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BT: If you don't mind, Lois, I'm going to just step in for a second. You know, 'cause again, I want to be mindful here because actually, we're going in, we're approaching one hour already.

LH: Okay.

BT: But no, I, to me, this is just this is like watching a really good documentary. [Laughs] But I am kind of curious, I want to go back to JACL for a little bit. Because he was so active in the community in general, I kind of like, just want to know what you think Phil thought about his time with JACL and his activities? And how long did he stay active with JACL, and, you know, that type of information? I know you talked about the alien land laws, and that was a long campaign. But how did he make the transition from Jackson to Jackson Community Council to JACL? And was he happy with the organization and pushing it toward more social action?

LH: Yes, yes. He kept in communication with a number of the members of JACL, although he wasn't as actively participating, he was so immersed in all the issues with the department and all the groups that he had to meet with. And he was very pleased to see that JACL was broadening its view of the issues. Thought that was a very good thing. Don Kazama, I think was a member of JACL at that time. He kept in contact with Don and they discussed the activities of JACL. And Don often asked him his opinion of some of the direction they were going in, so they would discuss that sort of thing of the JACL. His view of JACL was always very favorable, but he couldn't involve himself to the degree that he had before.

And Phil had -- I think I mentioned this before -- he had long wished for a coalition of Asians. And at that time, we were called Orientals, Spanish surname, Other, we weren't really Asian at that time, there were no Asian organizations. He met with different members of the community, from Japanese, Chinese, Japanese, trying to assess their interest in having a coalition to work, the issues that might affect Asians and affect other minorities. And it was very hard to get anyone to be interested in that effort. Finally, Don Kazama indicated that he would be willing to participate in that effort, and that was the start. So Phil began to recruit, and I helped recruit other people from the other communities. We had the first meeting here at this house that I'm in right now, where we had... he made it a point to get four members from each of the Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino communities. And they came, they were reluctant at first to form a coalition. It took many hours of discussion. They were afraid they would lose their own identity of their community. And also, they just didn't know if they had that much in common that they could work together with. So we spent many hours just talking about each other's communities, each other's experiences, and how we could work effectively together. It was finally -- after many sessions -- it was finally agreed that they would like to have a coalition. Then we arrived at, "What should we name the coalition?" and we bounced around a few names. And finally, we had decided we should be called Asians and not Orientals, because Orientals was how the whites had identified us and Spanish surname and so forth, and we wanted to get an identity that would encompass us in our own way. And so Don Kazama is the one who came up with the name Asian Coalition For Equality. We liked that. So we, we took that name on.

At first, the group thought Phil should be heading up the group, because he had brought them together. But he pointed out that with all that he had to do in his role as director of the commission, he wouldn't be able to do that. But he would be happy to give as much support and effort as he could. So he served on the executive committee. He suggested that they contact, or he volunteered rather, to contact someone named Reverend Mineo Katagiri, who was at that time participating in some of the issues of Black concerns. Phil did so and Katagiri was very interested and said he would like to do that. So Phil put together the list of objectives that we had for ACE and planned for a press conference and for announcing to the public that this coalition had formed and what its objectives were. He recommended that when we make a public statement, we say, this handful of Asians, that we say, "We represent 25,000 Asians in the city of Seattle," which seemed like a lot at that time. And he said, "Well, probably most of them aren't going to be behind us." He said, "Don't worry about it. They're not going to complain publicly. They might grumble privately, but they won't come out in public and say anything." And sure enough, that's what happened. At first, we were viewed with suspicion and but he made sure that the group be comprised not only of young people, which was important, but he wanted to have representation from those who were more toward the middle age, who were, who were viewed as stable, responsible, level headed people and not rabble rousers. Not that the young people were, but he felt that there needed to be a blend of the two working together, and the composition of ACE reflected that. We had a meeting when Reverend Katagiri presented the objectives and introduced everybody. At that meeting, the people present elected four representatives from each of the minority groups, the Asian minority groups mentioned, and we began the work of the Asian Coalition. I was one of the executive board members at that time. But as far as working with JACL, Phil was always supportive of JACL and always saw the important role that JACL could play in the whole scheme of things. And it really pleased him to see the direction that it was heading.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2020 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.