<Begin Segment 11>

GK: What would you say is the legacy of the redress movement?

[Interruption]

SE: Well, I think the legacy is, for the Nisei, if they hadn't been aware of it before, that they can use, that they should use their rights as citizens to ask for relief. So, you might lose maybe, but at least you may take, you know, you have to take that chance. And it's like Henry said, that some of his non-Japanese friends kind of, didn't respect us because we weren't fighting for what we thought was right, and that we were being so quiet and taking all that, I guess, on the chin. And also, I think, for the future generations, gives them some feeling that, "Well, our parents did it. You know, they suffered, but they went back and they fought, they took a stand." And that was important, because I used to feel very lonesome in some of these political groups, because I was always the only Japanese American. You know, and I'd say -- and they would say to me, "How come some of your other friends aren't here?" And I'd say, "Well, they don't, you know, they're not interested in politics." "But it's so important, you know, it's so important to take a position," and, "Yeah, but you know." And that was, maybe one or two people I would see at some of the these fundraising events and other things, and I guess it wasn't until maybe the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations that I saw a lot of Asians. But before that it was like, you know, very lonesome, yeah. And I think part of it is because we were pretty naive in '42.

GK: Right.

SE: We were young, we were not in any leadership position, and like Aiko said, we didn't know what hit us when it happened. And it took us a long time to really confront what had happened, and you don't like to say, "Oh, your government did this to you." When it's your only country, you don't like to say, "Oh, they did me wrong," and you don't like to admit that, so... I think part of that was the Nisei psyche, they're passing on a legacy to the third and fourth generation, and we did take a stand, we did ask for redress and we did get it, and maybe not as many Nisei as the Sansei and Yonsei, but there were some of us there. I think that's a legacy that's important. Maybe someday they'll put it in the textbooks. [Laughs] I still haven't seen much of that.

GK: I remember Bob Matsui once stating at a Day of Remembrance that "the challenge for the Japanese American community is to move beyond redress and into other issues." Do you think that since passage of the redress bill that the Japanese American community has done that?

SE: I think that some of them have. I'm not sure that the whole community, you know, has moved forward. I think it's important for them to take issues like on the immigrants' rights and the welfare reform, because it affects us. It's not something that's way over on the other side. It does affect our parents, and it affects people that have been here, especially the welfare reform bill. And there are other issues. Yesterday on, Jim, was it Jim Lehrer's News Hour, they talked about the Asian bashing, and they had several people they interviewed. And I guess this one gal, she used to work for the JACL in Washington, Karen? Her position was that there's a lot of Asian bashing as a result of this investigation into the Democratic National Committee campaign fundraising. On the other side, this lawyer said, "If people did something wrong, they need to pay for it, and then it's not Asian bashing because he happens to be Chinese." John Huang is who he's talking about. He says, "If you don't do things right, that's too bad, you have to pay for it, and you should not call it Asian bashing." But at the other side they're saying, you know, they can't tell us any different from people from foreign countries, and their racism is apparent here. And so you have the two views. But I hope that, I hope that the Sansei who did the lobbying, who got into the experience of writing letters, you know, will continue that, because I think there're lot of issues out there, and they need to be addressed. And it goes beyond redress, yeah.

GK: Is there anything else that you'd like to add before we have, before we run out of time? I think we have about five minutes?

SE: No, I don't think so. I think all of it, you know, a combination of everything brought this redress victory, and I always tell people that getting the Manzanar bill passed is like putting the maraschino cherry on top of the whipped cream. Because we got the redress bill, we got the commission hearings, we got the coram nobis, and the Hohri vs. U.S. went all the way to the Supreme Court, all those things combined really, sort of, not exactly make up for what happened in '42, but in a way makes it a level, kind of a level field. And I think we came out pretty good in spite of all the things that happened fifty years ago, fifty-five years ago.

GK: Okay. Thank you very much, Sue. It's been a pleasure interviewing you.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.