longer-term building process, and process that involved community. But I think the three of them didn't have that much connection to a specific community, and they were also engaged in some struggles on their own about their identity, but I think from the beginning, they didn't see newspaper work as their mission. And then for Colin, I think, I don't know what it is. After he left, he's been sort of hard to reach, and think there have been different efforts, but I think he's moved on from them, so he wasn't that interested in reengaging at any time. So I don't really know, but I think he kind of dropped out of the whole Asian American movement scene, and he moved to the Bay Area. But the new crop -- and then there were many other people who took part in it during that time. I'm naming a few people, but there are quite a few other people who were there in that first year, the first twelve months. As I mentioned earlier, the first issue of Gidra was April of 1969. The bombing of Cambodia took place in May of 1970, a year later. By that time, on the UCLA campus, the police riots that I spoke of earlier, a lot of activity going on with the mainstream peace movement. Sometimes as Asian American peace activists, we had to engage with them about the mainstream movement's racism as well. So we were working on that, but one thing that all of the activity on the UCLA campus, marches and rallies and demonstrations, all these things going on, faculty were becoming involved, because there were a lot of progressive faculty, too. And so it was becoming something that you could not ignore. And people who were taking Asian American Studies classes for the first time, there was a great interest in it, and so I think all the activities around May 1970 period really politicized a whole new group of Asian Americans at UCLA, but also on other campuses. Because things were going on at Cal State Long Beach and other places, too. But politicized us to the extent that, like one of our Gidra core people, Steve Tatsukawa, got (beaten by the police), Colin got arrested, so the two of them were involved in all that. So people like Duane Kubo, Doug Aihara, Jeff Furumura, Amy Murakami, Tom (Okabe), the number of people, a whole new core of people came to Gidra to start working on Gidra. So from the second to the fifth year, the last four years of Gidra, that core of people that I mentioned, and a number of others, became the mainstays of Gidra.

BN: And then you also wrote in that piece that there was kind of a shift in the way decision making was made around that same time. But I actually want to back up a little, and one of those things notable about Gidra is that there's no editor listed. It's like things are decided kind of collaboratively presumably. So I'm wondering if you could just walk us through how that worked, like how does an issue, how did an issue actually come together? And maybe the implication is that it sort of changed around the middle of '70. So if you could talk about it, like how it was before and maybe after that time?

MM: Yeah. I think, you know, when we started Gidra, I think we kind of naturally functioned the way we thought other newspapers functioned. And even though we didn't name the editor and things, and so we had a sort of hierarchy of decision-making, and I was part of that hierarchy. And I think one of the things that happened was that we were becoming more and more like traditional structures. And so other people had to raise issues about how are things decided here? What are the policies, and kind of challenging us to think about, okay, if we're going to do this long term, we need more, like a collective understanding of things. And I would say, for example, one voice, Evelyn Yoshimura, she came before the May 1970 period, or Bruce Iwasaki. I think a number of those people in that core raised questions not only about how decisions were made and the hierarchy, the structure, but also about male chauvinism, other shortcomings in the work that we were doing. So it was a challenge for me personally because it was something that I was learning. I think my natural tendency was to be a decision-maker, be a leading force, and to put out my opinion. I don't talk a lot, but I put out my opinions. And in a way, I think I was not as conscious of the collective process or what other people were thinking. And so I think the work in Gidra, I think, allow me to really question... I mean, people struggled with me, "That's not right. You can't make decisions by yourself," different things. And so it was a very good process for all of us to get better at what we did, being better human beings. And I would say even though Gidra as a newspaper had this big, broad impact, and, as we see today, fifty, sixty years later, still has some resonance. But for me and for a lot of people that worked on Gidra, what you don't see though, the process of working together, the meetings, the discussions, how you learned to depend on each other, who's going to get this done and that done? All of those things strengthened us, and I think that's not captured anywhere, but it's something that brought us together. I mean, in a sense, that's why, like, many of us are very good friends after all these years. You could see how people ask, "Why do camps have reunions?" "Why do the 442 have reunions? They're just reliving bad times. But it's not true. It's like when people work together under harsh conditions or against the common enemy or doing something to... really, you build that trust and rapport and collectivity and friendship and all of that. So I think that aspect of Gidra is not in the newspaper. Maybe it is to some degree.

BN: I think it comes through.

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