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BN: I have a couple places I want to go, but with regard to, you talk about the exchanges with these other newspapers which made me wonder what your relationship, if any, was with the other Japanese American papers. I know you personally at Gidra, in particular, in general, were often critical of the Rafu Shimpo, but there was also newspapers as well. Did you have any exchange or relationship with kind of the old Japanese American media?

MM: Not per se, but Rafu Shimpo, we had that parody issue called "Rafu Shrimpo." And we criticized Ellen by name, Ellen Endo was the editor of the Rafu Shimpo at the time. And I guess her failure to cover or to not cover accurately the Noguchi hearings at the time, but I'm not going to get into that, anyway. But I think, more than that, we wanted to have a relationship with them. I think the established Japanese newspapers, Japanese American newspapers, the Pacific Citizen, Kashu Mainichi, Rafu Shimpo, I think they were struggling to figure out how to respond to us. And I think on the one hand, liberal progressive Nisei activists and people who were civically engaged, they wanted to support us. So they would complain about language and different things that kind of rubbed them the wrong way. And I understand that, I mean, sometimes it's hard to hear. Not just the cuss words, but the things we say without sort of, very few filters. And I think, yeah, so we never had a, what would you call it, a fraternal or cordial relationship with other papers. But I think individuals like Kats Kunitsugu, Sue Embrey, people in JACL, Ellen Endo, I think all of them struggled with how to look at us. But I ended up working with all of them personally.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.