<Begin Segment 8>

TM: And I think they -- that's my role has always been kind of compromise. The funny thing that happened was one of the, director of the Washington State Museum, which is now located in or -- it was always located in Olympia -- oh, shoot, I forgot his name. But anyway, he came by, and I guess he goes around to all exhibits. That's his job. He comes by, and he sees it. And then before I know it, I get this call, says, "You know, what you should do is apply to the National Endowment of Humanities grant, and make a traveling exhibit and get some monies for a docent and bring it around."

BF: So he was really impressed with this little exhibit.

TM: Yeah. He said, "This is a very interesting story." And so I says, "Oh, okay." I says, "Hell, I don't know how to write these things." So Min, we talked about it. And Min says, "Well, I could probably write the proposal." So that's how we, it was very successful. I can't remember, it was hundreds of thou -- hundreds of doll -- $100,000, $150,000, whatever it was, which was a lot of money. And so we got the money, and we hired Roy Tsuboi to -- and I brought him some friends, Harold Kawaguchi, who was a industrial designer to make the frame. And so we kept working on it. And we brought it in, probably in terms of hard cost, the budget, but if you paid everybody the time they spent, was very -- I wouldn't say expensive, but quite a, not an easy project and --

BF: And so this is a, this is a photo exhibit?

TM: Uh-huh.

BF: And what, it was in MOHI, Museum of History and Industry. And with the NEH funding, it was made into an exhibit that could travel?

TM: Actually, it was changed quite a bit. At MOHI, I think what we did was just give booth to like the churches and Buddhist Church.

BF: Oh.

TM: So we had to come back when we start to -- well, and this is the educational process, and this is where I probably got to know Min because we were practically together two, three times a week. I say, "Hey, first of all, I don't know what's going on. But secondly, you can't, I mean with discussions, you got to have a theme, and you got to say what the heck you're trying to achieve." I said, "That's way over my head." But, so we had to develop a theme and a story behind it. And so we practically was unable to use, I would say most of what was there. But that was a very interesting learning process. And like I say, I'm not a scholar type, so through osmosis or discussion, I learned a lot. But anyway, so Min and a few committee members got together, put this whole thing together, and we submitted, he submitted the proposal we were granted. And part of that proposal also, in addition to it being traveling, was a docent. And we went to places like community college or, and it showed exhibit, but had two or three programs where students were brought in, and we had two or three Niseis and a panel of discussion and some question/answer. One comment, disappointing as to the turnout. We just thought thousands of people would have to come to see our exhibit. But there wasn't that much interest. And I sat, maybe not often, once or twice in those panel, and that in itself was a learning experience. But in retrospect, I don't think we made as much impact as I thought we would or could have or should have, but --

BF: Well, this is the, this is I should say the, they call it the Pride and Shame exhibit. That was the title.

TM: Right.

BF: And so you're saying that the impact outside the Nikkei community was maybe not so big?

TM: Yeah, I mean not a direct. It's always indirect. It's always better to do it than not do it, but I think if I were to do it now, we would promote it much differently, much bigger and much, so --

BF: But this was at a time where not very many Japanese Americans were feeling very proud of their history.

TM: Well, in that sense, if it, you feel, and I guess I never really gave it much thought, but if you feel that it was a value to the Nikkei community, then maybe it had some value. And maybe it did because invariably to these functions that tell the story about the community, it's a community. It's kind of like preaching to the choir type of situation. And so be it. I guess maybe that was okay. But --

BF: What about the impact on you? I mean, you said that, prior to having to get involved in this exhibit, you hadn't really thought too much about what had happened and the history of the community, and now it was sort of your job to put it out there. Do you think it changed your, well, politics or outlook?

TM: Oh, definitely. I -- well, let's go back. First of all, my father never spoke about it. My mother seldom spoke about the relocation. I guess I told you that one time, the only thing she ever said was that, if they told her how long the duration of that internment would be, then they could have planned for what little money they had or, you know they, she said something like, "Well, they didn't know, I didn't know if they would shoot you or me." So that was a very, the term like fuan or something, some Japanese term that says it was very unsettling. But that's all she said. She never said anything. So the point is I think if I didn't become involved with JACL, the Pride and Shame type of program, my awareness and involvement would have been much less, I'm sure.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.