Densho Digital Repository - William "Bill" Kaneko Interview (Densho ID: ddr-densho-1020-11-2)

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EK: Let's talk a bit more about your community work. So how did you and your organization become involved with the redress efforts?

BK: Well, after... when I started working in Los Angeles, I was actually active with the L.A., various L.A. chapters of the JACL, which is the Japanese American Citizens League. So between 1983 and 1988, I was involved in the Southern California area. And, as you know, the Japanese American Citizens League was one of the prime advocates for redress legislation going back early on in terms of passage of the, not only the Commission on Wartime Relocation enactment, but also the redress bill itself. So as a young, back then, young professional, I began to really familiarize myself with JACL's efforts. Then when I moved back to Hawaii in 1988, right after when the Civil Liberties Act was passed, I then became active in the local chapter here in Honolulu.

EK: Could you tell us a little more about your organization's strategy to pursue redress?

BK: Is it prior to the act?

EK: Right. Talk a little bit about the JACL's role in the whole redress effort.

BK: Okay. Yeah, my understanding is that it really, kind of a lot of the impetus came out of a lot of the Seattle chapter's original discussions about pursuing redress for Japanese Americans. Then it became a national issue, and the organization for literally a couple decades really advocated for redress. My understanding is that in the early years of pursuing redress, a big issue was how do you go about it? And in talking to a lot of the early leaders in JACL, a focal point was do we go for the whole ball of wax or does the organization advocate for a fact-finding effort? And so the latter was the strategy, is to create a Commission on Wartime Relocation for the Internment of Civilians, which would gather facts, data and information about exactly what happened. And so with that factual foundation, then a push was to actually then go for redress. And as it turned out, that was probably a more prudent strategy, because Congress, through the enactment of that commission, really had all the background information and the facts to then provide a recommendation to Congress which ultimately resulted in the redress bill itself, and the compensation, $20,000 monetary compensation. But were it not for that initial efforts, I'm not sure if would have been passed or not. But JACL, through and throughout, along with other organizations like NCJAR, National Coalition for Japanese American Redress and others, collectively, through very grassroots efforts, national effort, ultimately addressed this, one of the gravest wrongs in our nation's history.

EK: Could you talk about your personal memories about this time when the commissions were having these hearings as well as any sort of personal involvement or recollections about that whole process of pursuing redress?

BK: Yeah. It was interesting because, as someone who was born and raised in Hawaii, and my experiences of being discriminated or some of the issues that mainland AJAs (Americans of Japanese Ancestry) and mainland minorities have, I never really grew up with that. But it wasn't really until, before getting my degree at the University of Puget Sound, I spent a couple years at the University of Hawaii, and studied under Dr. Franklin Odo, who was, at that time, the director of Ethnic Studies. And he taught a course called 'The Japanese in Hawaii,' Ethnic Studies 200, which accounted for the history of Japanese Americans in Hawaii, but also it was really the first time that I really studied and understood what happened, not only in Hawaii to Japanese Americans during the war, but the entire West Coast AJA population. I subsequently became a lab leader for Ethnic Studies 200, and then that's when I really began to understand and appreciate the gravity of what happened. And so after moving to Los Angeles, again, as a young professional and getting involved with the JACL and then not being in Hawaii and then having to live with, as a minority, everything kind of came together and I really more fully appreciated, not only the work that JACL did, but really the importance of the redress movement.