<Begin Segment 17>

HM: Well, when we got through with the contract termination area, each of us were being given interviews by a human resources individual. The guy had, he started off very friendly in the interview --

TI: So this was to be interviewed for open positions at -- so they were reassigning, trying to get...

HM: Yeah

TI ...again, a very small group. They had essentially the pick of a lot. They could pick a few to stay at Boeing.

HM: Yeah, and this process where we had the twenty guys, I think one guy left voluntarily, but I think we had nineteen residuals I think. Anyway, they took a balance of what was available in the company, what the demands were, and the skill code area versus the toteming process. So they adjusted the toteming function to where they could fit the guy in the company. It wasn't a really a fair way of doing it, but that's the procedure they followed. And well this guy started off very friendly, this interviewer, and anyway, we get into this whole thing about where my relatives were. He looked up my personnel records and he extracted information very carefully. And he said, "All your references are in Seattle area now, and you went to the University of Washington, and all your relatives are here. Your references for security file things are all from the local area." And he indicated to me that, you know, you're a native Northwesterner, born and raised here. He says, "I don't think you're gonna leave for very much, for any long duration." So this was the way he started off, and I thought well, this guy did his homework. [Laughs] Then he gets into this realm about okay, since we can't give you equivalent job, one thing we'll have to do is we're gonna have to give you a pay cut. So they said well, they chopping quarter of my pay in one jolt. And he says, "We're doing this to all the guys in the termination group. And you guys should be lucky that you're gonna be offered a job." Then I kinda got kinda peeved at this whole process, and I said, "This is so arbitrary, we're not even given a fair shake." And so he gets out a bunch of papers off of his briefcase and starts saying hey, "I know Japanese Americans. I have a neighbor that's a Japanese American." And he's a smart guy, but he's one of these guys that never say anything. And then he proceeded to tell me about Japanese American history a little bit. At that point he says okay, this is the creed of the Japanese Americans, and he started reading it to me.

TI: Let's, and I have a copy of -- and you're saying the creed of the Japanese American Citizen League, right? The JACL?

HM: Yeah.

TI: Japanese American creed. And this was written in 1941 by Mike Masaoka, and I'll read it to you. And this was the document that he read. He says, or it states, "I am proud that I am an American citizen of Japanese ancestry. For my very background makes me appreciate more fully the wonderful advantages of this nation. I believe in her institutions, ideals and traditions. I glory in her heritage. I boast of her history. I trust in her future. Although some individuals may discriminate against me, I shall never become bitter or lose faith, for I know that such persons are not representative of the majority of the American people. Because I believe in America, I pledge myself to assume actively my duties and obligations as a citizen, cheerfully and without any reservations whatsoever in the hope that I may become a better American in a greater America." So that's the creed that the JACL had. So how did you feel when he read that to you?

HM: Well, I was surprised that the guy had studied this area so well for my specific case. And the one thing that I was disturbed at was the fact that they're giving me this pay cut and they're telling me why I was supposed to take this pay cut. The creed, in essence, was his justification for saying well, we can treat you any way we feel like. And that was a very interesting message to me. That stated hey, this is the way that this guy is appraising me in terms of how I feel about my treatment to the company. And it was like a big bell ringing saying, hey, wake up buddy. You're not as good as what you think you are. I mean, they're gonna treat you just like what you deserve. So that kind of really took me by surprise, and it also put me in a position of making me think maybe we're gonna have to do something to have people reappraise their position for Japanese Americans.

TI: Well, it's almost like if Mike Nakata were right there he'd probably say, "Hey Henry, what are you gonna do about it?"

HM: Yeah, "I told you so."

TI: And so, what did you do? When he -- so he offered you this pay cut, this position, and read the creed, and said, "So Henry, here it is, what are you gonna do?" What did you do?

HM: Well, I had another job offer from the San Francisco Bay area. And unfortunately the kids were in the school system, and they had a lotta friends in the Newport Hills area, they were in the swimming team and all this kind of stuff. And I let them make the decision, which was not the most rational thing to do, but I felt for the best interest of the children and their welfare they should be relevant to making the decision. And so I did accept the pay cut. I accepted the stay at Boeing.

TI: And so when you walked out of the office, how did you feel? What were you thinking?

HM: This is not a good deal, but I thought to myself, we need to do something in order to have the general population take a different position on how they can treat Japanese Americans. That was really the message that I got from that reading. And during the course of events, it took me about a year before I got to the point of saying hey, we're gonna do something. This was the December '72 situation. I thought to myself, well, I'm gonna dedicate myself to changing this whole situation that we're faced with, for the good of us Japanese Americans, and maybe for the good of the American population in general, maybe even take a stance on the constitutional rights of minorities. So my philosophy about different things kind of changed in that area. And the other thing was the Title II repeal was successful, and the fact that this woman knocked down the whole SST program, pretty much single-handedly, by just organizing these different activity groups.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.