<Begin Segment 28>

IM: So approximately from what year until what year was the women's group, and was there an official name for it?

KM: Asian Women's Group. I don't know. I actually don't remember when it, if and when it actually ended.

IM: But by the time that you had entered into it, it had already been running for some time?

KM: I don't know. I don't think so, but it could have been. I'm curious about that, because I was asking, I wanted to ask Evelyn, but I should ask Miya Iwataki, because I think they were there at the very beginning of the women's group. Yeah, I kind of came in at the point where they were already studying, and I do think, though, I don't know if the skits were created yet, but I think I was part of helping them create some of the skits, but I don't know if I just acted in them.

IM: I didn't know you were an actor.

KM: Very much so.

IM: A thespian. Do you remember any of the content of the skits? Like what were the topics?

KM: The only one I remember is about making coffee for a meeting and running stuff off, things like that. And I don't really remember what else. We must have had like three or four different skits, we actually turned it in to the Chino men's prison. It must have been something they can relate to, I don't know. So must have had some skits that were more relatable, but we did it for them, kind of funny.

IM: Do you remember what role you played in the skit at all?

KM: No, there were some pictures, dim pictures in maybe Gidra. Gidra may have had some photos, I think. But I don't remember.

IM: And what was the reason why you chose the Chino men's prison to do these skits?

KM: I don't know if we chose it or if it was part of... you know, there was a thing called Joint Communications that came out of the JACS office. Tommy Chung was the one that was sort of leading that area of work, but they went in to visit people in the prisons. And I never did that per se, but I remember that Judy Chu did that with then-boyfriend Steve Yoshida. So I remember meeting Judy Chu at that time, but they were going into prisons, California, and I believe it was probably connected to that work, to go into Chino. They said, well, we can go into Chino, you had to get a lot of clearance stuff done, but we'd take a bus in there and we did it. I had nothing to do with arranging it.

IM: But do you remember the reception of these kids among the inmates?

KM: I don't.

IM: It's kind of an interesting, for me, it's just interesting that all of these kind of young Asian American women radicals would be doing this skit about coffee for the inmates.

KM: I don't know if we did the coffee one, but there were several skits. I just remember some of the, meeting some of the young men later, one guy in particular came out of Chino, but I don't remember at the time, I think it was so intense going in. And then I was also distracted because I had this young girl from Japan that was a daughter of the family I stayed with, and we were there for longer than we were supposed to be. And she had to get back to the family, I was very worried and nervous. I don't know if I was totally all present.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.