<Begin Segment 18>

LT: It sounds like you put all of your energies into your business and to your family. Japanese Americans began to reflect on the war years, and eventually gained redress for incarceration during World War II. Were you involved in those efforts? What did you think of redress and Japanese Americans seeking civil rights for World War II actions?

GT: Yeah, they're getting on... I didn't get really involved in that, Linda. I should have, should have done more. I find myself more now than I ever have before, especially now that this last funeral, that they asked me to be the speaker for this funeral which kind of surprised me. Seems like I'm getting more and more involved with the Japanese and their problems they had. But like Loen Dozono called me up the other day to be honorary member or whatever, pallbearer, and I just told her that, she thought I might find an excuse not to do it, but I said, I told Loen, I said, "I'd be proud to do what you're asking me," and she was so grateful. But I find myself, more and more, getting involved, like where I should have been maybe thirty years ago, but I'm just now getting around to it. Probably too busy doing other things, but I see how important this is, become a member of this, member of that, which I haven't done in the past. I do have a very good friend, Arthur Iwasaki, now, he was a member of everything. He went back to D.C. to get his medal and all that stuff, but there was a good man that joined in all the activities. I know he was involved in so many things, I got to hand it to him. And he was more or less in the same kind of business that I was. He was in the nursery business, and they did very well at it. Arthur is getting up there, about ninety-three years old or so, and he and I and Dr. Inahara, we all three went to Hillsboro High School. Seemed like we're the only grads left from the graduating class. Most of the graduating class, we were all passed on. Nearly all of them are gone, except us three, maybe... I don't know what you say, maybe we eat the right kind of rice, you might say. [Laughs] I don't know. But like Dr. Inahara, he's ninety-three, going on ninety-four, I told him to come out and help yourself to all the berries you want. And he himself will pick 'em himself. He will not have, pick berries, he wants to pick 'em himself. How he can bend over and get those, it's amazing, just amazing. Because Dr. Inahara has been such a lifesaver in our family, just one crisis after another, he pulled us through so many times, a real good friend of ours.

LT: I appreciate your saying that you want to be involved in Japanese American issues and community issues. So what would you like to see happen now?

GT: What happened now, huh? Well, you know, it seemed like JACL, whatever, it seemed they're accomplishing all these things I would like to see, the 442nd, how they're getting the recognition they should have had a long time ago. It seems like everything's getting pretty well taken care of. But I do know there's lots more to go. But it seemed like we did so much to get these things done, especially when they went back to D.C. to pick up those medals that they deserved. I know Arthur was a good friend of mine all through the war and everything, we were going to each other during the service, and he'd write back to me. He was telling me that he was in a foxhole with my first cousin from Garden Grove. He was, they'd become friends, my first cousin, and he said he was in his foxhole, and my cousin got killed, and he said, "But they missed me." So just how lucky he was, he was saying these things. He says my first cousin was killed in the same foxhole that Arthur was in. And I think of all the things they went through, you know, to avoid getting killed. So I've really got to hand it to Arthur and that bunch of guys.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.