Densho Digital Archive - M. Jack Takayanagi - Mary Takayanagi Interview (denshovh-tmjack

<Begin Segment 17>

KL: I mentioned that I had seen that citation of your being interviewed about your experiences of the March on Washington, and I wondered, I thought you would be good people to ask about how you think that the experience of being part of the forced removal from the coast and being incarcerated in Manzanar affected the modern Civil Rights Movement? How do you think that that played into Dr. King and others' work in the '60s and the '50s?

MJT: I think... I'm sure they were aware of that, of the incarceration when the Civil Rights Movement became a national movement. Because alongside of that was Cesar Chavez and his movements, so there were these movements, and I'm sure that they affected what had happened to the Japanese Americans and incarceration, that had some motivation for the kinds of things that Martin Luther King, Jr., stood for and endeavored to, more people, toward a better understanding of people with one another. And I'm sure that back there, though it came away in the '40s, like a ripple on water, it had a ripple effect on the movement that came to the leadership into eventually. Because I don't think it could eliminate any of those racial or other injustices that occurred that responded, brought back the responses of people who wanted to see justice done, to recognize what those ripples really were and where they came from. So there was, we can't maybe put a pinpoint like that, but I'm sure there's part of the total movement, civil rights.

KL: Did you encounter other people at that demonstration or at other marches who had histories similar to yours involving Manzanar or involving removal?

MJT: Well, the only ones that I would... would be the Native Americans. I worked on the Indian reservation for two summers with the Native Americans, and recognized that they recognized what the Japanese Americans had gone through, because they'd been going through it for a lot of their life. And they may have invisible fences constantly surrounding their enclosure. So their conversation with them and their, having a realization of a harmony with the Japanese situation, they knew what it was about.

KL: What reservation was it?

MJT: It was Fort Berthold, North Dakota, Mandan, Arikara tribes. And, of course, I was affiliated with Cesar Chavez and Coachella and the grape boycott. There, you talk to leadership, because the leadership back then, they knew about the Japanese incarceration. You know, the leadership was very much aware of what had happened. Because the farm workers had an affinity with the Japanese American workers in the fields, so they were aware of that struggle as well.

KL: How were you involved in Coachella? What was your involvement?

MJT: Well, I was attending the General Synod of the United Church in St. Louis when Cesar Chavez sent a telegram to the Synod that they were having a demonstration in the fields in Coachella, and that they would welcome any kind of help, participation that you can offer. And so the Synod put up a challenge of whether they could get two hundred persons to go on a flight to Coachella from St. Louis, so I volunteered. There were ninety-two of us that went on that flight, and we had to sign papers that if anything happened during the demonstration, that the General Synod of the United Church would not be accountable for it. That you were signing your life, too, for this. And so we flew to Coachella, outside Coachella, and were met by the farm workers who were singing early in the morning before we were assigned to, with the Coachella workers, we were assigned to certain segments of where the demonstration would be held. We went to these places where we were assigned, we would say, "Come and join us with the workers in the field. Viva la cosa, come and live the cause." And while we're doing this, walking up and down the side of the vineyard, the owners would have trucks coming back and forth, open trucks with men sitting in the back with guns, rifles, across their laps, until, just to tell the marchers that we were here, and we have guns to prove that we were here. So that demonstration went on for that whole day without incident, fortunately. But we flew back to the General Synod and gave an account of our participation there. And so every year since then, they've had an observance of the... in '92 they went to Coachella to have some recognition of the participation that United Church was supportive of Cesar Chavez and the farm workers and their cause. That was my own involvement of the march on Coachella and the farm workers.