<Begin Segment 21>

RP: Just to kind of associate with what, the story you just shared with us, is the gentleman who wrote a similar letter, Mr. Young, maybe we could bring his story in as well. You can tell us a little bit about the background of Mr. Young, the Quaker? Can you kind of share with us essentially the letter that he wrote?

MI: Bob and Kennie, her, I think her birth name is Asanaith, Asanaith or Asanoth, yeah, are very much into fairness, especially minority. Well, that's the Quaker, but he felt so strongly about this, that we didn't have our hearing as the Constitution allows, and he thought it was so wrong because there was so much more implication. You take one step and then another step and another and step going up. And he could see there's a problem. And that's the reason why he took, he took it upon himself to write. And I thought that he really went beyond, so what some people normally would have done to stand up for what he thought was right for not necessarily just the Japanese, but the U.S. Constitution or any U.S. citizen. He wasn't afraid to stand up and for that I really thank him. And he was, he was not a man who was flamboyant or, you know, one that goes out for oratory or things like that. But if he felt something was wrong, Bob would speak up, and so would his wife, Kennie.

RP: And they wrote this letter to President Roosevelt.

MI: Yeah. And they were saying that it was very interesting the fact that Stimson would always say "we" as against "they." "We" as against "they." Like, "We are the enemy." And you know, or no, "They are the enemy and we are protecting... "They" and "We." And that was the one thing that struck us in that letter. So we thought that was really important. So when she told me about that letter and showed it to me and she says, "Mary, can you do something with this?" I said, "I don't know, but you know what? They're building a museum and I think I'd like to give it to them, or somebody who could use it."

RP: And tell us about how the letter was used in, during the time that the commission hearings were being held.

MI: Oh, okay. There was a comment made by Stimson that was in the editorial section. It almost approved of what he had said. But I remember thinking that, no, that comment isn't correct. And so I went and dug the letter up and sure enough, I said, that isn't the way Stimson was talking. And I thought I need to correct that. Because with the circulation that the L.A. Times gets, you know, either you correct it or it's just gonna go on and on with the misinformation. That's where that came up. And then when the, so Kennie took that letter and we decided to send it to the Times. And then everything broke loose and people started commenting on that letter. They couldn't believe that Stimson had said that. So that was the one good thing that came out of it. And then on the reparation thing, also, I thought that this was very important, that they knew about this letter. And I didn't know whether Washington would know about it or Judge Furutani would know about it. So then I thought well, okay and say, "Are you interested in the letter? If you are, it's available for you to see." And so I got a reply right back saying, "Yes, we are interested." So it was entered in the congressional record. That's how, so it kind of snowballed. So we got a lot of positive response from that letter. So I realized then that when you see something that is not quite right, you can't sit by and do nothing. You've gotta correct it.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.