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BF: Now, when you were involved in these, when -- like in the Model Cities, that sounds like a fairly large bureaucratic organization to sort of get your feet wet. I mean, and you come from obviously a business background because of your family, but how did, how, how equipped did you feel in getting, when you were getting involved and they're asking you to represent the International District, things like that? Was it sort of just learn on your feet, or did you find that it was not, not too hard to figure out what was going on and what needed to get done?

TM: Probably a combination. One of the things if you run a family business or involved you know darn well that it's not, I don't know what term am I looking, autocratic. You have to be a consensus. So when it took that type of thinking or that type of action, then I felt comfortable. I was not prepared for dealing with, quite frankly, non-Nikkei, non-Asian-type people -- well, non-Nikkei. And so that was a learning experience which I think has, in retrospect, has helped me subsequently. The mentality of the people in the Model City program was a eye-opener, very frustrating.

BF: Can you give an, me an example of sort of --

TM: Well, you know, we knew Walt Huntley. And two or three examples I have was that we were allocated X dollars, $19,000-something. But some way the checks never came on time, so we practically had to sit in his office some mornings, just to sit there. And he meant well, but the bookkeepers for some reason, the efficiency was just not there. Then some others, they said, "Okay, come to our meeting." So you go to the meetings, and they're sitting there, and they're spending 90 percent of their time on internal issues, like what days off we should have, what sick leaves. And I says, "Well, geez, those are not relevant issues to us." But that seems to get to the priorities. So it was very frustrating.

But getting back to the couple times we had to practically sit there. Our director, I think it was, oh geez, I can't remember. Inouye, Dan, not Dan, Dan's nephew. We had to practically make an appointment, sit there, and just sit there until they either gave you the check or promised you something. And that, those are just unfortunate, unpleasant memories dealing with that organization. However, I learned a lot. And some of those contacts I made, I still maintain. Hasn't been the best experience, but some of those people have become very involved in political or work for city, state, or county govern -- government, people like Larry Gossett. And they have become leaders in the community, in fact. And coupled with some of the friends I've made in high school, Garfield. Some of the black leaders. I can't agree with them philosophically. [Laughs] But at least they were there. And those served, I think, served me well as I got involved with some other issues.

BF: So rather than some of these frustrations turning you off to this sort of involvement, it sounds like you started assessing sort of, well, I would do this differently or --

TM: Well, but there was -- you can't believe the amount of money that the Model City had. I mean they -- we got $19,000 or whatever. I mean, I still remember it because it was such a pittance. But they had millions of dollars. They really just were unable to use it efficiently. But the point is, it was the carrot. There was millions of dollars. And we said, "Gee, we're deserving of some of it." And indirectly we did get a lot of it. The PDA, the Public Development Authority, Interim, they've -- we've received a Model City grants or block grants, which is kind of the residual of the Model City program. But we, we received thousands of, maybe millions of dollars indirectly throughout the years. So you kind of have to gaman and say, "Well, if that money's there and it could help us..." -- and it did help us because Interim has spun off the Public Development Authority, the -- and indirectly like the Denise Louis. Maybe not so much ACRS, but lunch programs and health clinic and things. So -- the parking lot, Merchants Parking Association. And then, I think indirectly, the BIA is a product or a, or a child of Interim. So indirectly it did. When you -- so for selfish reasons, you just kept going back and trying to play the game because it was necessary.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.