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IM: This is part two of our oral history interview with Kathy Masaoka. We're here in her home in Los Angeles on a nice warm L.A. afternoon. It's almost 3 p.m., and I'm happy we can continue the conversation. Where we left off last time, we left off around 1971-1972, we had a very lively conversation the last time we met up. I think where we left off basically was we were talking about your entrance into the Community Workers Collective and some of the resistance you faced in your family with your mother, and then some of the, I guess, the beginning of your marriage with Mo. So can you... I guess we can start there and keep things moving, but basically, I would love to know more about how you and Mo got together.

KM: Well, I think that at that point in my life, I was twenty-four, and I think a little bit naïve and not really as strong as an individual or as a woman at that point. And so there were people that, especially men, that were more leaders in our movement. And in the collective, both Mo and Shinya were considered, or looked upon as sort of the theoretical leaders in terms of the Little Tokyo work. There were other centers, other individuals, but for the collective, Shinya and Mo were like that. And I think that if I look back on it, I didn't really know very much. I wasn't that experienced, I really didn't know a lot of theory, and I looked up to people like Shinya and Mo and were very much, I don't think I looked at myself as an equal, and there was a twelve-year difference. And so when Mo asked many of us, talked about overt racism, a lot of us would be like, at least myself, and I think a few of us would be like, "Overt racism?" I mean, I was never called a name directly that I can recall. Were there small things that happened, yeah, but direct overt racism, no. And so it was like, wow, I didn't really comprehend what he was talking about. So there was a big gap, but I think it was more like the looking up to somebody and being sort of caught up in that, I think.

IM: So Mo and Shinya, they were kind of like the heavy hitters?

KM: Yeah.

IM: And at that point, because you were young and didn't think of yourself as a [inaudible] is what I'm...

KM: Well, I did. I mean, we had a women's group, I think I talked about that, and we were always trying to combat chauvinism and issues. But I mean, I was still really learning at that point, and part of me was still, I think, also back in the... I think I may have mentioned this, too, but I think I believed a more in somewhat spiritual things and things that were not necessarily tangible, and intuition and things like that, and I felt like that wasn't acceptable in that period of time in terms of politics. And there wasn't a place for that kind of sensibility. So yeah, I did feel not on the same level, I guess.

IM: So why do you think there wasn't so much space for that at the time in the collective?

KM: The politics were very hard. We had a lot of criticism, self criticism, discipline, expectations of people. I think we were going from morning 'til night with meetings, so we met in the collective from ten-thirty to twelve-thirty twice a week. And all of us were expected to do certain things. And as that period was getting more intense in terms of political thought and differences, and being sort of like, understanding all that, I was just trying to keep up with that kind of thinking, it was kind of alien to me, actually, in a lot of ways.

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IM: Anything about these self-criticism sessions?

KM: Well, I mean, we had them pretty frequently. They were supposed to be helpful, and I think they were, but we were trying to become different people. Like we were becoming socialist men and women, and we studied Che and things like that. And so I can't remember, maybe it's harsh at times, but I don't really remember that. I mean, it wasn't fun exactly, but I think they were helpful. But to me, the whole mood of everything was very serious, it was serious times and we were dealing with a lot of issues. The Black Panthers were being killed and we were just trying to develop our perspective in politics. So everybody was very serious about things and there were divisions that were occurring, some friendships that you had were not friendships anymore, depending on your politics. So it was a hard period. Not a lot of... I mean, we also had fun, I don't want to say we didn't have fun because we were young. We did have fun, but there was a certain, I think our collective was probably a little more disciplined than others.

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