Densho Digital Archive - Fumie I. Shimada Interview (denshovh-sfumie-01-0012)

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RP: A large part of your success in achieving redress is to be laid at the doorstep of Michi Weglyn.

FS: Michi Weglyn did a lot for us. She kept pushing us to keep writing letters to the different vernaculars. Because ORA had subscriptions to all the Japanese vernaculars, so everything we wrote, they were reading in Washington, D.C. She said that if we didn't keep fighting, the reparations would run out. So she and her husband both helped us, and really pushed us. We talked many, many times, long distance, and talking with Michi Weglyn was a two-hour conversation, long distance from New York to California. But we had many, many conversations.

RP: She also supported you with editorial letters.

FS: Right. And she responded to the letters that I wrote, and she came up with an article about why Fumie Shimada deserved reparations. And I've got copies of that.

RP: Where was that published?

FS: It was published in the Los Angeles Rafu Shimpo, and it was also in the Hokubei and Nichibei. Of course, those are the only three Japanese vernaculars we have besides Pacific Citizen. So it was all covered under that. And so when she went to Los Angeles for the Time of Remembrance, that was right after I had come home from Washington, D.C., and my husband and I traveled. In fact, I came home from Washington, I believe, on a Wednesday, and we traveled on Saturday/Sunday to their Time of Remembrance, because Michi was being honored there. And then the following Tuesday, they asked me to come back for the press conference on Friday. And I said, "I can't drive to Los Angeles twice in one week. I can't leave my job," because I had taken so much time off to go to Washington. But I ended up taking some more time to go to meet with Bill Lann Lee. So it was very worthwhile.

RP: Just for the sake of the interview, could you share with us a little bit about Michi's background? Some people might not be familiar with her.

FS: Michi Weglyn wrote (Years) of Infamy, the book, and she was a very staunch supporter of the Latin American Peruvians, of the Japanese railroad workers, and the different Japanese that were mistreated during the war. She was interned, I think, in Gila. And she really, really did a lot of studying in the Archives and in the Smithsonian. She was sending me paperwork constantly about the railroad, I was sending her the clippings that I was finding. But I believe it was her husband that told her, "You've got to help the railroad workers." And, of course, he passed away, and sadly, Michi passed away also. We lost a good supporter, a good friend with that. We did have a memorial service for her in San Francisco, which Kenji Taguma kind of started up for us. So we were all there for her service. She was a wonderful lady, just a wonderful, wonderful lady. A hard fighter. She used to spend so many hours in the Smithsonian, and she wasn't allowed to take food, but she would take little pieces of nori and stick it in her pocket and she'd pull it out and eat it in there because she wasn't allowed to have a regular lunch. But she survived on pieces of nori in order to help us. So a good... good, good person. Good friend.