<Begin Segment 11>

TI: These were the auto workers?

HM: Yes, auto workers. And this would occur usually on Friday night. And they had a big problem with that. So, I found out later that the first assignment that these guys got that were there before I was there, they were assigned to guard the WAC detachment. And they used to have to do it on the Friday and Saturday nights. But anyway, Glen Winnie drove his, the car down to Baltimore. So Hanano said, "Well, let's go down to Washington DC and we'll show you some of the stuff down there." So Hanano's a California type driver you know, and he likes to really wing it. And this one had a manual transmission set up on the thing. And he says, "Well this is how we do it in California." And here we're in this huge intersection in Washington DC and he just goes right on through everybody else and Winnie's just looking like this, you know. [Laughs] But the salesman and I got together. He was a good friend of mine. I used to stay at his place, by the way, in Pontiac Michigan. So we're more than just business friends. And so he says to me, he says, "What are you gonna do with this car when they reassign you?" I says, "I, hell if I know. We'll wait and see." And he says, "Well, we'll buy it back from you if you want to sell it." So anyway, I, I figured that's a good way of making the deal. So Hanano has his own agenda. His brother was killed in the 442, so one of the things he wanted to do was bring a wreath down there and find his grave in Arlington, because that's where he was buried. Anyway, during one of these crazy events, Hanano's relative was living in Silver Springs, Maryland and, and they were having a get together for a bunch of people that they hired for the air force intelligence group. And some of them were from Seattle, May Tsutsumoto, Ben's sister, Takako Yoda, and several others were from Seattle. And they were training these people for air force interrogation purposes. And --

TI: And these were women that they were...?

HM: Yeah

TI: Some were women?

HM: Yeah, yeah. I think most of 'em were women. And, because of this, they were having a party to honor these people.

TI: And these were air force? And this is, this is --

HM: Yeah.

TI: I didn't know anything about this one.

HM: In fact, this is where I got -- this Florence that used to come around and visit once in a while. She was in the air force intelligence group in the Pentagon. And she was assigned to this class as one of the personnel. And so they had this party set up. And they were gonna have Mike Masaoka there. And so I thought to myself, this is kinda interesting. And Hanano says, "Hey, you, we gotta go there." So I, I says, "Hey, I don't belong in that area," although I knew, I knew some of the people from Seattle.

TI: Now why didn't you think you belonged? Because you were younger, or... or what? I mean what was it that made you feel like you were...

HM: The women were older to begin with. [Laughs] And like May Tsutsumoto, that group was socially, was about my brother's age group socially, so I felt they were a little bit too old for me. And I, I felt kinda, kinda uncomfortable being in the midst of a whole bunch of strangers. Anyway, Hanano insisted, so we go down to this party and here Mike Masaoka is giving speech number eighteen. [Laughs] I categorized all his different speeches. He talked about these women in the service doing all this kind of stuff. And he, he talked about the fact that we're gonna have the first Japanese American woman laying the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And this was Florence. She had that honor. And that was coming up that following weekend. And so anyway I got to, I got exposed to Mike Masaoka.

TI: At this point was he a lobbyist for the JACL?

HM: Yeah, he was a lobbyist. Yeah. And I...

TI: And how did you view Mike? Was he... how prominent was Mike at this point? This was like '52?

HM: No, this was let's see, latter part of '51.

TI: Okay.

HM: Okay. I think it's about, musta been late summer of '51. So, I... my feelings about him were that well, he was a pretty... he looked upon himself as a very elegant person I guess. And I didn't have too many other thoughts besides the fact that he spoke well. He was a kind of a orator type and everybody was very impressed with him.

TI: Now did you get an opportunity to actually talk to him...

HM: Yeah,

TI: ...one on one so he knew --

HM: Yeah. Hanano and I talked to him for awhile.

TI: Okay.

HM: And talked about number of different things. And I, I was kind of interested in what his feelings were about wartime activities for JACL and other things. And you know, he gave me the same old party line. So I... that was what I expected. So anyway, that was the first time I met Mike.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.