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EK: Could you talk a little bit more about specifically where you went when you conducted outreach?

JC: So I went to California too many times for me to remember. I probably conducted -- it's not an exaggeration because I worked in the program for the entire time -- at least a hundred workshops. I traveled a tremendous amount of time. So a lot in L.A., San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, because there were big strawberry farms in Sacramento, so a lot of people lost, not only did they lose their liberty and they were interned, but they also lost their property. Where else did I go? Glendale, California, was a large population as well... where else did I go?

EK: Seattle?

JC: Well, yes, state of Washington, spent a lot of time in Seattle. It was funny, we were looking at, of course, a lot of addresses, and there was a large population that lived on this block, and we were like, oh my god, this must be the longest block in the world. But we realized there was a retirement home, an assisted living facility, and we were like, "Oh, that makes sense." So we spent a lot of time in assisted living facilities, nursing homes, in church basements, wherever we needed to go in order to verify someone and to talk to the community to learn more of what we needed to keep an eye on from an eligibility perspective. Portland, Oregon, spent a lot of time there. Hawaii numerous times, just because the situation was very, it was complex in Hawaii, given the bombing of Pearl Harbor and what were you going to do, evacuate the whole island? There was a large population of Japanese Americans, so there was a lot of nuance. They were in that Special Verification bucket, they had that yellow sticker dot on their folder. But many turned green, so we were happy, green meant good to go, ready for payment.

EK: What about outside of the West Coast?

JC: Let me think, where did I go?

EK: Arizona?

JC: I went to Arizona, yes, I spent a lot of time, it seemed like in Phoenix was the big area.

EK: Because remember the line went right down the middle of the city.

JC: That's right, that's right. Yeah, it was interesting and fascinating, some of the thinking and theories behind the internment program and the evacuation program. Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of government officials, given their age, that we could actually interview other than historians who provided us some input. Yeah, Phoenix, Arizona, let me see if I wrote down some areas and don't remember. But I think those were the big areas. Because what would happen is we would... again, reputation and trust was really important. So some of us had the cities that we went to a lot, because we started getting name recognition as well. You know, like, "You want to go to that meeting with Joanne, she will help you out." We started work at eight o'clock in the morning, sometimes seven, depending upon, because people wanted to get us, if it was over weekends, before they went to church, 'til nine o'clock at night.

EK: Can you talk about kind of those early years where you and Bob, I believe, used to go out on the road and conduct the first rounds of outreach?

JC: Yes. So we went out on the road, and what we basically, again, garnering their trust, who we were, what our role was in the program, what we wanted to achieve, why it was important to us to talk to the community and for them to talk to us. So we used to come with props, like, here's our computer, and here's what we're going to bring to verify you. Your names are in here, and what we need you to bring during our workshops, and it was all the eligibility requirements, and usually was a driver's license or a birth certificate. That's basically it, really, that's all we needed. We needed to know where they lived currently and where they were born, to establish citizenship, because we had the records back then which was called Immigration and Naturalization Service, the INS. And then if you had a name change, your marriage certificate. So we wanted to tell them what to expect, and then we had a big brown envelope saying, "This is what you're going to get in the mail, the sooner that you're able to give us this information, the faster we can verify you. If you gave us copies, please send a certified copy of the record. Please try not to send us the originals," although people did, and we did mail back everything if people sent us the originals. But it was really setting up the expectation and letting them know that we're trying to streamline the process as much as possible. That if they didn't have that information, we were setting up a requirement that they could basically give us a statement signed under the penalty of perjury of law, and we would take their word as long as they were willing to sign it under penalty of perjury. So, again, we were trying to make it as easy as possible, we didn't want to make it difficult to people who had suffered for so long to receive this acknowledgement. And I'm happy to say, we were audited every year, I don't remember the auditing company, probably shouldn't give them a free commercial. [Laughs] But we put ineligible payments in there, we tried to trick ourselves. Of course, I was in on the trick, along with Bob, and I'm happy to say we never paid anyone that we should not have paid. There was only maybe two or three incidents of individuals who we caught in time. So knock on wood, everyone who deserved the payment received it.

But again, it was developing that relationship. I mean, I discovered sushi during that time period. We had a lot of wonderful meals with the community. We really wanted to... it wasn't a nine to five job, we never cut anyone off, we never said, "Oh, it's past nine o'clock, we can't help you." As a matter of fact, if people wanted to meet us at six o'clock in the morning, we did it. So it was really to gain their trust and confidence that we were there to help them. And through that, it wasn't just community leaders, we had even individuals that would say, "Hey, I think my neighbor is eligible but doesn't want to come forward, can you help them?" And yeah, we don't want to force anyone, but perhaps we sent them a personal letter or note saying, "You might be eligible, we found your record if you want to contact our office." So it was a tremendous amount of personal time and acknowledgement that we're from the government, but we're here to rectify a wrong, and that you can trust us, is the basic message.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2019 Emi Kuboyama. All Rights Reserved.