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EK: So what do you think was the biggest challenge while you were working with ORA?

LJ: I think in the beginning, the biggest challenge was the sheer volume of what we were trying to do. There were so many people, and like I mentioned, it was kind of the race against time in the beginning. We had so many very elderly people who, it just felt a little overwhelming at times in the beginning. We just felt like we wanted to get to as many people as we could while they were still living. So in the beginning it was, sheer volume I think was our biggest challenge at some point. And we staffed to meet the challenge. I think at one point we probably had a hundred people, close to a hundred people working in the office, tons of contractors, cases were being verified at a quick rate, but I think just the volume and the logistics of trying to get as many cases processed as we could in a quick amount of time, to let people know that they were eligible. I think that was the biggest challenge in the beginning, and then as the program wore on, I think then the challenge of the tough cases, the cases where we didn't know how to make something work, but we knew that somebody was eligible or should have been eligible, and trying to find the right documentation to prove that was, I think, towards the end, the biggest challenge.

EK: And what do you think were the biggest successes of the program?

LJ: There were a lot, but I think the biggest successes were, aside from finding and verifying as many cases as we did, I felt like for the most part, feeling like the Japanese American community felt like they were involved in the process and felt like they had a say. We would hear from Japanese American community leaders who would come and say, "I'm not sure this is working right," or, "I think you need to change this," or, "This approach needs to change," and we listened to that. And things did change, and the workshops kind of evolved out of that, and the outreach things changed to meet the needs. And I think being able to have it be a true community, government collaborative effort was, I think, meaningful for us, and meaningful for the community as well to feel like they had really pushed to get this legislation passed, and they were still involved in the process, which I think was great.

EK: Did you have any experiences with people who had difficulty with the fact that this was a Department of Justice program, and it was, in part, the federal government and the Department of Justice who had interned them?

LJ: Right. Definitely some. We didn't have a lot of... I didn't feel like I encountered a lot of that, but we definitely had cases over the years, sometimes at workshops, sometimes just on the phone with people, where they would come in. And they were, they were angry, they weren't happy with having to sometimes provide any documentation or, you know, they would say, "Look, we've done enough. It's up to you now, why do I have to do anything else for you? This is on you now to make me eligible." And it didn't happen often, but it did, and I totally understood. Especially for somebody who was very elderly, or where it was a burden on them to provide even limited documentation, I got it, it was hard. Unfortunately, sometimes it was just a necessity. I didn't encounter it often, but I did from time to time, and I understood it.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2019 Emi Kuboyama. All Rights Reserved.