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TI: Let's actually tell that story, but let's finish up with the '76 convention. It's sort of an important time in that, not only did you get Mike Masaoka's support, but they passed a resolution supporting the Seattle Plan --

HM: Yeah, in fact we had the whole plan in the resolution as an addendum to it and they passed it unanimously in the convention.

TI: Right. And furthermore, they formed a national committee to focus specifically on reparations at that point. They called it The National Committee for Reparations.

HM: Yeah. [Laughs] Yeah.

TI: And that was, so that was sort of... in some ways, a high point in what you had been doing to get it this far. And this was all, in some ways, in response to that conversation with Mineta, saying if we got all these things done he would --

HM: Sponsor a bill.

TI: Sponsor a bill. And so you felt that by doing this...

HM: We had most of the --

TI: The next step would be Mineta --

HM: And I felt that since we were able to educate the people in Seattle, that every other Japanese American community could do the same thing and we should be able to get full congressional support in Washington, Oregon, California, but this was a total misconception on my part. Because these other cities, well they didn't have a group like well, Raymond Okamura and these guys represent. They didn't want to study. They didn't want to really get well-versed into the subject so that they could discuss it with any group, be it Caucasian, or general public or Nikkei or whatever. So I had expected a lot more from these different chapters. But the JACL isn't that powerful organization. It is just a bunch of chapters that meet socially, mostly, and maybe politically on some instances, but they're not that active.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.