<Begin Segment 7>

BF: Well, that brings us to another topic I wanted to talk about, and that is some of the Nikkei organizations that you've played a really key role in, like, well, you mentioned JACL, but also Nikkei Concerns, formerly Issei Concerns. And let -- I wanted to start first with JACL 'cause I think you've started -- that, that group came earlier in time in your life. And what got you involved in JACL, because not everyone in this, the Nikkei community was really supportive of JACL, especially right after the war or after the war period. So what was it that got you involved?

TM: Well, let me say first of all, if I knew what I know now, I probably wouldn't have gotten into the JACL too early. And I think --

BF: Because it was too much work or what?

TM: No. I was recruited, heavily recruited by people like Don Kazama and I'm assuming, Min Masuda, and some of the then-leadership, totally because they felt that somebody kind of young coming along, had some business experience. So I was pretty, pretty much on the fast track. And I felt that JACL was an important organization, so I got involved. And once you get involved, I guess, hard to say no. I guess maybe my personality or nature just got involved. But as I became a board member, I used to enjoy those meetings because they -- Min and Don were talking about issues that were fairly foreign to me. I mean new to me, and fascinating. Don was trying to upgrade the postal workers, as an example. Min was starting to talk about --

BF: Because of discrimination in the postal service?

TM: Yes. In the leadership positions and things like that. I can't remember what Min's case was. It wasn't redress, but it was things leading up to redress. I think it was equal opportunities, and just civil rights and discrimination issues. And he was becoming a leader of the Japanese community on some of those issues. And as I told you, two things happened, first of all, I can't remember, but as the vice president of the board, after a couple years, Min says, "You know, in a few years," I can't remember exact, but 1960 or something -- he says, "we're going to have the 50th anniversary of JACL." Also as it turns out, that was really true. It was 50th years, 50th year of the Progressive Japanese Association or something like that, which was the forefather. JACL didn't like that, but that's another story. So anyway, they says, "Well, you've -- we got to have a 50th anniversary." I said, "Okay, I'd like a party." So I headed that, recruited some people, mostly JACL people. But Harry Kadoshima's one of the first I recruited. I says, "I need somebody to take care of the money." And then I drove down with my family down to San Jose, and got to know, met Min -- Norm Mineta. I says, "Oh, you're the first Japanese mayor of a major city. You got to come to Seattle and be our speaker." And we became friends. We still are good friends. So we had a very successful banquet. So you learn to work with the Niseis, older people. They're not that much older, but when you're thirty, somebody forty is pretty old. And that was a good experience, May Nambas and the Cherry Kinoshitas, and Shigeko Uno, all those wonderful people that, if you have a program laid out, you can't beat them in terms of executing whatever it takes. Just fantastic. So that was a good experience.

Then also, I don't know exactly the timing, but this young gentleman, young man that was assistant or curator at the Museum of History and Industry some way came to JACL. And I don't know who it was, but before I knew it, Min says, "Well, you're vice president. Why don't you look into this?" And I don't know the real sequence, but went down there, talked them, and they said they had some old photographs of not only the Japanese community, but he happened to run into some photographs of the Japanese community. And he says, "Well, why can't we use these photos and get a, I'd like to have an exhibit, not only for the Japanese community, but for various ethnic communities." So I don't know what happened. I guess I could go and research that. But anyway, so we sat down, talked a few times. I says, JACL has a good history, but there's other organizations such as the Buddhist Church and Baptist Church I knew had equal good histories. So he said, "Well, why don't we go to them and have them take a booth and give their story?" And that's how it happened. Okay, so we're going along, and here again, I have very little feelings about the redress, internment. I probably come from the school where I just want to forget about it. I don't even want to deal with it. But, so we go to people like Min, and I remember Larry Matsuda and few others, they says, "Oh, no, no. You can't leave that out. It's a very important part of history." I said, "Well, okay, let's talk about it." So we had, we brought in other people. I remember a small part of it, Dana's father put together a model of the camp and one thing or another. So we put that part. But the funny part of it was somebody dug out these old posters that, "Japs Not Wanted" and all that. So we put that up. And the director, who was a elderly Caucasian lady, she got really uptight about this. So --

BF: It made her uncomfortable.

TM: Uncomfortable. But the point here, we had a huge, a large discussion -- not a huge, large, but very, looking back, very healthy, educational discussion of what's right, what's wrong, what's history, all this stuff. So those are, looking back, was some influential discussion that I was privileged to have and didn't really give much thought to before that point.

BF: So what happened with the poster that the museum had a problem with?

TM: I think we had just turned it over when the lady was around, turned it around, but she was -- but I'm not kind of a hell, you know hell-raiser, so I just says, "Well, we're in her house." We try to accommodate her, but then I had, listening to the other side, so we just flipped it around back and forth.

BF: You kind -- you found a compromise.

TM: Yeah.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.