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MA: I was wondering if you could talk -- we talked earlier about your activism that you've been involved with in the education system for a long time. Can you talk about how that started and your involvement with that?

AH: I think the experience in Topaz started that.

MA: Can you explain that a little bit?

AH: That all our rights were taken away. And so I think the biggest, one of the biggest impact it has made is when my handicapped daughter Marlane, we were told by professionals that, a neurologist told us that, "She has no future, she doesn't understand anything you're talking about. She's just going to be so disruptive in your life, and just as well put her, send her to American Fork," which is known to be a warehousing of human bodies there. But we didn't know any better and so we signed her up, and it took, there was a waiting list for a whole year. And every night, I cried every night because we'd have to just send her away, a baby that we loved. In the meantime, things happen for a reason, Jim and Marvel Byrnes came into our lives from the state of Nebraska. And my husband and I, we were really active in the handicapped movement, where we're trying to provide better services for the handicapped. And we heard about this Project TURN, an acronym for Teaching Utah's Retarded Normalization, which means it's a philosophy to mainstream the handicapped into the mainstream of life. And so we, we brought this gentleman here without even thinking that it might apply and help our daughter, because we already had her signed up to go to American Fork. And anyway, Jim (Byrnes) came and saw Marlane and he says, "Gee, Alice and Mack, Marlane understands everything you're talking to her about. I mean, she's got you wrapped around her finger. I'll be able to -- let my family and I take her for two weeks, we work with the handicapped back in Nebraska and know the steps and how to help you normalize her behavior, and also this will give you two weeks of respite because it's been really hard to handle," and she was very hyperactive.

MA: How old was she, I'm sorry, around that time?

AH: About seven. And so they took her for two weeks, and at the end of the two weeks they said, "Now, we want you to come to our home but we don't want her to know that you're there, or else she'll revert back to her bad behavior." And so they had a fireplace which was a screen, it separated the dining room and the living room, so they had Marlane on the other side of the fireplace, and then they had, my husband and I watched through the screen, and we just couldn't believe our eyes, all those negative behavior was gone. (Before), she would try to vomit for attention, and having to go to the bathroom all the time, and just being hyperactive, but she didn't do any of that (at Byrnes'). And so my husband and I, we started crying, couldn't believe it. Anyway, this husband and wife, and they have five children, and they were the most amazing family because it was a whole family, they adored the disabled. Back in Nebraska, every weekend they would take home a client that didn't have any family. And have fun, not only just keep them, but they had fun with the client, and that's what they did with Marlane. They just completely adored Marlane. And so what they did, the family taught us, is how to work with her at home so that she could be with us and be as a family.

And we were so excited that we wanted to go and approach the education system, and said, "Gosh, this is such a neat thing." And it was really a right time because it was at that time that a federal bill was passed saying that all children will have an appropriate education. And with that funding, established legal centers for the handicapped. And so if the school districts did not comply, that we would consult with the legal center. So we went and the school districts, we had to work with two districts, and they would say, "We're just really sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Hirai, but we don't have any funding. We feel really bad," and all that. And I used to get really emotional and all that, but along the way, we got some training as parents, how to deal with the school district without getting emotional. So eventually, when they kept telling us that, we would say, "I guess, I'm just really sorry, but I guess we'll have to go to the Legal Center for the Handicapped." Boom, things started happening.

MA: I see. So once you said, you brought in the legal...

AH: Center for the Handicapped.

MA: Then they started changing.

AH: Things started happening. It was ten years of a lot of fighting, lot of fighting, and a lot of unethical things were done. Professional people not doing professional things. We, there was a superintendent that manipulated -- how do you say that? He, he organized the "good parents" against the "bad parents" to try to quiet us. And of course we were the "bad parents," and so all the "bad parents," we looked at each other and we said, "Our name is already mud, it can't get any worse, why don't we just go for it?" So we fought for everything.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.