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KU: Maybe we could shift into the redress campaign and how that came about. Because there were multiple organizations involved in that.

MM: Right. You know, I think you probably have already, and probably will be interviewing a few more people who can talk more in depth about the redress issues. But I think in L.A., particularly for Little Tokyo, by the time that we sort of shifted into the redress campaign, a lot of the redevelopment and the changes that were taking place in Little Tokyo were being, sort of, consummated, being completed. So the Kajima building that they put up, the Little Tokyo Towers that the community wanted, that got put up, Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, as a place for cultural instructors to work, all of those things were almost at the end of the redevelopment phase of Little Tokyo. No, there weren't evictions or mass evictions taking place. And prior to people in LTPRO becoming involved, this is a... I don't know how to explain it, but it's a very symbiotic relationship between people who were studying Asian American history, and writing about it, researching, people who were already living there who were maybe Nisei age or older Sansei who were exploring various issues about, maybe not redress, but other things about how do we capture and how do we explain this experience of Japanese Americans? Because on the one hand, it's very much in keeping with the racist history of this country, but on the other hand, it's a very unique experience at the time, and it's something that really generated interest among all generations of people. So there are Nisei activists, Japanese American Citizens League, a few elected officials that we had who were working on the issue, but also, there were a lot of Sanseis who were intrigued by it, wanted to do something about it, angered by it, by learning about the experience and really want to advocate for it. So that's how we kind of... it was both conscious and a natural transition. And so I think in 1980 we had a founding conference and became the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations that had chapters in various cities. Because we knew that this campaign was going to be a long term issue that required a national effort. It wasn't just about L.A. So taking the modest infrastructure that we had, we pulled ourselves together and started working on the redress issue.

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