<Begin Segment 5>

BF: There's, there's so many obviously persuasive reasons why people joined the effort, but do you remember anything in particular, something that someone said, or an argument, or a part of testimony that really changed it, or, or made the difference for you?

GU: I... well, the total impact of the, of the emotional impact of the commission hearings in New York I think convinced me. It didn't convince me on a rational level, I heard these stories, and I said, these are the stories that were told to me by my mother. Understand that she was not interned, but the experience that she had that always stuck in my craw, which was in some part related to the experience of people who were put in camp. She worked very hard in high school in La Junta, Colorado. She earned valedictorian, valedictorian honors. And the kids liked her, the kids in her class liked her. But the teachers and the administration and the school board announced that, "There would be no Jap speaking at graduation this year and, and we have a Jap valedictorian, so we're not going to have any speeches." And that, that I remembered and it hurt Mom. Mom didn't get a chance to go on to college. This meant a lot to her, and she was denied that. And so, when I heard the stories at the commission, I said, "Gee, Mom had it tough, but other people had it tougher." But her story kind of paralleled those that I heard, and that had a great impact on me.

BF: Wow.

CK: How much of the hearings did you listen to? Was it one day, one full day?

GU: I think it was a one-day hearing in New York. And I stayed for the entire -- I think it was morning and afternoon -- and I stayed for the whole day. I took the day off from work. And like a lot of people there, I was crying.

CK: Yeah, it wasn't just a smattering, like an hour...

GU: No, I, I stayed for the, I stayed for the whole thing. And I said, "Oh, my God. This is what this is about."

BK: You weren't... I guess I shouldn't assume this, but were you involved in Japanese American community groups, or clubs, or politics, previous to your conversation with, with Min Yasui and getting involved?

GU: No, I really wasn't. Not in college... in fact, in my class -- I drove my son to Harvard last week and a Harvard class of 1,600 is 20 percent Asian. So that means in excess of 360 Asians, okay, out of a class of 1,600. In my (Harvard) class, there were four Japanese Americans and three Chinese Americans, all right? So there was not, there was, there was nothing to be associated with. I think the association was from my childhood, in which there was a very small JACL chapter in my hometown that took in a whole lot of northern Wyoming. And my mother was very active and she was ferocious. And she would, there was a local private swimming pool that wouldn't let Japanese Americans swim in it. And so, she took those people on, and Min helped. And then as late as 1968, there was an anti-miscegenation law in Wyoming. And so, if I wanted to marry the cheerleader of Worland High School, I had to go to Montana, so she took that on. And so, she has a... Mom is ferocious. She's not arrogant, but she's ferocious.

BF: She sounds sort of atypical, of what you usually think of Issei women.

GU: She was actually a Nisei. She was a Nisei. And she was conventionally a good and obedient wife, and mother, and daughter-in-law but she, like many Nisei women, a powerhouse.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.