<Begin Segment 8>

GK: So, what would you say was the main contribution of the Manzanar Committee to the redress movement?

SE: Well, I think that annual event kept the issue alive, kept, at least made more and more people aware that that thing happened, because a lot of people didn't know it even happened. And when I went to Chicago to live, they had seen some headlines -- some of the people that I worked with -- but they didn't really know the whole story. And when I told them, you know, they sort of sit there and like, "It really can't be true that this happened." And, you know, you say, "It did happen, it happened to me." And so I think that the publicity that's generated from it, and also having the reunions, going back to the other camps. In the cafeteria line today, this guy was standing next to me, picking out his salad, said, "You know, you were at that Gila River reunion." I said, "Yeah, the pilgrimage." He said, "We made $65,000 for the monument." I said, "You did? That much money?" He said, "Yeah, everybody who had been at Gila River or had connections gave us a donation." I said, "That's amazing." I said, "I wish we could do that at Manzanar." We don't get that kind of money, very seldom. You know, $100 donation comes out of nowhere, maybe $50, people gives us sets of photographs, you know, that they take and things like that, but none of them... I don't know whether it's because we've been going so long, or they think we have money 'cause we do it every year, I don't know. But I think all of that, in a sense, educated the Nisei.

You know, we were only nineteen, eighteen, nineteen when we went to camp. We were very naive. Politically, we didn't know anything. And even though we read about the Constitution and studied about the Bill of Rights, we didn't think of putting it into force. You know, very naive. And that's why it took so long, I think. But I think that having these pilgrimages and then people could see things outside their personal experiences, that it was a constitutional issue, not just a personal one. And that there were things that we could have done, you know, to ask for relief and we didn't do it. And that was because we were very naive, I think. We didn't have leadership, I mean, we were only eighteen. [Laughs] Our parents were actually our leaders, you know, they were still in charge of the families, and they were all pulled off by the FBI, so there really was no leadership. And a lot of people, you know, they don't say that. A lot of people are opposed to the JACL. They, you know, people have said to me, "They sent us down the river. Mike Masaoka took us from independence to captivity. He's the leader of JACL. You know, that's what he did." And I've heard JACL people say that about him. And when they came up with the idea of redress, it was mostly individual payments, and they sure didn't want a community fund handled by JACL. That was the biggest issue. I mean, nobody's mentioned those things. I think we're too polite to each other, you know. I expected fireworks. [Laughs] But I don't think it now, because when I was talking to Don Nakanishi, he says, "Everyone's worried about everybody attacking them." Different groups, you know, but I don't see that. I mean, they have a few things they say about JACL, but it's not really that much, you know, that harsh of criticism. Although one of the workshops, they said they went after Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee.

GK: Right.

SE: But that's not really part of the early years, you know.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.