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IM: So around this time you said four couples got married, including you. So can you tell me more about you and Mark?

KM: Well, so Mark and I got married, Duane and Lucy got married, Dennis Kobata and Jan Tokumaru got married, and Tamiko Hirano and David Monkawa got married. So we all had small weddings and we had this big celebration in the park. Not Elysian, another park. So Mark was in the collective earlier, the Community Workers Collective, but we were not, there was no relationship, he had a girlfriend at the time. I don't know, I guess it was when we were working on East Wind stuff that maybe he was starting to work at General Motors or Ford, Ford maybe. And then my sister also got a job at Ford, so we were all, kind of lived nearby. I think just from working together, developed a relationship.

IM: Who made the first move?

KM: Oh, I probably made the first move, oddly.

IM: Oddly.

KM: Yeah.

IM: So your political work kind of overlapped?

KM: Yeah, the organization overlapped, yeah.

IM: So I guess during your budding relationship, do you feel like you kind of helped each other politically as well as just personally?

KM: Well, I mean, yes and no. I mean, probably because I think the overlapping work might have been LTPRO, and then our investment in Little Tokyo, I suppose. So those kind of discussions overlapped and we had meetings at our house at times. And probably some discussions around some of the ideas.

IM: So was your work in LTPRO primarily through the worker organizing or was it through other...

KM: It was mainly the worker organizing, and I want to say a little bit around reparations because about that time, East L.A. Outreach Team, I guess we were still in existence. We're doing some work around reparations in Boyle Heights, we did a program, a bilingual program around reparations, and we also did a house meeting and a survey to gauge what people felt about it, because we had built relationships with people in Boyle Heights and new people, so we did a program and we did a survey. And that was kind of tied to LTPRO, because LTPRO was starting to look at reparations, but mainly those areas, reparations and workers...

IM: The bilingual meeting, do you remember, what was the energy like? The bilingual, I guess, reparations meeting in Boyle Heights. What was the energy like, do you remember who was there?

KM: Well, we had it at Konkokyo church, not very big, but we had it there. And I remember we had a slideshow. I think June Hibino might have been the speaker. I didn't know her well, she had just come down, I think, from the Bay Area, and I remember Henry Mori from the Rafu Shimpo coming in, and I don't think I knew him by face, so then I said, "Oh, would you like Japanese-speaking or English?" and he got very offended. It was like, I don't know why, and I think he even wrote about it in the Rafu, like, I was confronted by people asking if I wanted the Japanese, and it's like, "What's the big deal about that?" It was a good thing.

IM: He thought you thought everyone looks the same.

KM: You never know who speaks Japanese or English only. So you can't tell. But that's what I remember, I remember greeting people coming in. The program I don't remember, that sort of stands out in my mind? I think it was pretty full, though, there were quite a few people there. We were early though.

IM: Mostly you helped with running the events and planning it, but not necessarily speaking?

KM: Not at that one, no. This was really the first program we had in Boyle Heights, and I don't think I knew enough.

IM: At this point, do you know what your stance was on redress or reparations? Because this is one of the earliest meetings. So what was your stance at the time?

KM: Well, I don't think there was any... it wasn't like it was a change. I think it was already clear we were supporting reparations.

IM: But in terms of the shape of what that would look like and how it'd be implemented, do you have any idea at that point yet?

KM: You know, I can't really distinguish between that time and just being part of these discussions, and so already knowing that we were looking at it this way and agreeing with it, that monetary reparations, and supported it, and the survey that was done in the Rafu, monetary and apology, the other parts that sort of came out, but those were the main ones. And to try and be really clear that we wanted monetary, because that was like, no, we don't want money, no, we do.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.