Densho Digital Repository - Grayce Kaneda Uyehara Interview

Densho Digital Repository
JACL Philadelphia Oral History Collection
Title: Grayce Kaneda Uyehara Interview
Narrator: Grayce Kaneda Uyehara
Interviewer: Herbert J. Horikawa
Location: Medford, New Jersey
Date: October 23, 1994
Densho ID: ddr-phljacl-1-12-4

<Begin Segment 4>

HH: You had been involved with JACL, that is, the Japanese American Citizens League, for many, many years. When did it all start?

GU: It all started back in 1937, which makes me eighteen years old. In those days, all of the leadership felt that it was very important to give the young second generation people an opportunity to learn to become good public speakers. And so with their national conventions, they would put on these oratorical contests. And each district had runoffs in those days, and they were very competitive. And I represented the Stockton chapter, and the runoffs held before the national convention meant that I had to compete with people from central California and northern California because in those days, central California was not a separate district. And in 1938, I attended the Los Angeles National Convention, and I came in second place, though I was first place for northern California. And then also, in those days, the older Nisei would just drive us to these conventions and then they would assign a chaperone. And part of JACL in those days were to find a mate. It wasn't all about civil and human rights. And I wasn't that interested in guys then because I knew there was still a lot of things that I had to do. But I did pay attention and I knew what JACL all about. But the leadership at that time really impressed me. And in 1940, when I went to the Portland convention, again representing northern California, I met Mike M. Masaoka. And Mike M. Masaoka was the most outstanding public speaker that we had in the Japanese American community. When I ran into him in the elevator, he said, "I trained the one who was representing Intermountain, and she's going to win." And sure enough, she took first place and I came in second. So I knew Mike from 1940 on. And these leaders then were so impressive because they were lawyers and physicians and they could be spending all their time making money, but they spent all their volunteer time trying to deal with changing the laws in our country.