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KL: So this is tape two, we're continuing an interview with Ed Rothfuss on March the 7th, 2015. And I wanted to ask you about the Manzanar Advisory Commission. What was your involvement with it and what was that like?

ER: Okay. Ross Hopkins and I were invited to come up with a list of nominees for the secretary's committee, and we came up with twenty-five or thirty names of people that either we had worked with or had volunteered, they'd like to serve. We submitted that list, and then the committee was appointed. Some of them I knew and some of them I didn't, but we were pleased to be invited to come up with the names. And after it was formed, I had left and I never got involved in their functioning, how they functioned and all that.

KL: What were you and Ross looking for as far as characteristics or things that people would bring when you compiled the list?

ER: Well, it's a parallel that actually I've been working on a little bit right here. This Tule Springs National Fossil Beds, National Monument was established here, and I've been working on that as a very subordinate member of the committee on that. But we have an advisory commission on this. But it started when I first brought up the idea and said, "We did it at Manzanar, and that should be a pattern to do it here." Look at the stakeholders. Who are the people in the area that you need to have represented? You need to have the Native American influence, you need to have the Japanese American influence. You need to have different... we looked at the stakeholders in the area, and that was the key thing. And then people call up and say, "Well, we'd like to be part." You think, well, where do they fit in? They have a talent or an interest, so we just kind of looked at that just to make sure that nobody was left out in the nomination form. And the same way here, there must be about twenty stakeholders here that really, we hope that most of those get nominated to the committee, because they've been so helpful and supportive in getting started. So that's...

KL: Were advisory commissions a typical thing in that time period, or was this a new model?

ER: I don't think it's a new model. I suspect... of course, the secretary has had one, the nationally appointed, to represent the entire National Park Service. And I've had a chance to be at several of their meetings, one in the Virgin Islands when I was there, and one came to Glacier. And when Lady Bird Johnson happened to be on the advisory board at that time, and I got to take her on a couple hikes in Glacier, and she was a delightful person.

KL: So what were the functions for the advisory commission? What was its purpose?

ER: Basically they're a group representing a variety of interests who can become familiar with the park issues and make suggestions or ideas. They had no authority to say this must be done, but as a superintendent, I would love to have people like that, to say here's a very talented group of people with a big interest to give me feedback and give me suggestions and ideas. And it's up the superintendent and the regional director and director all the way up to make the final decisions. And the advisory board, I think, is extremely valuable. And I think at Manzanar there was a sunset clause, which I think is smart, too. But it helps get it started. But then you start the Friends of Manzanar, and some of the members are now members of that. And I could see that happening here, too, I think there was a sunset clause, I can't recall how many years.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.