<Begin Segment 10>

GK: What would you say were the contributions of the different organizations? Say, starting with NCJAR?

SE: Well, I think NCJAR's class-action suit was good because it, I think, made the Nisei believe that you could do something by law, through the legislative, I mean, through the judicial system. And that, even though it didn't win as it went along, they still got appeals, you know, they were able to get appeals through. And then when it got to the Supreme Court, I think it's kind of validated their feeling that they had some good reasons to ask for redress. That it was not just a frivolous lawsuit, that people were just asking for money. But that they really had suffered and they really deserved to get it. And I think that was good, and then having that followed by the coram nobis cases also helped. And when they set it aside, of course, that was even better. Because, I think a lot of them believed in the system, but they weren't quite sure it was going to work for them. And then on the other side, you had NCRR doing the lobbying, which most Nisei never did. And I think that was good, 'cause it made them realize that you can go to Washington, and you can fight City Hall on some issues. Although I think most of us never believed it would happen. You know, we really didn't think it would be possible. Because, first of all, mostly, you know, Republican Congress. Everything that happened to redress and Manzanar being a historic site, and some of the other things, all were done under a Republican Congress. And it was a Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, who signed the Executive Order, you know? Ford did the American Promise, invalidating E.O. 9066, and Bush signed the redress letter, he also signed the Manzanar bill. And let's see, before that, what did we have?

GK: Does that, would you say that that says more about them, or does it say more about the community?

SE: Well, I think it's both, because the community really lobbied, they really lobbied in Congress, and that helped. All the letters that went out and the contacts people made, and we were also, in a better position with some of the -- because we had congresspeople in Congress. In '42 we didn't have anybody. We had no leaders at all, even in local offices. So that by the time the redress bill got to Congress, we had Mineta, we had Matsunaga, we had Dan Inouye, we had Norm Mineta, although Norm told us in a meeting years, in 1980, that no way we were gonna get redress. He said, "You should see all the hate letters I get from my constituents." He says there's no way that we're gonna get it. That's why they were so lukewarm on it in the beginning, 'cause they were afraid they were gonna get defeated, they wouldn't get elected again. You know, all of them felt that way. And I know Bob Matsui said at our Manzanar reunion in 1980, was it '88, yeah '88, said, "If you talked about redress or camp before 1980, you would never had heard me say anything. I wouldn't have come to (...) make a speech like that here." He says, only since 1980, he said, that we really got moving on it. So even though a lot of things were happening, they were sort of happening, sort of as a prelude to the big push later. And once JACL got in there, and NCJAR filed the class-action suit, and the NCRR formed nationally, I think it really helped to have all three of them. Although I'm sure there was a lot of competition, you know, a lot of criticism back and forth about JACL not helping, taking all the credit after everybody else did the work, and all that.

GK: Is that your sentiment?

SE: Yeah. People tell me JACL worked hard -- I'm sure they did. I supported them, I went to their fundraisings. They had the Legislative Education Committee going, and they raised a lot of money. But since I had been helping San Fernando, I knew that there were people that really worked on redress. But I think they felt the same way, that JACL always gets on the bandwagon later and takes the credit.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.