<Begin Segment 15>

MN: Now you started to organize the Asian American gay and lesbian group. What year did you organize that and how did you get the word out?

TY: Okay. It was 19... I'm going to say '67. It was 1967. Well, there was a gay activist by the name of... can't even think of his name.

MN: Morris?

TY: Pardon me?

MN: Are you talking about Morris Kei?

TY: Yeah, Morris Kai.

MN: Kai.

TY: Yeah, he was the one that had a Japanese American lover. And so that was one of his reasons for wanting to get a Japanese or an Asian American group together, so that they would be supportive of his lover. Well, Roy never did come into our organization, he kept himself out, which was okay. But Morris was like a sponsor for us, so we used to meet at his house, which was a large barn. So we would have, like, sixty people in this place and have a meeting. And it was kind of fun. And that's when I started to see that there were other Asians out there, but it appeared that almost all Asians had a hakujin lover. It just never worked out that there were two Asians together. Now, you might find two hakujins together but you never found hardly any Asians with an Asian person. And so that was kind of a phenomenon that we needed to work out. Because we felt that -- well, and back in that time, if you were Asian and you were going with a hakujin, well, that was "potato and rice," because rice being Asian and potato being, of course, hakujin. So they said that's an okay kind of a thing, but "rice on rice"? That's a little too strange. That hadn't worked out for us yet. But then of course if we would have thought about it, said, "What about all the Asians back from the middle, in Japan and/or other places where they are 'rice on rice'? Is that a problem or not?" And so I guess we had to work around that, because we were, I suppose, only to "potato and rice."

MN: So it sounds like there was just more than just Japanese Americans coming up. You're talking about Asian Americans, were there other Chinese, Cambodians, Vietnamese?

TY: When we first started, we were primarily... well, the only ones that I knew for sure were the Japanese American types like Japanese Hawaiians and myself, and those were the friends that I still have. But I think initially when we started off, we only knew of those types, we didn't know any other branches of any other kind. And right after our organization started, which was Asian Pacific Lesbians and Gays, there was another group that started that was primarily Asian on Asian. And so I think the part that I was getting to was who would have thought to start an organization on Asian on Asian only? That would be if I were in Japan and I had only the option of a Japanese person being my lover, that would happen. But here, it's almost unheard of.

MN: What kind of things did you folks share about? You're saying about fifty people, sixty people showed up, and what were the meetings like and what did you discuss?

TY: I think initially it was just social, initially. Later on, we decided we need to do it educational, so we need to work out workshops. One of the things we did do was to formalize the organization and we drew up a bunch of bylaws and submitted that to the membership, and that's what we still have as far as I know. They might have modified it a little bit, but it's still that basic concept of who we are. I think the thing that's so important was that there was no way to legitimize ourselves without that, because once we submitted our bylaws to the state, that became our reason for existence, which was kind of good.

MN: Were there any people that objected to having this group formed?

TY: A lot of hakujin types had a problem with that. They thought, "Oh, no, can't have this." And then my being outspoken, I said, "Well, then get the hell out. We don't need you. We need to form for ourselves." And so that's how it came about. I think a lot of people hated me because I was so outspoken that way, but you know, that's just how I am.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.