<Begin Segment 11>

LH: I wanted just to ask you to sort of reflect on the last couple of days in the conference and some of the things that have been said and sort of if there's anything that you, that strikes you...

GU: So you fellas also pick up a lot?

LH: In terms of...

GU: About what's going on.

LH: Oh, yeah.

GU: I don't think this happened, this sense of separation happened because of the conference, or at the conference. I imagine that it was pretty much there. And again it's unfortunate, and I don't think that my saying anything is going to make that much difference. I explained earlier to you, I think, that I do mediation work for my county courts so that I'm -- and my years and years in social work. We all come from different ways of thinking, but basically each one has a right to self-determination. And so everyone took a different track in terms of how we're going to get to redress. And as I said for me, I have always believed, because I already told you, too, that I'm very active in the League of Women Voters, I've worked with all these other coalitions and I know that all the coalitions go to Congress. Because I really feel that I have never missed my responsibility to vote since I had the right to vote. I have worked on certain campaigns starting with John F. Kennedy, and I worked so hard on Jimmy Carter's campaign that when the Prime Minister of Japan came I was invited to the White House for a reception and for another reception for Madame Ohira. So I feel that going through Congress is the right route. And then what the process that I used was not just that the Nikkei members and our (lobbying) strategist, you know, Grant Ujifusa, laid out. But it's the method that's practiced by all the other organizations that I'm a member of. So I also belong to National Education Association, we try to change education through the same political process. So it's not that one is better or another. For me, I am not comfortable using the court system, 'cause I have always fought the court system, you know, for kids. So that I feel, I feel most in control and comfortable with going through the legislative process. And so we just really should come to an understanding that everyone has to do it his or her own way, and then once that's done... we did not win redress completely, I will admit that because there are other issues, too. And possibly there are those who say we could have gotten more, but that's all hindsight. We got to a certain point, it is now more or less done. But this world and this country is still full of problems, and I hope that from our experience of redress, that Japanese Americans can come together and really make an impact in making America a much better place in resolving some of the unfinished business that's still facing us.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.