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RP: Fumie, just to backtrack a little bit, can you tell us a little bit about your life after you left Reno, you became a teacher?

FS: Oh, okay.

RP: Well, first of all, before we step away from the redress, can you share with us how you located Andy Russell's thesis that was so instrumental? I would say, you would probably agree, the "smoking gun" in successfully getting redress.

FS: Well, I had attended, I was raised in Sparks, I went to UNR, and I taught school for a year in Sparks, and then I moved to Sacramento and starting teaching in California. Meanwhile, as Michi Weglyn told me to look through the governor's papers to see if I can find even a scrawled note on the conversation he had with Herb Covington. So I says, "I don't think it's going to be on paper." And so I told my husband, "There's nothing to lose, let's go to the library and see what we can find." I said, "It's got to be someplace." 'Cause I had been at UNR, and I went through all the vernaculars. I read through all the newspapers that would have anything to do with that era. I didn't realize the hate that was involved at that time, because I was so young. And when I was reading the papers, I was astonished at the headlines and the words. I mean, everything was "Jap" this and "Jap" that, which would not fly at all today. But as I was reading all these papers, and we went to Carson and we were looking through different boxes of information, 'cause nothing was on file and we brought all this transportation and all this labor paper and everything, and I went through every single box and couldn't find it. And I looked at the guy, and I said, "I know it's someplace here. I'm just not looking in the right places." But after three or four trips there, he had written me a letter and said, "Fumie, there's a person here who heard Andy Russell's speech on railroad workers, so look up Andy Russell and try to find his speech." Well, the person in the archives there was the son of one of my college professors, my political science classes. The person he was referring to that went to listen to Andy Russell was a close family friend. He was the son of a family friend. So I went to different places, they told me to the Railroad Museum, I went there, they told me to go to the regular museum, I knew it wouldn't be there. And so they told me to go to UNR.

And I went there, and they were giving me all these different books on railroads, and I said, "This isn't what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something about Japanese railroad workers during World War II." Meanwhile, this docent comes out with the manila file folder, and I said, "What's that?" He says, "It's Andy Russell's thesis." I said, "Oh my gosh, this is what I've been looking for." I says, "Has ORA seen this?" and he says, "No, ORA had been here about four years prior asking us to give them any information we can." But they said, "This just came in, we haven't even bound it yet." I says, "Oh my gosh, we grabbed it out of his hands." It was almost closing time, but my husband was reading that and I was going through other papers, and he says, "Fumie," he says, "you've got to look at this. Look at this." And I looked at it, it was a "smoking gun." It quoted the FBI agents, and they had names of FBI agents. It was a letter, the attorney for the mining company had written to the president of the mining company, and telling them about the meeting they had with the FBI agents present. And they had even named the agent as Olsen, being there. So I said, "Oh my gosh, Sam, go make copies. So we made copies, and I was, he was reading it first and I was reading after him, and so he went and made copies. And I had a call in to Andy Russell, and he'd given me his phone number prior to this time I went to this UNR. And I called and they said, "No, this is his ex-wife's phone number, but we'll try to get Andy Russell to call you." So while I was at the, reading his thesis, he was calling me long distance in Sacramento. So went and ate dinner at the Nugget and we came home, and eleven o'clock, my son comes running out of the house and he says, "Mom, Andy Russell called." And I says, "Howard, I can't return the call, because he's in Arizona and the time change." I says, "I'll call him tomorrow." And so anyway, when I called him, I was just thrilled. And he said, "Yeah," I says, "Do you have those papers? I've been reading your thesis. Do you have the letters to support your paper?" He says, "Yes," I says, "Well, can I have a copy? I need it." He did this without knowing that we were fighting for reparations. And he was just, he was just sent from heaven to me. [Laughs]

And so I got the papers, and I immediately notified ORA and DOJ that I had these papers, and I was ready to go to court. I had a pro bono attorney, so I said, "I would like you to rule on my papers before the deadline, to give me time, in case you refuse me, I would like to have a court date set up." And I says, "I'm ready to fight you all the way to the Supreme Court, because I know I'm correct." And with that, DOJ quit communicating with me. [Laughs] But De De Greene and I kept talking, and Joanne Cliedi, and De De says, "Well, we're really anxious to see these papers." So there was a meeting with ORA in San Francisco. There was one in Los Angeles, and the next day, they were coming to San Francisco, so she says, "Would you bring it to the meeting?" And I said, I certainly will." Meanwhile, my nephew went to the meeting in Los Angeles. I said, "Go and talk to them, and then get back to me and let me know what they have to say." Well, he told them that it was an FBI firing, and they said no, it was a railroad firing. And he says, "Well, my auntie doesn't agree with you." [Laughs] And so when they came to San Francisco, I met with them, and they said, "Go in the back door, find some other way to get reparations. You're not going get 'em with the railroad." And we said, "No, we want railroad or nothing. We're not going through any back door." So Joanne Cliedi said, "Are they papers I can kiss all the way home?" And I said, "You can kiss 'em twice all the way home." [Laughs] So she says okay, that they were really interested, 'cause they hadn't seen these papers. But yet, there was an attorney in Los Angeles who had submitted these same papers in Mrs. Kaneko's lawsuit, and they lost the case. And when he told me this, I didn't believe it because ORA and DOJ both said, "We've never seen these papers." And I don't know why they hadn't seem 'em, 'cause they ruled on Mrs. Kaneko's case, they fought her on that.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.