Densho Digital Archive - Jim Tsujimura Interview (denshovh-tjim

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MR: Several times now you've mentioned the word redress. Can you explain what that is?

JT: Right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor was all these posters placed on the telephone poles and all, confining us, taking our liberties away, and then evacuating and interning us in camps. Redress was like in the Constitution in the Bill of Rights where one could redress the government for a wrong, and we felt that it was wrong for them to do so, and especially when three-quarters of the population evacuated were American citizens. And this was what redress was all about, asking for reparation or redress from our government for doing what they did which we felt was wrong.

MR: You mentioned that in the early '70s you heard the idea a couple of times in this area. Were other areas discussing this issue too?

JT: Yes. In fact, after 1974 when Portland or the Pacific Northwest district made our proposal at the national convention asking them to make it a priority, yes, all of our chapters became involved. As governor, the first thing I did was to write a letter to Mike Masaoka who was Mr. JACL at that time, and he served many, many years for JACL, and he was blamed for many things that he was not, well, he was not to blame for. But he agreed with us that we should ask for redress, and he wrote an article in the Pacific Citizen which was the JACL's paper. The holiday issue which was the largest one made, published about redress, and that it was right to do so. And I felt that half our battle was won since he came out with that article because there were many, many members who were against redress of any kind. But with that letter, I felt that half the battle was won. Now, the remainder was to convince the American people and Congress.

MR: You mentioned there was, there was dissension over the idea of redress. What were some of the pros and the cons?

JT: Well, the main one was we shouldn't be asking for money. It would belittle us to do so, and it was not the American way of acting. In America, whenever anyone is injured or hurt like in a car accident, any redress or payment for that injury is composed of money, a great deal of money in some areas. So we felt that that had to be part of any kind of a bill that we would want to, try to pass through Congress. Now the amount, however, even though in 1978 at Salt Lake City, that was another time when we had our convention. We have it every two years, our committee which I was in charge of... perhaps I should go back a bit. After being governor from '73 to '75, I ran for national vice president, '76 to '78 and also '78 to '80, and I asked for redress to be placed under my responsibility. Well, in 1978 in Salt Lake City, we came up with a proposal of asking the government for twenty-five thousand dollars per evacuee and an apology. The national council agreed with us and placed it as a priority order. Well, we had many, many, many national redress committee meetings after that. And at one meeting in March of '79, which was held in San Francisco, the committee came up with a question: do we present that bill that we presented at Salt Lake City, twenty-five thousand and an apology directly to Congress, or should we accept the recommendation of Senator Inouye? He suggested that we ask the President of the United States to select a commission to study the surroundings of evacuation; how, why did it happen, and if they found the government was wrong, to come out with some kind of redress. Well at that meeting in '79 in San Francisco, that question came up. The committee was tied; the votes were tied. It was three to three or four to four, but it came to a standstill. The chairman could not break the tie, so he turned to me and asked me for my vote. Now being vice president, I didn't have a vote except possibly to break a tie. Well, I was caught off guard. I didn't know that I was supposed to break a tie here. But after thinking about it, I had to vote the way I did which was for the commission route. Number one, because we needed the education. We needed to educate the American public and Congress. The other way would have been strictly directly to the Congress, and I thought it would die for sure. And I was told on many occasions that we have one and only one chance to introduce such a bill, so I just had to vote the commission way.

MR: While you were thinking about... and what was the result, personally, to you, of that vote?

JT: With that vote, half of the committee who were from Seattle all stood up, resigned from the committee and walked out. They were all my friends, of course. I had worked with them for years, but they didn't care for the way I voted, so they stood up and walked out. So at that time, I wondered if I had voted the right way. In hindsight now, of course, that was the only way. President Carter and later President Reagan selected the commission members who were all very powerful people, well-known. That assured us that the commission would not be taken for granted. The difficulty they had, too, was the amount. Well, their final decision, after having, holding hearings across the country and in Alaska, since some of the Aleuts were also involved with this bill, they came up with the conclusion that it was because of the hysteria of the time and a lack of government leadership, and the remedy was twenty thousand dollars per evacuee or who had lost their rights, couldn't come back to visit the West Coast. So it involved others then who were evacuated. But now, we had something to grasp. It was a commission that came out with that study and reported the results to the President. We had the education that we needed so badly. We needed to educate the Congressmen; and therefore, the commission route was the only way to go. And the support came out, out of the walls, not only Japanese and Japanese Americans, but Americans because this actually was not an isolated Japanese American issue. It was an American issue. It dealt with liberty, freedom, the Constitution. So finally in August, I believe, of 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of that year which cleared the way for us to receive some compensation and an apology. But it went only to those who were still living. Many had passed on, and that was one of the difficult things to decide because I knew the commission route was going to take more time, and we would lose more people including my mother and father. They did not receive anything. Well, I had a few discussion, several discussions with my mother after my dad passed away. Her feeling about redress was yes, it was right, but she did not care that much for the compensation. She felt that we should have some kind of permanent historical monument or something to keep reminding us that this should never, never, never happen again, and we did complete the American, Japanese American monument down at Tom McCall Park. So at least I kept part of my promise to my mother. There were many Japanese and permanent Japanese aliens who were actually living at the poverty level. Well, everyone thought that the Japanese people were well-off. They were not, so it helped them tremendously, and I was very happy. We didn't have a notion or we never dreamt that it would ever pass, but it did. And to me, that's what America stood for, that if they made a mistake that they would come forth and admit it, and they would pay for that remedy. Well, if it wasn't in America, I don't think it would happen.

MR: I'd like to go back to when you were deciding, you know. We went through this pretty fast. So when you had the vote in '79 and the Seattle delegation, did it completely disagree with the Oregon delegation?

JT: With the national organization, there were two or three other organizations, and so they joined that group.

MR: And what did they want to happen?

JT: They wanted the bill to go directly to Congress.

MR: And what were, did they state their opinions? Why did they think that was the way to go?

JT: Well, several reasons. Number one, many of the elder, first generation Isseis especially, had already passed away. Going the commission route would take even longer, and we would lose even more. So they wanted to introduce something that would be now instead of much later. I think that was the primary reason.

MR: Did they take into consideration that the education piece wouldn't have been in there?

JT: Well, they were trying to come out with tapes and other educational material, but I don't believe it would have been nationally known as going through a commission. With the people on the commission, Supreme Court Justice and the Ambassador to the United Nation was Goldberg. It was people in that top notch bracket; past Senators Edward Bruck, Senator Congressman Hugh Mitchell of Seattle. Joan Bernstein was the chair. She was a past general counsel for the Department of Health and Human, Department of Social Services. It was people in that category that held these hearings. And that's how, I believe, the education was spread out through the entire nation.