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EK: So the legislation passed in 1988, you're starting to get contractors in to start working on this.

BB: Fall of '88.

EK: Okay, so that's how quickly you did that. Can you talk a little bit more about what these folks were doing?

BB: Well, initially, the very first thing I was handed was, at the archives, what were these old records. So we had to get 'em, put 'em into a database system.

EK: Are those the camp rosters, or all the WRA records?

BB: Yeah, all the WRA records. And then, believe it or not, some of the groups had compiled lists, too. So I can't remember -- and this is where this goes back, this gets over twenty years -- where you go back, NCRR and JACL were very, both helpful, especially JACL being a national organization. In the beginning, JACL, had a lot of information for us, too. So the very first part of this was basically trying to compile a list of exactly... and verifying the list. So then once you think you've got the list pulled together, which, as you know, going back to now where we ran over budget and we paid a lot more people and they thought that they had a complete list, and they didn't have a complete list, and we kept finding people and verifying that they were there. The second part of it was, okay, you've got the list of people, where are they right now? Where are we mailing that check to? And so then the whole, the focus was not only setting up the database, but working with the state of California, state of Hawaii, number of the key states and asked for their DMV, a run of their DMV, key information. And then we went to federal agencies to go and get, the Social Security Administration to get the run of their information. So going back to the kind of, this is my simple mind was, okay, John Smith -- it wouldn't be "John Smith," but let's just say it was John Smith, and you need to say, okay, we've checked a couple sources. One, is this really a person, were they there, number one, answer gate number one. Gate number two is where do they live right now? And if you go right across the list and DMV says they're here and Social Security Administration says they're here, you have a third or fourth check that says they're here, and by the way, the JACL, they're on their mailing list and they're a member of the JACL and they say they're here, you can go across this thing and you can quickly see that, oh my gosh, even myself could sit there and go, "Ding, ding, ding, you got the right person at the right address." So that was what the majority of what everyone was doing at first was, it was almost like a puzzle you're trying to solve. It was... the picture and the problem was what I just stated. And then, by this time, as we started going through it, we gained Tink and we gained Joanne, and gained some other folks where we'd sit around and go, "Okay, we think we've got 'em all here." And there's probably two or three I'm missing, but that's basically what the early years were basically about was identifying and the verification process, verification/location process.

EK: Was this a computerized database? Was this JARVIS or was this hard copies of documents? BB: Oh, no, we put it into... and I forget, it was probably JARVIS but...

EK: Japanese American Redress Verification Information System or something like that.

BB: Oh, well, see, you even remember the name. I remember it being a big spreadsheet, and I'm sure it was named something along the way.

EK: An electronic spreadsheet or a hard copy?

BB: Electronic. No, it was electronic, and boy, this is way back when, we're much more sophisticated now. [Laughs] There wasn't even the internet back then, hardly, and so we didn't have that resource either. It was good old fashioned, just think about where you could go find information, and then pull it in. And you say, what are all these people doing? Well, they were going in to make sure that... you know, we had certain criteria. No question there was this person, you got the right person, and then there was a questionable one, and then this one's really a problem to look at. So then the other groups of people would be looking at the other buckets of folks that you were going and looking at to see if you got the right people.

EK: So this sounds pretty unique. You were taking government information, cross referencing it with community group information.

BB: Yes. With government records, adding community information on both sides, both on the identification side and on the location verification side. So it was... and again, it may sound like, crazy right now, because you try to find your old boyfriend or girlfriend on... there's five apps you can load in five minutes, and you put in her maiden name and go find her. We didn't have that back then. And plus, I did get questioned. You asked earlier about questions, before I did any payments, I did speak to everybody in Justice, and certainly on the Hill, because folks on the Hill wanted to make sure that we were administering the program, too, their names were on it. I explained to them what we did and how we did it, so there was definitely, that was an area that was a huge amount of concern in what we were doing.

EK: So when you went to the Hill, was that a part of the regular budgeting process, or was that just upfront soon after the legislation and less so after that?

BB: Any time... no, all throughout it. There was, I keep going back to Matsui and Mineta, even Nancy Pelosi was here back in time. Barney Frank, I remember talking to him a number of times way back then. All these folks were trying to help, and especially, probably Congressman Mineta, more so than any one for me personally, not saying anything bad about Congressman Matsui, but Mineta would constantly, he'd call, ask, I would call up his staff, both their staffs were excellent, and they were here to help us. They truly were here to help us in every step of the way, and they did.

EK: Martha Watanabe told me that she was at a JACL annual convention a few weeks ago and Secretary Mineta basically said the same thing about you, that it was a true partnership between his office and you and the staff.

BB: That's nice to hear. He was always gracious. I mean, first of all, this was not an easy thing for any of us to do, for any of us to do and to figure out. And we all wanted to succeed and make sure it was successful. When that happened, it was the right formula, and the right people, right personalities. He's just a wonderful person.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2019 Emi Kuboyama. All Rights Reserved.