Densho Digital Repository - Kay Ochi Interview

Densho Digital Repository
Emi Kuboyama, Office of Redress Administration (ORA) Oral History Project Collection
Title: Kay Ochi Interview
Narrator: Kay Ochi
Interviewer: Emi Kuboyama
Location: San Diego, California
Date: January 24, 2020
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1020-10

<Begin Segment 1>

EK: This is Emi Kuboyama with Stanford University. It is January 24, 2020. I'm here with Kay Ochi in San Diego County, California. Good morning.

KO: Good morning, Emi.

EK: Kay, could you start by telling us your name and your organization's name and your role or title within that organization?

KO: My name is Kay Ochi. My real Japanese name is Kozuye Kay Ochi, but for everybody's ease I've always been Kay. I represent NCRR. In the 1980s we were known as the National Coalition for Redress Reparations, but it was always NCRR. And in NCRR I was first just a member. But part of NCRR's mission was to encourage and enable women especially to take leadership roles. So I soon became the treasurer. Not long after that, by 1990, I was the president, vice-president on and off through the years. But because we want to share the responsibility of leadership, we've gone to a co-chair kind of system. Whereby at this point, in 2020, I am a co-chair along with Kathy Masaoka and Richard Katsuda. And the two other officers are Janice Yen and Suzy Katsuda, and we five make up what we call the coordinating committee. We really are the main, kind of, organizers for NCRR at this point.

EK: So were you affiliated with the organization beginning in the '80s?

KO: Yes. What happened was, NCRR organized, became a formal organization in 1980, however, through the '60s and '70s, we were the benefactors of the Civil Rights Movement, all the really impactful leaders, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, on and on, we were impacted by the ethnic rights movements, Black Power, Yellow Power, and Ethnic Studies. Ethnic Studies were so important to people of color that I think that during the '60s and '70s, that really is our background and our roots. Because by the '70s in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles where there were a large number of Japanese Americans, they formed something called LTPRO, Little Tokyo People's Rights Organization. And in the '70s, they worked for people's rights, social justice. One example is there were a lot of Nisei, second generation Japanese Americans, who lived in downtown, Little Tokyo, because there were SROs, Single Residence Occupancy. And a lot of the men were single, the older Nisei. Very few women lived there, but there were some, and it was an economic thing also. They were low economic people, so the SROs met their needs and they were near Little Tokyo. Well, they were being evicted for, of course, expansion, gentrification, and LTPRO took huge leadership in that campaign, to fight against their eviction, so to speak. And from LTPRO, the focus of redress, by the end of the '70s, became more and more the forefront. And these young leaders and activists, primarily Japanese Americans, decided to form an organization whose goal was specifically to seek monetary redress. That was NCRR. They were not content or satisfied with the national JACL and felt that they would have to have another organization, another campaign. And in 1980 they formed NCRR. What's really key are the Principles of Unity. They were so smart, these LTPRO and NCRR people who started the organization. The main thing, of course, I've said, is to seek monetary reparations for those incarcerated, forcibly removed during World War II. Second would be the education around these issues, and third would be to support other groups, other ethnic groups or religious groups who suffered similar kinds of injustices. There are a couple of others.

But I would like to interject at this point that the information I seem to not have readily at my fingertips is in our book. So this is recently published in 2018, and it is NCRR: The Grassroots Struggle for Japanese American Redress and Reparations. Published by UCLA's Asian American Studies Center, NCRR officers are part of the editing team, as editors, with Dr. Lane Hirabayashi. And this book will probably contain ninety percent of what I'm going to share with you today, so if you ever need to go back, and also it has wonderful photographs. And should I forget, I want you to know, if you want more photos of you, Emi Kuboyama, at a community meeting in Los Angeles, or not just Bob Bratt, Joanne Chiedi, Tink Cooper, Lisa Johnson, it also has photos of Paul Suddes, who was only director for a short time, at a community meeting. DeDe Greene, I'm not sure if we have Deserene Worsley, I'd have to really look for those, but they're on my laptop screen. So if you want any of those photos for your project, we're ready.

EK: Thank you, that's good to know.

<Begin Segment 2>

EK: So why don't we actually go back a bit. Could you tell us a little bit more about where you were born and raised and your educational background?

KO: Yes. I was born in San Diego and raised here as well. Grew up primarily... the Japanese Americans, of course, lived in the lowest economic areas after World War II, and so we lived in what is now known as Barrio Logan. And I went to Luther Burbank elementary school, which was primarily African American. And by the '50s, we were able to, my parents, scrape together a down payment on this house in which we sit today, as their first home and their only home, really. And this is where I grew up, in Chula Vista, California, which is a small city -- well, it's a large city now, in San Diego county. It was a wonderful small town upbringing in the '50s and '60s, and I always reflect how lucky I was to grow up at that time. My parents were Kibei-Nisei, they were born here but raised in Japan. And so the experience was very, very different from other Nisei families. And I have a very large Japanese cultural influence as well as, sort of, the traditions of Japanese culture and history, for which I'm very grateful. The only thing I do regret is that they did not teach me Japanese, to speak Japanese. And it could have been the fact that they were so busy working to feed four girls and also that after the war I think there was sort of a hesitation to speak a lot of Japanese, especially in public. At home, they spoke Japanese to us and we spoke English to them. And stayed in San Diego or Chula Vista all the way through college and left after I got my B.A. at California Western University, graduated in 1968. My major was an interdisciplinary major with an English emphasis and an art minor. Left and went to UCLA to get my teacher's credential and stayed there. So from 1969 approximately through, oh, 2010, I was in Los Angeles, and that is really important to the story because the activism in Los Angeles was at a very high level relative to other communities such as San Diego. And I met the most amazing people there, so that was a continuing part of my education. Of course, being in Los Angeles, being around a lot of Japanese Americans, which was eye-opening and enriching, and to learn from a lot of the people that became my friends at NCRR. So I see that as my education.

EK: And then professionally, what were you doing at that time?

KO: Yes, I got my teaching credential, I began teaching in middle school, junior high school. Started in South Central, which was a very rough way to start my teaching career, and then I got to go to Hollywood area middle school, which was Le Conte middle school. And that was a wonderful experience because it was so diverse. We had children from, who spoke eighty different languages, it was a real port of entry, and it was a beautiful place to work. And stayed in that area, moved towards West Hollywood towards the end of my career at Fairfax High School, and also very diverse economically, ethnically, religiously. One of the nicest gifts I got from a student there, it was probably the late '90s, was a book on the Muslim religion. And there was a Muslim club at Fairfax High School, and this book I have to this day was my introduction to Islam, and that kind of interesting... since it was before September 11, 2001, it was like a little ahead of the curve, so it was a wonderful gift.

EK: Did your community activism influence you at school and your teaching?

KO: By the '80s when I got involved with NCRR, I was a real novice with activism. Meaning I was an ordinary person, I had no roots in activism, protests, I don't think I marched in any protests before NCRR. I was always interested, I always was on the periphery, especially at college, 'cause it was the '60s. I was at all the rallies, but I was not one of the leaders. But in the '80s, I believe that, not so much of my teaching, because I think that I always tried to raise the awareness of students also, about what was going on the world and we would have those discussions. But I certainly didn't bring a lot of information in about my personal perspectives, that would not be too professional. But I would say that in my career, by the '80s, I was involved with the teachers' union, I became the chapter chair at my middle school, and then I became a representative at UTLA, United Teachers Los Angeles, and we'd go to their House of Representatives meetings. Met a lot of wonderful people there, a lot of activists, very progressive. Got involved with school board campaigns and worked on the campaign for Jackie Goldberg, worked back in the '80s for her, and even more recently, she went on to the state legislature and lots of important things in education. But she was a big influence on me, too, because she was a very strong woman. And that's a side note in my personal life, I gravitated towards strong women because I don't think we were allowed that privilege when I was growing up, and weren't encouraged too much. So throughout my adult years, I reflect back that I really, some of my best friends were, and still are, very, very strong and mostly outspoken women. It was great.

<Begin Segment 3>

EK: So you had earlier alluded to some of the history of NCRR. What would you say, how would you describe their strategy when they were thinking about trying to seek monetary redress and all of the other things that you had mentioned?

KO: I was mentioning that in the 1980s I had no political experience. I didn't even know the right questions to ask. So I wasn't really aware of this clear delineated strategy, but the one thing that was prominent was grassroots, meaning it was so important that NCRR realized that a lot of people in the community were not naturally going to support redress, redress and reparations. They were reluctant, they were, in fact, some told us not to bother, it would never happen anyway, so forget about it. And our main strategy at that point was going into people's homes, into churches, going into community organizations, talking about what happened to, as it would be my parents, all my relatives, everyone's families during that time and using -- which I know we'll get to -- the CWRIC hearing tapes, videos, as educational tools. When even people who had been in camp could hear the voices of people sharing their stories and not whitewashing it at all. Just talking about the pain that was caused, the losses, that was our greatest tool in education. So for me, the strategy was education of our own community to just let them know that it was okay to be angry, to speak out about it, and to do something. To do something about it, which means seeking and participating in the fight for redress and reparations, and their participation and their involvement, I think, was a huge, underappreciated aspect of the redress movement. It changed a lot of people's lives, and those who worked most strenuously in the campaign, I think it had the greatest impact on because, certainly, being involved with NCRR, the redress and reparations, being at the CWRIC hearings, all that, were huge, pivotal moments in my life. They changed the course of my history.

<Begin Segment 4>

EK: So were you involved, or NCRR involved, in getting people to go and testify at the commission hearings?

KO: Absolutely. I was not, however, NCRR was key. When they first got information about the hearings, it was only going to be done in Washington, D.C., or in other, like, East Coast areas. And the focus, of course, was to bring them to the people, the people who suffered most, and not make it just a panel or testifiers who were scholars, researchers, academics, researchers, but the people who suffered from what the government had done to them, EO 9066. And so through working with Joan Bernstein and other ones of the commissioners, they broadened their scope. They came to Los Angeles, spent three days in L.A., and then other key areas along the West Coast, San Francisco. So I think there were nine cities that they visited and took testimony, and Los Angeles, there were approximately a hundred and fifty testifiers. And what is brilliant, NCRR, because of our close collaboration with Visual Communications, which was the oldest Asian Pacific Islander media organization in the country, we filmed it. NCRR filmed the testimonies from Los Angeles, and it may be, possibly, the only city where we have the full video history and transcripts of the commission hearings. So they're a powerful tool. I call it our "gold mine" because it is such a wealth of information of what really happened during World War II, and that enabled us to write, speak our own history, before which there was so little that was documented from the perspective of the victims, those who survived. And I recall back in my history books in high school, there may have been a paragraph or two. But my teacher didn't teach it, I mean, certainly, and so we've come after so many decades, a full pendulum swing to the fact that there was much curriculum available, many books written, and I do have to jump to the fact that the CLA, the Civil Liberties Act of '88 and the education fund, really kickstarted broadening the scope of the education that we could do. And NCRR has been the recipient of many of the grants, too, so we're very, very fortunate and grateful to that aspect of the CLA.

<Begin Segment 5>

EK: So following the hearings, could you talk about what NCRR -- you mentioned going out and using the testimony as education. Could you talk a little bit more about what happened post hearings before the Civil Liberties Act was passed?

KO: For NCRR, outreach was key. And lots of outreach speaking, we created a speakers panel because in those days, nobody really wanted to speak. We trained each other and ourselves, somebody would take the lead who was more comfortable with it, and I would be like their assistant, but then I would take a small part. It was really a training ground for us to be able to speak out and broaden our scope. So we did a lot of speaking. In '84 we had our first "test the waters" delegation to Washington, D.C., and I was on that delegation with Miya Iwataki, Bert Nakano from San Francisco, probably Sox Kitashima, John Ota, I'm sorry I can't give you all the names. But we went to Washington and had press packets because NCRR worked with Congressman Mervyn Dymally in Los Angeles. He represented the Gardena/Compton areas, but Gardena certainly had a large number of constituency of Japanese Americans. He was a wonderful person, such a heart. He readily jumped in and supported redress and reparations and helped NCRR with his people, his staff, to create a bill demanding monetary reparations and an apology. This is at the end of 1982. It would be introduced and did not get too far, but it was sort of like started the momentum for the bill that came out in '84 that was authored by more of the Nikkei legislators. So we feel it was a start, and it was the vehicle that we used to go to Washington, D.C., in '84 and talk to people about redress and reparations. And so many of them knew nothing about the camps, and even if they were in California. I remember from Fresno, Chip Pashayan, I'm not sure if that's the correct pronunciation.� He knew so little about incarceration, wartime incarceration, but he did give us a box of raisins as a gift. [Laughs] Little things like that were pretty memorable. We felt like we were making a start, but then our purpose, of course, was involving people, so in '87 we did a very large delegation to Washington. The bills had picked up a lot of momentum and were being introduced.

So the bills were introduced and we took a huge lobbying delegation, NCRR, about a hundred twenty people, because Miya Iwataki, NCRR's legislative chair, worked with Congressman, she actually worked for Congressman Dymally, she helped, with his office, set up all the congressional visits. She and I put together the lobbying teams. We took ribbons, long yellow ribbons from all over the country, primarily Los Angeles and the West Coast, with names of people who could not participate but would give small donations to help the delegation. We have videos of all of that, but it speaks toward our strategy. Our strategy was legislative, clearly. It was not through the courts which was NCJAR with William Hohri, Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga, and that group. But legislatively, we felt that we had the best chance of getting what we demanded, which was the apology, monetary reparations and the education.

<Begin Segment 6>

EK: So what happened once the bill was passed? How did you expect the redress process to play out?

KO: Let me just interject, huge parties. We had video watching parties at the Japanese American Cultural Community Center, which was one of our home bases there. It's a large facility. We streamed or watched the Senate vote, the Congressional floor speeches, and we would just be there with crowds of people celebrating and cheering and applauding every time there was something really positive. And a big party, a day of celebration when the bill did pass. And I remember Sox Kitashima from the Bay Area, who was one of the leaders of their redress and reparations, she would bring her friends down, they made a ton of sushi. She and her San Francisco friends brought all the sushi down to L.A., and Fred and Kathryn Korematsu came down, certainly John Ota, who was a staunch NCRR person, so many I could not begin to name. But the entire plaza, a large area of the JACCC, was full of people. We had a program, but mostly we celebrated because truth be told, there were many of us in NCRR who did not think it would happen. Even back in 1982 onwards, even if we picked up a little momentum, it would die in committee, we would have all these setbacks. We did not know if it would happen. Of course, we didn't care, it was the principle. We fought on, and that it passed was amazing. Okay, that was cut short because we found out that there was no money appropriated. [Laughs] So we're going, "What in the world?" We had a huge Day of Protest. This was, again, at the JACCC plaza to protest the fact that it was insult to injury to not have the appropriations. It just took about another year, Senator Inouye was a leader in getting the funding and getting the entitlement, so that was like a big relief to us. Because we had to change our campaign, it was mostly protest letters, petitioning, and a lot of angry feelings, too.� When it was funded, we could take a breath and learn more about the ORA and how it would be carried out. And so NCRR did stay very, very involved. I don't think we skipped a beat. We were involved with initial communications.

And one of my greatest memories is of Bob Bratt, the director of ORA, coming to Los Angeles. The first community meeting was at Centenary Methodist Church, right in the heart of Little Tokyo, and the room was packed to capacity with Japanese Americans wanting to know, "What next?" And Bob, my first impression was, number one, he was tall. [Laughs] He seemed sort of shy and kind of humble, and not like what you might expect some Department of Justice bureaucrat to look like. He was, certainly he wore a suit and a tie, but his manner of speech, his presentation was really down to earth. I'd say that that would be a key description of Bob Bratt is "down to earth." He was humble, he was very warm and friendly. And even after the meeting, he stayed and didn't rush out to catch his plane, that kind of thing. He met some of the key people, I was one of the first to go up and introduce myself with other key NCRR folks, and he really kind of hung back and just got to know us a little bit at that time. That was a really, really, a good sign of things to come. And he, of course, was professional, did his duty, gave us all the information that he had at that time, told us what he knew, how it would work, which was key. And then explained that through the regulations, it was their job to find the recipients, folks that we did not know about. And then I'd say that that would be my first impression of the ORA, and then as soon as we met people like Joanne Chiedi and Tink Cooper, who was the attorney, and Lisa Johnson. I would say that we could tell right away that Tink had a job to do as the attorney, as the lawyer of the group, it was a little bit different. And sometimes I'd be frustrated with Tink because of that hard line of reading the literal interpretation of the act and the regulations, got a little frustrating. But she was a terrific person. I could tell that she cared. And I think as a team it worked well because you kind of needed that person who would direct, I guess, the ORA to the literal, the words of the Act. But I would say that we were the most comfortable with Bob, Joanne, and Lisa, the people we met at the outset.

And I think the community meetings were super important, so that was wonderful that the ORA did so many. Because, to me, the people, after the people and the community got to know the ORA, that was the bridge. That was key to how the program would run, and what the reactions of the community would be. I do have to interject that the Rafu Shimpo newspaper in Los Angeles, as well as the Hokubei and Nichi Bei, I'm sorry, the other one in the Bay Area, were key. As the vernaculars for our community, they covered everything, kept a wider group of people aware of what was going on with redress and reparations. NCRR would shoot press releases to them all the time, they became our best friends, our allies in this campaign. So I don't want it to be overlooked that the Rafu Shimpo was an important part of redress/reparations and working with the ORA.

<Begin Segment 7>

KO: You know, I'm circling around, but I was afraid I was going to forget that one of the strategies of the ORA towards the end -- I'm zooming ahead, okay -- was to find the "unknowns", the people that the ORA could not find. And, of course that was part of their mission, too. So I'm estimating that there were at least 3,500, maybe more, of people in the "unknowns" of which the ORA issued a publication, a little booklet with all their names and last known locations, that kind of thing, and distributed it to key people in the community. It was amazing that the Rafu Shimpo printed all those names. I have the cutouts of the Rafu Shimpo, they used whole page, half page, for, it seemed like, weeks on end, for the most bang for getting those names put out there. And through your efforts at the ORA as well as everybody else's efforts to try to locate people, I think that, at the end, there were only twelve hundred and fifty "unknowns". Which is unfortunate, but we understand. Starting with over, well, 120,000 or more, trying to find them, etcetera.

Okay, I know I'm skipping around, but the "unknowns", oh my gosh, Sox Kitashima. This is a story... I think I put it in the NCRR book, many people have heard this story. But she was such a workhorse. She worked every angle, she went out to talk to so many people. Of course she called the ORA every single day, and everybody there knew her so well. She was that kind of sparkly... she was a bubbly woman with high energy. And she was not a young woman at the start of all this, too, but she was a really great role model for me, too, as well as everybody else at NCRR. She was in NCRR and JACL, so she wore two hats, and did it well. But she located a person who had not applied for redress and reparations, and it may have been through your office that she got these names directly. And he, unfortunately, was imprisoned. He was, oh my gosh, the one by... was he in Folsom, or was he in... some place about an hour or two away from where she lived, okay, and I can't remember the exact location. But she made Jeff Adachi, who was a young community activist and attorney at that time, drive her -- because she wasn't going to drive that far -- down to the prison, get her in to visit the person, and help him apply for redress and reparations. And I think as the story goes, he didn't feel he deserved it, and she and Jeff were able to convince him that he needed to apply, and that was the length to which Sox would go. And so I think that's a wonderful story about how people, you know, really pounded the streets to find people to get the redress and reparations. And so where were we? [Laughs] Circling back to where we started.

<Begin Segment 8>

EK: So another question having to do with the early days of ORA--do you have memories about the first check presentation ceremonies?

KO: Yes, absolutely. Number one, so grateful that I was able to go and be there. And that after this struggle of a decade, the '80s decade, of not really thinking it was going to happen, for it to happen and then to have the ORA invite, I think it might have been eight or nine of the eldest Japanese Americans who had survived, to this program in Washington, D.C., and have it in the Hall of Justice, which was kind of awesome to be there. And to see all the people that I think, a lot of the people who worked on it, and certainly in the front were the Nikkei legislators, a lot of the 442 veterans were in the first few rows, community people, certainly Sox and others from the community. From L.A., I know Bert Nakano, myself, Miya Iwataki, Takeshi Nakayama who represented the Rafu Shimpo, covered and took some great photos of the first checks being given. We were fortunate to have attended, to be the actual witness. And it was like my heart was just full and it was leaping out of my chest, because it was probably one of the greatest days of my life, I can speak for everybody else who was there, too. Because it reflected so much history that had gone on to our community, and the long time, the decades that it took to receive, to earn, to fight for this apology, it's quite gratifying.

And although, I do have to say, and this could be another topic, the CLA was not all that some people thought it was. There were a lot of omissions, and it was a compromise, a painful compromise to me. But the fact that there was the apology -- that's another point, the apology letter, because Bob told me some stories about working to get that apology letter. And the number of people ultimately who received redress and reparations, okay, it was a really excellent thing. And that day, I'll never forget Sugi Kiriyama, who was the mother of George Kiriyama, mother-in-law of Iku Kiriyama, who are very, very important people in Los Angeles community. He was a board member and a wonderful person, and his wife, very active in the community. And it's sweet that now their son and daughter, George and Iku's son and daughter, are very active in the community. But then his mother, Sugi, was one of the recipients. And she was in a wheelchair, and she was, by then, almost a hundred, and beautiful. She had a shawl, and she came out, she had to be wheeled onto the small stage, and she just, because of who she was, and kind of, like her hands were together, and she was just like very serene and composed. When she was wheeled out, it was kind of breathtaking, it was really a photo moment. I mean, all the press that was there, the media, you could hear those cameras and flashes going off. She was quite lovely, but she was the elder that we were celebrating that day. Another elder woman, I forgot her name, had fallen in the hotel room. She had flown in from somewhere and was in a hotel room and she had fallen just getting around, and she had some large bruises on her face by the next day. But I'm not sure everybody knew why she had those bruises, maybe they didn't even notice. But being one of the older folks, what could you expect. And, of course, to see the checks actually issued, the checks and the apologies, and Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, and he kneeled. [Laughs] He kneeled, and all the cameras caught that, too. And it was such a gesture from the government to provide this apology and reparations, and for him to present it, it was a moment in history I will never forget. And the ORA, through their kind gestures, acknowledged the three main organizations they worked with, which were NCRR, JACL and NCJAR. And the three leaders were photographed with, I hope, Bob, and other people. And they presented us with certificates, plaques of appreciation, that kind of thing, which we could take back and share with our people in the community to say that the ORA is grateful for our help.

<Begin Segment 9>

KO: And I haven't mentioned the parties because... yes, I did mention after the CLA was passed, but after each community meeting and each large event, if it were just a little community get together or a meeting in Washington with the ORA, we would always go out for beer and food afterwards. And so I think that was key also, to the affection for the ORA and the people who worked there. It was being able to break bread together, share water, beer, whatever we were drinking. And just recognize each of us as regular people wanting to do the right thing, so it was a really important part. And in the book, NCRR's book, Bob Bratt was the only non-community person of our local committee, NCRR committee, who was invited to write about the redress and reparations and working with the ORA, and he did, bless his heart. Submitted an article, which, he would always talk about after a meeting, the best part was meeting Bert Nakano down at the bar to have a beer with him. And I'm telling you, those two were quite a picture, laughing and just talking the talk, talking story to each other. And it just sort of typified or signified that relationship, that the feelings we had for Bob and that were reciprocated by him.

Do you want me to tell you about when we were really disappointed with Bob Bratt? Yes. He was such a huge disappointment when he left the ORA. I was just crestfallen. I couldn't believe why he would do this, but of course I knew, he was being promoted. We understood at a certain level, intellectual level, that yeah, it was a huge opportunity. He had done such great work, why should he not be advanced? But it was a terrible blow. He assured us that he had, his key people were still in place, and that's how I think Joanne became, I was going to say the backbone, because although she continued through the different directors, she was always there as well as you and Lisa, Tink, Aaron, other people were there, too. But by then she had become a real wealth of information and experience, and lots of credit to her. And for Bob leaving, we were mad, but we got over it because we had a huge celebration for him, everybody wanted to celebrate the fact that he was being promoted.� He had done so well for us to get the program off to an excellent start. Huge celebration at a hotel in Little Tokyo, the Miyako Hotel, ballroom was full. People were mad at me and NCRR because we hogged Bob Bratt. We sat with him, we just kind of ran the program, and people did have some hard feelings, but that's how, what we thought about, how we felt about him. And he probably has, in his closet, more plaques and plates and awards that we had given throughout those years, especially at that particular event, but just small tokens of our appreciation. But I think that it was a challenge for him, for us to get on without him because each person that came on as director was someone that we had to get to know. And they were at a great disadvantage because the program was rolling and we didn't have the opportunity to get to know them quite as well. I know that Paul was only there for a short time. I think that Deserene was only there for a short time, and we worked a little longer with DeDe, and certainly she was terrific. But I have to say that I'm not sure who hired DeDe, but it all worked to our benefit because we could see, although we didn't get our way all the time, we didn't get everything we wanted as far as the reparations to specific people and categories, I think that we knew that these people were good people and had our best interests, and had to balance that tricky road of the bill and its interpretation, so that's a whole another segment of our meeting during the '90s. Are we in the '90s? Yes, we are.

<Begin Segment 10>

Redress denials is a whole second chapter. The beginning, I call it the honeymoon period with the ORA, getting to know one another, getting the first redress checks out to the community, the first check ceremony, and the one in Los Angeles also, oh my gosh, yes. That the ORA brought it to the cities, it was terrific because more and more people got to participate in that, so that was terrific. And in Los Angeles, Sumi Seki, one of our staunch members, made fresh floral leis for everybody involved, and I remember James Turner, the Assistant AG of Civil Rights, they all had to wear leis because that's how we roll. [Laughs] And that the ten approximately eldest in Los Angeles were able to get the check from the ORA directly. It was a little unfortunate that the rest of the checks had to just be mailed out, but I do have to say, and I don't know, I hope I don't get anybody in trouble, I think it's too late. But Bob actually arranged for my parents' check to be sent directly to me, so I could bring it down to San Diego to give to them personally, and that was special, so I do appreciate that. Thanks, Bob. [Laughs]

And so the '90s decade, that was a horse of a different color because we were fighting now. We were in really kind of proactive mode because after the first checks were delivered, we found out very, very quickly, which is... chapter 11 of the NCRR book, if you don't want to read everything in the book, go to chapter 11. Do you have a copy of this book? I have one as a gift to you, for Emi for coming to San Diego to tape this interview. And chapter 11 is the one that I worked the hardest on, because it is about the redress denials. And it may be the chapter that Bob's article is in, and working with the ORA, and it ends with the statistics of how many checks were issued by the ORA, the Japanese Latin Americans, all the different categories that we worked with on denials, and unknowns, et cetera. So that, sent to the community members by the ORA, is an important document for us, too.

We soon found out that people were not, were being denied redress. They got the official letter from the ORA about the appeals process, lot of phone calling about the appeals process, helping people in our community to not give up, not quit, and about the redress. So David Monkawa, an NCRR person, and Jan Yen, one of the officers, and others, myself included, worked on creating files for all the phone calls we got. We received dozens and dozens and dozens of people who were calling us about being denied. After we made these simple forms of categorizing who was being denied redress, it became pretty clear after a short time what the categories were. And we launched a campaign for each of the categories. And we made trips to Washington, D.C., for example in '93, '94, probably every year, or almost every year of the '90s, to meet with Department of Justice leadership like Assistant Attorney General James Turner, was at one of the first meetings. Because the ORA, because of the attorneys at Justice, would say, "Well, we can do no more, this is about as far as we can go." So we decided to take it up a notch meeting with the Atorney Generals. One of the most memorable things about Mr. Turner were the community people meeting there from JACL and NCRR, L.A., the area, different parts of Washington, D.C., et cetera. The takeaway was the tie of baseball analogy. If there's a tie, the tie will go to the runner, which meant that his attitude would be that if there were enough evidence, enough of a case to warrant a certain... like equal on each side, the tie would go to the runner. And I thought, okay, that's good, at least we've got that. He was able to turn some of the categories around fairly quickly, which would be, I think, the Naval Language School people, because they weren't incarcerated, they weren't forcibly removed, but there were definitely ways that made it easier for the Justice Department to grant reparations. And certainly all those categories are gone over in the book, in the NCRR book.

We met also with Deval Patrick when he was Assistant AG of Civil Rights, and he used the terminology that he was going to use an "expansive interpretation" of the law, which was also important to us. Because by this point, all we could really fight for was a more liberal expansive interpretation of intent of the law, things like that, which were a little more gray area. And when cases were reversed, of course, there were always celebrations. I remember the railroad workers, which is really a huge category we worked with, and Fumi Shimada, who was one of the key people. By the way, if I forget to mention it, Fumi did have another complaint that we'll talk about, but celebrations and getting together.

And a side note, that I spoke about learning our own history, who knew about the railroad workers and their plight, the horror of being in, living in trailers and chicken coops, because the railroads had fired them and kicked them out of company housing. Who knew about the Japanese Latin Americans (JLA)? Very few. And for NCRR to work with the Japanese Latin Americans, Japanese Peruvian oral history project with Grace Shimizu, for those years, we became a founding member of the Campaign for Justice, which fought for Japanese Latin Americans. We were ever so thrilled when, then, Bill Lann Lee, because of the Clinton administration, by then, we were able to get a lot of... his people, Clinton's people, the appointments he made were very favorable to us. Fisher, I'm sorry, I forgot his first name, very important person. It's probably in the book also. But along with Bill Lann Lee, the placement of people like Stuart Ishimaru, Rose Ochi and community liaison work, these were all key things. I'm not quite sure, because I don't know, I have never heard the specifics, of how the JLA settlement was reached. But that Bill Lann Lee came to the community, came to Little Tokyo, made the announcement towards the end of the '90s that it was decided that there would be a settlement and that the railroad workers and the JLAs, at different times, would receive redress and reparations. It was unfortunate that the JLAs received only five thousand, which they felt was bittersweet. That was a key word that people like Alice Nishimoto, Alicia and Carmen Mochizuki, Hector Watanabe, the people that we worked with, mentioned. Because the suffering that they and their parents went through during the time, during World War II. So anyway, NCRR was very, very pleased to work so quickly with the JLAs during that time and create our own history. Write our history, hear their voices, be able to record them, and have them as what really did happen, in depth with great meaning. By the action of one particular president, one particular executive order, and the impact, not just the immediate, but resonated for generations, it had the ripple effect. And even today, people, young people will speak about how they felt about their parents or grandparents' incarceration and how it impacted them and their families, and it's something that we still talk about. And yeah, that's why we keep going. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 11>

EK: Do you think a similar program could be established today?

KO: Not today, not with the current administration. There would be no way because of the makeup of Congress. It would make such a bill for reparations for a particular targeted group, could have a good chance of passing the House, but not the Senate, and would be vetoed by this president, and he probably would have some unfortunate words to use in regard to it. However, being optimistic, things change. And I feel that the nation has access to a lot more information than we did back in the early '80s to advance the cause of redress and reparations. I always remind groups that we speak to, we used typewriters, we had regular telephones, there were no mobile phones, no cell phones, no social media, everything that makes life so quick and easy today. We remember using a lot of carbon paper, white-out, liquid paper, things that kids have no idea what we're talking about, telegrams, we had a telegram campaign. But today, I think that there's a groundswell of good people, good justice-minded people and organizations, NCRR participates in that today with current demonstrations against the detention of immigrants, their treatment, inhumane treatment, the separation of families, which we hope is diminishing, the creation of more and more detention centers instead of placing immigrants and asylees in homes and in communities. So we were very, very active in that campaign and have done fundraisers recently with NP, an affiliate organization, Nikkei Progressives, which kind of overlaps NCRR, draws a younger crowd also, which we were very, very interested in doing. Raised tens of thousands of dollars for helping immigrants today, and are dispersing that money for when the people are finally released from detention. They don't have any money, and so we were able to help these community organizations to give them seed money to get going, things like that. But getting back to can it happen today, NCRR is also engaged in a discussion, big discussion about African American reparations. And it was, in 2004, we even had a speaker, Dr. David Horn, come from Cal State Northridge to talk about what the community, African American community wanted, which we feel is the most important thing. And he was able to raise our awareness because we couldn't speak to that topic without knowing how the community felt. So I think that speaks to NCRR's going back to the grassroots. What do the people need, what do they want, what do they demand? And I guess it's why we're still around. As an all-volunteer organization, that's amazing.

We are funded through donations, a few grant projects for our work. I've got to put a plug in for the fact of those grant projects. We were able to create a short film, Stand Up for Justice, about Ralph Lazo. He was the Mexican Irish American, who at the age of sixteen, went to camp with his friends, to Manzanar, stayed for two years or more, and then was in the military, etcetera. But he was a lifelong friend of the Japanese American community. We have photos of him in our book showing up at rallies, Day of Remembrances. He was one of the ronin for the NCJAR class action suit. But NCRR created a film about him to use in high school classes. We have video, change to video DVD, the commission hearing tapes. We were not quick to do that, but finally the 1981 commission hearings in Los Angeles are now on DVD available, and we've sent them out to universities, Asian Studies programs. We have a short twenty-testimony version for use in classrooms and organizations, because it's a really, really powerful source, for people to hear the voices of people who were actually incarcerated. No longer is it just text in a book or something you've heard about, but when you hear their voices and what really happened to them, it's a very powerful experience. So once again, our gold mine, the wealth, it's kind of like the riches of our community, lie in these books and stories and DVDs. And NCRR also received, like, grants from this CLPEP grants for oral histories of key NCRR persons, and those are reflected in the book. We've kind of excerpted some of those key oral histories to show what a range of people made up NCRR, are just community folks.

Other things that we've published for educational purposes, a curriculum guide. Other resources to teach, which was, again, one of [our] "Principles of Unity," to teach about what happened to a large group of people because of the unfortunately, worse than unfortunate, actions of an executive, which we learned now, really based on, oh, the CWRIC, the book, Personal Justice Denied, oh my gosh. We use that as an important tool in the redress strategy, too. When we could quote their summary, their findings of the commissioners, that the incarceration was based on race prejudice, wartime hysteria, and then the big one, or another big one, failure of political leadership. We have quoted that endlessly, not only within in our own community, but to others who still lack the resolve that it was unfair and unjust. We'll say, "Well, you know, this high panel said it was, and the Congress passed a bill or a law." So even in this day and age, education is always key. We have a lot of work to do because places we go, still people don't know about wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. It's a continuing cycle of having to educate and share and teach the lessons of. And so NCRR will always go quickly to the lessons learned, and that our legacy is to teach and to share, but the lessons are that it could happen again, and it does, and how people can speak out and participate. And even if a bill is not passed in your favor, then it's important to speak out and be on the record and know that we weren't just silent and that it was going to pass. That it was not okay, and I see that happening more and more in this recent decade, more protests, which is terrific.

<Begin Segment 12>

EK: So given that it's been a couple of decades since the program sunset, it's 2020 and the program ended in '98, what are some of your key takeaways, either personally or as an organization, about your time working with ORA?

KO: The key lessons are, amongst the key lessons are that it's all about people. The people that you're representing, their voices, it's all about who represents the government, and we had the good fortune of having really good people, meaning compassionate, they were all so professional, they cared so much about their job. I could never see this as being a nine to five job for the majority of people at the ORA. The travel that you had to go through, that was an important part of the workings of ORA. That good people -- and how do you get good people? Sometimes with the hiring, for example, that Bob was selected to be the director, I think he had a keen interest. And I do know that his uncle, being Japanese American, shared the story of wartime incarceration with him. For that, we are fortunate, because it maybe propelled him even a little more to get involved, and we're really, really grateful. And that he had the wisdom, experience, professionalism to hire the very best people. So as far as lessons, I think we were extremely fortunate in the good people and even the swing of the administration to a Democratic administration from Republican, from the Reagan administration, et cetera. And that even, oh, yeah, it was Reagan, and then George Bush signing the apology letters, et cetera. And then finally my sister, who was born in camp, her apology letter was signed by Clinton. A lesson from it is that, working with the ORA, that you won't always get your way, but as far as NCRR, there are some categories of denial cases where we fought with the ORA. For example, the "children of voluntary evacuees," CVEs. And, of course, we also kind of disagreed with some of the terminology used, but ORA was good about it. They could adjust the terminology because there were no voluntary, truly voluntary evacuees. That I think that there were a few places where we disagreed, but at least we were heard, we felt we were heard, and that goes again to the quality of people that were, that staffed the ORA. And that the CVEs cut off for their redress was going to be something like January 2nd of 1945, you had to have been born by them. And we struggled in the community and through NCRR to make it June, at least June, that was our compromise position of '45. And that was when the war ended, therefore people really did know they could leave the camps. But I think that it was finally settled on January 20th, that was a bitter pill. But we understood that we're working with the legal part of the Department of Justice, and I do believe that people in ORA, who will remain nameless, said that if they had their way, they would give redress and reparations to every Japanese American, whether they were on the East Coast or the Midwest, whether or not they had been incarcerated, because the impact was wide and far-reaching. The discrimination was heightened, was by the executive order. The government created more racism and prejudice than previously existed, and for that, I think we were all entitled to redress and reparations, and we were happy to hear the off-the-record comments of people, some people in the ORA who felt that way also. So we do understand, I did learn, and, of course, there is that line between what the bank of attorneys at DOJ would be willing to do, and then what I consider the heart of the organization, the people that I worked with at ORA, as representing the Department of Justice and the government. You guys were the heart.