Densho Digital Repository - Martha Watanabe Interview (Densho ID: ddr-densho-1020-2-5)

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EK: So did you go from that appointment, or from that detail to the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund?

MW: No, because my detail was in '93, so no. After Office of Redress, I was there from '89 to '91. In 1991, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division had gotten a new computer system. New at the time, which was GIS, Geographic Information Systems. In '90 that was a brand new field, brand new opening. But Bob Berman, who was one of the deputies in voting, immediately saw, oh, we could use this for voting and redistricting. And so he and the company did a contract, and the Civil Rights Division, really, we had state of the art equipment in '91, because we were one of the few people using it with the company, which is ESRI. And they needed a manager to come in and help manage some of the contractors. My predecessor was a military person, and military people are very punctual. And so when staff would be wandering in at 9:05, he would get all upset, those kinds of things. And he realized, too, he says, "Okay, I don't think this is quite the job for me." And so they were looking for someone else, and so they then tapped me and I said, "Hmm." So I went over there, and while I was working for them, I did my detail to the White House and then came back. So I actually did the GIS stuff from '91 to '96, and then in '96, went over to the Public Education Fund.

EK: So could you talk a little bit more about what you did with the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund?

MW: So that, once again, sort of like Office of Redress, starting from scratch. So the very first meeting is, okay, defining our mission, and how do we get to that mission? And so one of the things is, okay, they came up with various areas for consideration because it was a grant program, it was set up as a grant program. So we came up with topics: Arts and Media, Curriculum, Research, and things along those lines. And then basically came up with a whole, very similar to ORA, okay. Here we're doing outreach, and here, apply for grants, here's your criteria for each of the five areas. And then so out we went, and then in came grants, and then the board sat around and basically said, "Oh, this looks good, that looks good," and stuff like that. And in fact, one of the grants, speaking of this, is there's a new foreword, an updated foreword to this that was actually done by the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund, and this is the second edition of this particular book, and that was also one of our grantees as well. And Tets Kashima, who was at the University of Washington, actually then compiled some of the new data that was added to this particular book. [Narr. note: Personal Justice Denied]

EK: Do you recall, when you were with the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund, were you there when there was the discussion about using the money to pay the Japanese Latin Americans?

MW: That was not something that we could have done. So to talk a little bit about that, part of... well, one of the people you may consider interviewing is Stuart Ishimaru, and that's because he was actually instrumental in helping write the original Civil Liberties Act of 1988. As you know, one of the problems that came up was as they started the initial research on the number of people. So the initial bill thought that there only going to be eighty, ninety thousand recipients still alive when they started doing the actual research and coming up with the names, realized that there were thousands and thousands, a good twenty thousand more, I don't remember the exact number, but at least twenty thousand more people that needed to get this twenty thousand dollar check. And so then when they tried to go back for more appropriations, it didn't work, I guess would be the nice way to put it. And so they had to make decisions. Okay, of the groups that are, quote, "eligible," where are the priorities? And that was a group that eventually got left out of the final monetary reparations.

EK: Can you talk a little bit about why this particular group was not eligible?

MW: One... well, not really. I think also trying to find them was going to be a little more difficult as well. Because we were on a timeline with ORA. 1991 was when the first checks had to be issued, so I think there was a piece of that as well. And that was a group, I think, that they had no idea, as well, how many people. This was an easier group to come up with hard numbers, and they're still fighting for redress to this day.