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BN: So I wanted to just step back for a minute, just to clarify the chronology. What you're talking about was the YB House. Are you here when that happens or is this going on while you're...

NN: The YB House was purchased when I was in Vietnam.

BN: Oh, okay.

NN: And when I returned from Vietnam, I was gone for two years, so the YB House was starting to wind down because the younger membership of the YB House at that time, they were graduating high school, and there were no influx of new membership, younger membership in the leadership of the Yellow Brotherhood was somewhat getting burnt out because we're talking about three years down the line and they're young men themselves. So when I was discharged, probably the Yellow Brotherhood House was in a transition phase where it became somewhat of a halfway house for Asian Americans to have a place to stay post-incarceration.

BN: And then did you have a connection with that directly?

NN: I guess my connection would be that I'm living in Crenshaw, and I know the cast of characters that's involved within the organization. And I got to know some of the organizers of the Yellow Brotherhood, some of the ex-Ministers, especially like Victor Shibata, who I guess was involved in community work at that time, I think he was working for the, him and Warren Furutani were part of the junior JACL, they were doing national organizing. So I knew Victor, and I knew the status of what was going on at the house, and I knew the brothers that were staying there as part of the halfway house, they were people that I knew and I grew up with, so I was connected in that way. But my primary, I'm going to call it concentration work area, was in Little Tokyo at the JACS office.

BN: And then when you were at the JACS office, were you being paid, were you a staffperson, or was this kind of a side thing?

NN: You know, I was part of the core body of membership there. But I guess how the JACS office worked at that time was that the JACS board, I don't know if they purchased the Sun Building or how that came about, but they gave the top floor, the section, the fifth floor to the Japanese American Community Service - Asian Involvement people, and I think they put Miya Iwataki and Ray Tasaki on payroll to run this Sansei community-based serve the people type programs, and what Miya and Ray did is that they collectivized their check, so everyone that was working there, including me, had a piece. And it wasn't a lot, but we called it, at that time, survival money, buy some cigarettes and get the Tokyo Gardens special on Friday, the char siu, siu mai, anyway, so you got some gas money and survival money and stuff, which was appreciated. Because there was obviously no economic incentive for being there, from Jump Street, because we were there to try to change all that anyway.

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