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BF: I'm gonna skip a bit ahead, skip a few years, to when you got involved in the redress movement. What were you doing at the time and where were you, where were you living?

GU: I was living in New York City on the West Side. I was then a book editor at Random House. And this was, I believe 1981, and Min Yasui came to town. And Min lived in Denver, but he would occasionally come up to Worland, which is 450 miles away, make sure that everybody up there, all the Japanese Americans up there, were okay. And he'd visit. So, our family got to know Min and my mother was from Colorado, and from, spent a lot of time in Denver, so we knew Min. So Min, Min knew me as a kid. And then I went off to, back East to go to school, and Min learned that I -- from Mike Masaoka -- that I did the Almanac and that I also did books in New York. And so he came to visit me, and he said, "I have this, we're involved in this really crazy idea." And I said, "Oh no Min, you're too old for a crazy idea." And he said, "Here's the idea..." And I said, "You are really old, and you are really crazy." [Laughs] And then, he took me to a couple of meetings at the New York JACL, and I said, "Yeah, this is something I may want to get involved in." Then there was a commission hearing in New York, and everyone was crying and so was I. And then when Min and I went down to Washington, some time after the commission hearing, and Mike and I, and Min, had lunch at a Japanese restaurant in Washington, and they said, "We'd like you to help." And I said, "Okay."

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.