Densho Digital Archive - Jim Tsujimura Interview (denshovh-tjim

<Begin Segment 9>

MR: And what were the specific ways that you turned to the Japanese community?

JT: One of my friends initially asked me, why don't I join the Japanese American Citizens League or JACL. It's a human rights, civil rights organization, 501©3 charitable organization. But because it had to do with civil rights and human rights, it interested me; therefore, I joined.

MR: And how did you view the JACL and its influence at the time?

JT: Well, it was a human and civil rights organization. We were involved with certain cases or certain persons that would come up that were discriminated upon. It began in that manner. Later, it would be redress, of course.

MR: You joined in 1964, and you became active at the national level pretty rapidly. Can you talk about how you did that?

JT: Well actually, as an officer of the chapter, as president of a chapter, you automatically became a delegate to the district. The JACL is made up of chapters, districts, and then the national level. So I became a delegate to the district and to the national council. That was in 1970. And '69 when I was vice president of the chapter, I was asked to chair the district biennial convention which was held in Portland. Then in '70 as president, it involved national.

MR: Was there an Oregon point of view that you took with you?

JT: No, not a particular one. There were no particular issue at the time back in the '60s or something. The first time I heard of redress or reparations as it was called was in 1970 in Chicago. A proposal was made and that interested me very much. The same proposal came up in 1972 in Washington, D.C., which made me even more enthusiastic about working to achieve reparations or redress. In 1973 to '75, I became the governor of our district which encompassed about nine other chapters. As governor, I proposed for our district a similar time for reparations. Now, it just so happened that in 1974 while I was governor, Portland held the biennial national convention, so I introduced a similar proposition to the council, however, asking them to place it in a more prioritized or as a number one priority issue. As governor and... being the district governor also belongs to the national board. There were so many elected officers and so many district governors who composed the district, the national board. In fact, when I first went down to a meeting of the national board, I was informed that the executive committee met the first half a day. So I said to myself, "What are we doing here for half a day? Nothing. It was just a waste. So I suggested why don't we form our own governor's council, and that's how the governor's caucus was born, and it's still in place today.

MR: Just to get a picture of this, what is the geographic range of the district?

JT: District composed of the panhandle of Idaho, Washington, Oregon, but not all. The eastern portion of Oregon belonged to the next district, but it was primarily these three states.

MR: And how many districts are there?

JT: There were eight at that time. It was held in Portland. Our regional office was in Portland at that time. It moved to Seattle later. We had one in southern, Northern California, Central California, Southern California, Mountain Plains, Midwest, and Washington, D.C. So it was composed of eight districts and about a hundred and so many chapters across the nation.

MR: So these governors are starting to meet?

JT: I beg your pardon?

MR: So the governors then are starting to have these meetings?

JT: Yes.

MR: What sorts of issues did they deal with?

JT: Well, I had in mind primarily to discuss the problems we were having in our local areas or in our districts. And we gained quite a bit of that what one would, district was doing, what the other district picked up on that. Later, it was used as a political office. But the primary purpose was to discuss our local problems and to spend that time when we had nothing to lose.

MR: Portland and Seattle are in the same district, and they are both large cities for their areas with distinct personalities. How did Seattle chapter and Portland chapter interact?

JT: Well, all of the chapters in our district got along just fine. Of course, Seattle wanted the regional office up there, and which they finally did. But initially for a few years, it was in Portland. Fortunately, when we had our national convention in Portland, it was in Portland, so it was a great help.

MR: Was there tension between the cities?

JT: No, not at all.

MR: And what was Portland's relationship, the Portland chapters, to the national organization?

JT: In relation to the national, if you go through the ropes, if you want to introduce something, you go through the district first, or one could write directly to national. But I believe you had more of a chance if the district concurred with the chapter at the district council meeting before it went to the national council. But we had no, we got along just fine.