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TI: In those really early days, what was reparations and what did that look like in terms of, what was the form that you guys were talking about?

JT: You know, in the early days, in the '60s, when I first heard the word "reparations," I sat there and I thought, "What the hell is reparations?" And it wasn't in the sense of redress of redressing a wrong, as reparations as "make it right." And reparations to me always meant money, 'cause I would hear about black reparations. And so when I first heard the term "reparations" in the community, I thought this was a discussion about money. Subsequently, I learned that it was more the Sansei telling their parents, "You gotta talk about camp." I mean, that's really where the reparations movement was in the very nascent days of what ended up being the redress campaign. And so I would hear the, about these discussions going on in the community. There were never any rallies, any meetings, or anything like that, certainly not in San Francisco, except for the JACL. I joined the JACL because of the redress campaign. In 1970, there was a resolution introduced by Edison Uno and a guy named Ray Okamura, and that really called for more than just redressing the wrongs to Japanese Americans, but redressing the wrongs to African Americans, to Native Americans, to everybody under this huge umbrella. And that was the kind of person Edison was, that we need to do something as a civil rights organization to correct the wrongs that had been committed historically against people of color. And he never... you know, I knew Edison fairly well, we became pretty good friends. He never set boundaries for injustice. He always felt that whatever was wrong, any injustice that was occurring, or that had occurred, if an individual had the will or the power or a way to try to correct it, and to help those who couldn't help themselves, it was a personal responsibility. And Edison was a true civil rights activist in that sense. That, along with a man named Clifford Uyeda, Dr. Uyeda, who became one of my closest friends, the three of us would talk about this notion of reparations. And the JACL, it was a very -- I wouldn't say it was codified, but it was certainly an issue that was discussed as a major concern of the organization.

Once Edison introduced that resolution in 1970, and then in 1972, it was brought up again at the JACL convention. And JACL meets every two years, so in '72, '74, '76. In '74, the convention in Portland, it was significant because the issue of compensation came up. That really codified the issue around a focus of what reparations would be. And then in 1976, the convention in Sacramento, that was the first convention I ever attended in JACL. I joined in 1975, became very quickly involved with the Northern California District Redress program, mainly by criticizing. You know, I'm one of those people who can't keep his mouth shut. If something's wrong, I get really impatient. And I went to a district council meeting, and there was a guy who gave a report. Well, my wife had gone to a district council meeting three months earlier and told me about this report that had been given. So I'm at this next meeting, and this guy gives this report, and I raise my hand and I say, "You know, I wasn't here the last time the council met, but according to what my wife told me about your report, this is the same report." And he got a little uncomfortable and said a few things. I said, "In other words, you haven't done a damn thing." And he laughed, it was a real jovial laugh, and said, "Yeah, well, I guess that's it." And he says, "But actually," he said, "I need to resign because my work is becoming too time consuming." And during a break, he came up to me and he said, introduced himself and he said, "Would you be interested in the chairmanship?" And I said, "Yeah, absolutely."

TI: And at this point, was this a volunteer position?

JT: Yeah. And that was Mike Honda. And so Mike and I became very good friends from that point on. And when I took over as the Northern Cal District chair, I asked Mike to be on my committee.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.