Densho Digital Repository - In Memory of Phil Hayasaka Interview

Densho Digital Repository
Seattle JACL Oral History Collection
Title: In Memory of Phil Hayasaka Interview
Narrator: Lois Hayasaka
Interviewers: Camila Nakashima, Bill Tashima
Date: October 27, 2020
Densho ID: ddr-sjacl-2-22-1

<Begin Segment 1>

CN: Hi. Yes, my name is Camila and I'm a junior at the University of Washington. As Bill said, I'm interning with Seattle JACL on this project, and it's something I'm interested in because it relates to my own family history. And I think it's really valuable to hear the perspectives and stories of people who experienced it and were alive during like, this time after the 1940s. In like, in the fights for justice, and like the '50s, '60s, '70s. Yeah. So thank you again for having the time for us to interview you today. I'm excited to hear what you have to say.

LH: Okay.

CN: Okay. Are we good? Is it okay if I start asking questions?

LH: I think so. Nice to meet you.

CN: Nice to meet you. So I was wondering if you could start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself and Phil and your experiences growing up in your families?

LH: I probably won't dwell too much on Phil's background because I have provided the written information, and I think there's quite a bit there that would fill in what you need to know, although if there are more questions, I'd be glad to answer them. As for me, I was born in Seattle. I am the product of a mixed marriage. My mother was white, my father, Filipino. I grew up at a time when mixed marriages were very, very frowned on. And when we would walk down the street, people would often yell obscenities at us. I had instances where some people came up to my parents, looked at my sister and I, and my sister has passed away when she was seven years old. They would look at my sister and I and say "What a shame to bring such children into the world." I heard that many time, and it damaged my own self-esteem as I grew up. I also was often referred to as "half-breed." I never liked that term. It seemed to indicate I was some kind of animal. But that's what I grew up with. And I heard it often. We experienced a lot of difficulty. I grew up at a time when it was depression. There were limited opportunities for my folks and they were not well-educated. My father had a third-grade education, he came from the Philippines. My mother had an eighth-grade education. And on top of that with a mixed marriage and the Depression, and little youngsters, they had a struggle. The struggle took its toll on their marriage as well. And so I had a difficult upbringing.

And it was when we went to look for housing, they were turned away because people didn't want Filipinos to be renting their property. So it was difficult to find a place to live. And at that time, not many people had cars. So we were limited to the immediate area. We were at, at that time, we stayed at the Yesler Terrace Apartments and so we would have to walk around the area to look for places that might rent to us, and were turned away many times. Finally, a couple of women who were older -- at least, they seemed elderly to me at the time, but I don't think they were that old -- they told us, they didn't want us. But they said, "But we'll take a chance on you. And we expect you to be quiet, and to make sure your children are well behaved, and we'll give it a try." So we were able to rent from them at that time. I... it's strange to me that I don't remember the inside of the dwelling that we lived in at that time, but I do remember the inside of the house of the people we were renting from, because eventually they began to melt and feel rather fond of us as children, and invite them into their home. They took us to the church that they went to, and they were very excited when they... because they heard my sister and I playing with our when skate just outside our rental house. And we were singing the song we heard at the church, which was "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know." They were very pleased to hear us singing that, and that made them even more endeared to us. So they began treating us much nicer, and they warmed up to my parents as well. There's a lot more that I could say, in my childhood, but I'll perhaps leave that for another time. I do recall when we finally got a house of our own, and we were poor, so it was it was not much of a house. And at that time, I remember it cost $1,000. We were in a multiracial neighborhood.

And the... there was one day, my folks were both at work, I had always been told never to answer the door to strangers. At seven years old, there was a strong pounding on the door repeatedly, and there began to be yelling at me to open the door, that it was important that I opened the door. Finally, I did open the door. I was frightened. I didn't know what to do. I opened the door, and two military rushed in and said, "Are there any Japanese here?" I said, "No." And so they proceeded to open the drawers of our chests, chest of drawers, and rifle through everything in in the drawers. And I recall as a child, I was worried that my folks were going to be mad at me because they were doing that and I had let them in. But they went throughout, made a mess, and looked everywhere. And they kept saying "Are you sure there are no Japanese here?" And I said "No."And so they finally left. I went out onto the porch, and I felt very sad because I saw many Japanese in the street. Mostly I saw children and women. They had their suitcase, and many of them had their head down and were quietly crying. I didn't know what was going on, and I felt very, very sad about it. So that was when the evacuation was taking place. During the war years, I understand many of the Filipinos and the Chinese wore, "I am Chinese," "I am Filipino," buttons so that they would not be the target of hostility. I have not seen the buttons, but I had heard about them.

And so that is a little glimpse of my life in my early days. As I said my sister died when she was seven, I was five, and I was raised an only child. I had a problem with my own self image and where I fit in. At that time, I did not have much support from anyone, and it was very difficult growing up. But then we all have our problems. So as I think that unless you have questions on Phil and his incarceration in the concentration camp, I think I will go lightly over that. Do you have any questions for me on that?

CN: I think as you said, that was mostly covered in the...

LH: Right.

CN: ...documents and the obituary that we got.

LH: Okay.

CN: I just wanted to ask you a quick question about your experience, like, during the war, and if you noticed, like really visible hostility towards like Japanese and Japanese Americans.

LH: During the war?

CN: Yeah.

LH: Well, of course, during the war, they were imprisoned. And during the war years, for some reason, I was sent to live with my aunt in Oregon. I never understood why. She was a widow, she was also poorly educated. We lived in a tent, and she picked hops in the hop season. At the end of the hop season, we lived in a shack where there was no running water, no plumbing of any kind. We used kerosene lamps. And there were no autos. So at that time, I wasn't really too aware of what was going on as far as the war was concerned. I do recall that sometimes my father would get letters from relatives in the Philippines that made him very sad about their treatment by the Japanese there, when they had invaded the Philippines. And he would cry, and he would get mad. But then he said, "But it's not the fault, it's not the fault of the Japanese here. They're good people." So at least he could see that, and that was a good thing. When the Japanese did return, I noticed that they would go down the street hurriedly if they saw anyone that was not Japanese, and keep the head down. There was one woman at the end of a block near us, who assisted them, provided living space. And they helped them to, helped them to transition back into life here in Seattle. But I never really knew them. It was not until many later years that I had more contact with Japanese. I think, was there another part of that question that I missed there? Okay.

CN: No, you covered it. Thank you.

LH: Okay.

<Begin Segment 2>

CN: So moving on just a little bit past the war, I was wondering if you could talk about some of the accomplishments of Seattle JACL that you and Phil were involved in. And I know that that's also like in the documents that you sent. But like if you had a little more insight about how he felt about this fight for justice that he was involved in as well.

LH: At that time, Phil was in JACL in the, in the early '60s, and he also served as president of the JACL at one time. I was never a member of JACL. He said that many of the, excuse me, many of the members at that time were older, and they were focused more on social events, rather than on issues. Especially as discrimination and such at that time. He, as I understand it, he formed the speaker's bureau and he focused on trying to help overcome the alien land laws that that accomplishment didn't happen while he was with JACL. But it was something that he focused on. He continued to have communication with JACL over the years and the work that he did, and to share the issues and how JACL might be involved with some of those issues.

CN: So, Bill, you're muted.

LH: Sorry.

BT: I keep forgetting. Because of the dogs, I muted myself. [Laughs] I forgot to mention that from time to time, even though Camila is doing the interview, that I would jump in if I had any questions.

LH: Okay.

BT: And I again, I apologize in case you had put that in the written summary that I haven't read yet, but how did Phil become active with JACL? What made him become active? Was he active during the camp with JACL?

LH: During camp, he was he was just a teenager. And as I understand it, his sister was very annoyed with him because he didn't spend a lot of time with the family. He was always trying to run off and be with his friends. But they didn't have a lot of activities that they could participate in at camp, and so they mainly played cards. And they went to the, to the laundry room because it was a little warmer there because the weather in Idaho could be beastly in the winter, very cold. And so they would go to the laundry room and they'd play cards a lot and they'd try to look for things to do. One of those things, as young boys are inclined to do, they would catch rattlesnakes and remove the rattlers. [Laughs] The sister complained that he never spent time with the family. Part of the problem there, of course, was that the fathers were absent. His father was removed from them, perceived to be a leader in the community. And as Phil observed, there might have been more objection to what was happening to them, had there been the mature leadership available while they were in the camps, or before they got there, but they were all taken away. And so they were left with children, mothers, and in his case, his mother spoke very little English. So it was a struggle for her, and she was very frightened. So he didn't he didn't have the discipline of the father. And as young boys might be inclined to do, would look around for other activities.

They finally got a few balls, I understand, that they could hit in, around the area. But it was it was just a sandlot game that they could play. Sometimes the older members in the county would assist them with trying to have some sports. But it was limited in what they could do. And it took him time after he, excuse me, after he got out of camp to begin to assess what was needed in his life, and what direction to go. He, for a time, stayed in Philadelphia where some of his family had relocated. He drove a two ton truck in... two ton truck when he was in camp, delivering supplies, and different things across the area, as was needed. And he learned mechanics, auto mechanics. So when he was in Philadelphia, he was an auto mechanic for a while. Finally, his brother kind of stuck the fire under him and said, "I think it's time for you to get serious, and to think about what you want to do," and so on.

<Begin Segment 3>

LH: So he returned to Seattle, went to the UW and helped his father again in trying to reestablish his business, and he went into the armed services during the Korean conflict. He joined the Jackson Street Community Council after his service, served on the board, and that was a service organization that dealt mostly with Blacks and also some Chinese, Filipinos, and Japanese in trying to upgrade the area and provide improvements to their living conditions. So he made many contacts among many of the Blacks, and many of the Asians. At that time, though, the Asians were not a united group, though they had some participation in the Jackson Street Council. He was asked to be the director of the council after a time, which he accepted. And the work he did there came to the attention of the mayor's office. When the Human Rights Commission was first established, it was after many demonstrations and a sit-in in the mayor's office. There was turbulence in Seattle as there was across the country. The mayor established the Human Rights Commission, and Blacks who spearheaded the efforts to have attention to problems were disappointed that he did not appoint more Blacks to the commission that was later formed, and that he was wanting to appoint Phil as Director. Phil declined the offer to be director twice. Finally, the third time he agreed that he would, he felt that he could probably be effective in working the problems.

But it was... there was difficulty when he first became director, of course. Many Blacks began to protest his appointment. And one of the leaders in the Black community was Reverend Mance Jackson, who said to Phil, "I know you, we've worked together on the Jackson Street Community Council. I believe in you, and I'm behind you. And don't worry about this, but we have to protest to make our point. But it will be okay." So Phil felt reassured by that. When he accepted the appointment, he of course continued to get some comments from Black commission members who thought that it should be a Black person directing the commission. When he needed to hire a secretary, which I was at first, he went through the Civil Service Commission, and his choices were very limited on finding a minority. There were no Blacks to choose from. And I very much wanted to be a part of that organization because I really felt strongly about its mission. I applied for the position, I was selected. And the first commission member, first commission meeting I attended, I was the target, also, of criticism. "Why did you have to appoint her? Were there no Blacks that you could choose for this position?" So we had to go through that kind of process in the beginning of the commission. After a time, they began to work well together. And there were some who were never totally supportive of anyone other than Black. But at least they were not giving a lot of difficult situations, and we began to be able to work together more effectively. So I recall that my first meeting, the press rushed up to me and asked me how I felt about being the target of their anger. And anyway, we got past that, and began the work of the commission. And the commission was given the charge of promoting understanding and awareness in the city of Seattle, of developing remedial measures wherever we could identify problems of discrimination, and making recommendations to the mayor and city council as needed. The first order of business was to prepare an open housing ordinance, which was the goal of many in the Black community at that time.

<Begin Segment 4>

LH: The situation in Seattle... today we have -- I digress a little -- today we have a city that's considered liberal, considered more progressive. It was not so at that time in the '60s. And we still have our problems today, of course, but in the '60s, there was a lot of opposition to minority participation. One of the things that demonstrated that were the many restrictive covenants attached to housing, the sale, rental or leasing of housing. And there was one... there are many, many examples of that, but one of them that I recall said that there shall be no chicken or fowl, or such animals allowed on this property, except for household pets. And there shall be no Asiatic or Negro people of Negro ancestry or lineage who will be able to live on this property, except if they are employed by a white person to work. So those were the kinds of things that were built into the exclusion of people of color in getting housing outside of a certain area, and which contributed to the ghetto. It was a... the housing effort was... took a lot of time. They finally prepared an ordinance which was presented to the city council. The city council was asked to pass the ordinance with an emergency clause. The emergency clause would provide for immediate implementation of the ordinance. However, the city council decided that they didn't want to be responsible for that, so they put it to the vote of the people. That then entailed many hours of promoting the ordinance in the community, in the city, much debate, many, many meetings, many speaking engagements, coffee hours and such that Phil and others had to participate in. And Phil also began communication with the Seattle Real Estate Board, which was adamantly opposed to open housing. But he met with them and tried to persuade them to consider why it would be a good thing. When it was put to a vote of the people, even with all the efforts that went into it, the measure was defeated by Seattleites with a vote of two to one, two to three. And the... I think I misstated that, it was something like 52,000 to 115 that voted on the measure, and it was defeated. So it was back to the drawing board and back to more of the same efforts, working hard to get the ordinance passed. It took four years to get the ordinance passed. A second time that it was presented to the city council, the same thing happened. It was referred to a vote of the people. And at that time, Reverend McKinney referred to the council as "a bunch of gutless wonders."

So it wasn't until the assassination of Dr. King, that people will began to come around and be more supportive of open housing. There was a large march and many people participated, some 10,000 people, which was big at that time. And they called again for open housing. Also, Phil had been making sure that his office was involved in community organization, and getting groups of people, especially in white communities, to support open housing and other measures which would promote equal opportunity. Those people formed a steering committee and presented a petition to the city council with many signatures calling for open housing. This time with these factors, the City Council adopted the ordinance and call for its immediate implementation. The... it was... it took time. But we didn't want to have everything on enforcement because enforcement is after an injustice has occurred. We had to have that, of course. But Phil saw the need and also in line with our creating ordinance to work in the community with various groups. For that he hired a community relations specialist and laid out his view of having community involvement and what he wanted done. With that, many human relations, neighborhood human relations councils were established throughout the city of Seattle, who helped all the work of the commission. And... am I talking too much here?

BT: No, actually, the only thing is I'm trying to be mindful for you, too, and make sure that we're not tiring you out. For me, it's fascinating to listen to you. But I also want to be sure that how you're doing here.

LH: I'm okay. I get a little thirsty.

BT: That's fine. I've been drinking. [Laughs] But yeah, I think that's part of what you're saying also, again it's remarkable, but I'm glad that we have it written down also in his, in the bio you provided. I think I'm gonna have... there's some things that we might go back to, but I think I'm gonna have Camila go to the next one, another question here.

<Begin Segment 5>

CN: Yeah. So I remember reading in the document that he was like, the only minority appointed by the mayor on the committee, and I was wondering how that, like, what were those times like for him being like the only minority appointed and how did that make... did that like, disenfranchise him, I guess, since he was like the only one, or did that just make him want to work harder?

LH: He was always a very hard worker, so I don't know if that's what prompted it. But the people that he worked with were, many of them were supportive. Many of them were not, many of them were antagonistic, but he reached out to everyone, all the same. And one of the areas that was a problem in those days, as it is today, was police-community relations. There was an effort by Phil, to find out what the situation was with the police and the community. When he was first hired, he rode in patrol cars at night with the police officers to observe the kind of situations they encountered, and how they handled them, especially with minorities, to get a feel of what might be the problems. He worked with the police department and presented human relations training to some police academy, to the police academy. And later, there was a shooting in Seattle of a Black man by off duty police officers. The police officers were absolved of wrongdoing. And as a result, the commission and Phil looked over the transcript, studied it carefully, and tried to find out what kind of recommendations they could make to perhaps improve the situation. They made a recommendation for a community relations unit within the police department, who would meet regularly with Phil and to also have some human relations training, improvement within the department. Those things were accomplished. They didn't solve the problem, but they did help. And after a time, there were community meetings held with, especially with members of the Black community, to air their grievances and to hear from the police how they viewed their role and how they handled their mission.

The gatherings seemed to help a lot. The antagonism that was very deep in the beginning lessened somewhat, and they began to be more civil, and more able to talk about their concerns and their disagreements. So that all helped. Although there were instances along the way. And this is not just in order of things that happened, but there were instances where there were police activities that did impact many minorities. For example, the construction work at the University of Washington where the United Construction Workers were calling for inclusion of minorities on the construction work. Phil was there, and many Asians and other minorities came to give support to that effort. They observed times when the police seemed to be out of line in how they handle things, and that there was sometimes excessive use of force. I can get into that later. But it did result in on an Asian organization going to the mayor and making some recommendations, and also Phil made recommendations to the city council, some of which were incorporated into the practices of the police department.

But there's always been this tension and this pull with the Seattle Police Department. It's always been -- or any law enforcement -- it's always been a very tenuous situation. When there were many uprisings in the city of Seattle by the minority community, Phil went to the, to the sites where this was occurring and observed what was happening, and again, whether there were instances of undue force by the police. And also to try to calm the people involved in the demonstrations and the riots that took place. So these were some of the beginnings of the commission. We were involved in so many activities along the line, and it's hard to put it all into one short space.

<Begin Segment 6>

LH: In the department eventually, or the commission eventually evolved into a department, Phil was not assured of being the director when that happened. Because they would go through another process and go through the selection of a director. But at... unlike the first time when he was appointed director, this time, some of the Black members came to him and said, "Phil, we're behind you and we're going to request your appointment," which they did, and he was appointed then as director again at the department. With the department, there was increased budget. And we were able to do many things that were not possible before. And we established, or Phil established divisions of community relations, public relations, employment, contract, compliance, and so on. Because by that time, he had put forth a contract compliance ordinance, which would include minorities in the contracting activities done by the Board of Public Works of the City of Seattle. So he established a Contract Compliance Division to monitor the enforcement of that ordinance and to make sure that, that opportunities were being provided.

The first time that it was put to the test was actually, I... Phil was out of town, and staff came to me and asked me to represent them at the Board of Public Works. Because they wanted to turn down one of the bids by a white contractor, since they did not have adequate efforts demonstrated to include minorities. So I went before the board and made the case. And fortunately, the Board of Public Works agreed and turned down their bid and told them they would have to conform to the provisions of the ordinance if they wanted to do business with the city. So after that, we were pretty successful with the efforts of the Contract Compliance Division. Their community relations organization, or division rather, continued to organize neighborhood community relations councils to involve white people in the process of resolving problems. They also worked extensively with problems in the schools, public schools, even private schools, and were involved many times in tension situations that erupted at these places. Phil was often called to help with the tension situations at public schools such as Franklin High School, and others, where there was there were some racial tensions and difficulties. The Operations Division took care of the enforcement problems, and also looked toward promoting enforcement of the ordinances.

By that time, I had become the public information officer. And I dealt with the press, establishing some press conferences, as well as developing approaches to stimulate awareness of the public. One of the first efforts I made was to produce some brochures on the other minorities, because everything had been a black and white focus. And people had very little understanding of the other minorities. So I produced some brochures on the Asian experience in America, the Chicano experience in America, which was at that time, the focus of that movement, and the American Indian experience. We had no high tech equipment at that time, so I laid out the format and had the secretary work on the format that I was looking for. And I wrote the content and we published it. It was... I was very surprised, as we were all surprised, that the favorable reaction to these brochures. We got more than we ever expected of requests for copies of these brochures to be used in schools, all levels of schools and church organizations and community organizations and so on.

So, Phil set the direction and we tried to carry out what he was looking for. He was very good at seeing what needed to be done and pointing us in that direction. At the same time, he challenged us to be innovative and take some risks, but all always to stay within the regulations of the City of Seattle. So I think with his encouragement, he managed to have a good staff to carry out the responsibilities that he gave them.

<Begin Segment 7>

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.

<Begin Segment 8>

BT: Yeah, you know, I think what we're gonna do right now, I'm going to turn it back to Camila for one or two last questions. We may have some follow up questions that I'm just going to, I don't want to take up a lot of time, so I probably will, Camila and I will talk and maybe email you a few.

LH: Sure.

BT: But Camila, did you want to ask one or two other questions before we wrap up here?

CN: Yeah, I think what I'm curious about is how you think that Phil and also yourself feel about like, Japanese American activism today. And like, in recent years, like, the direction that it's going, how he felt about that.

LH: Oh, I think we've been very happy to see that there has been increased attention and participation of Japanese Americans. And that they seem very aware of the issues, and of working toward trying to make life better for their communities as well as the larger community and the city as a whole. It's good that, that the young people be involved with the Japanese American Citizens League. Because I think they're on the right track, to keep the focus on all the issues that we face today. And they, they have a very deep, deep rooted reason for being vigilant and tackling these issues. I think the younger generation has recognized the sacrifices and the suffering that the older Japanese have gone through. And they are eager to try to prevent that kind of thing from happening again. I think with the kind of awareness and leadership they're developing today, they will help to see that it doesn't happen. However, there are signs of problems in our country. The racism that seems to be heightened at this time, rearing its ugly head once again, and all the attendant evils to that racism. So it's important to always be vigilant and to participate. Dr. Min Masuda, who is with the University of Washington, and wrote a piece for us when we did a public hearing at one time on Asian American discrimination, something that Phil spearheaded, it was the first of its kind ever. And Dr. Masuda said, "The present finds its tap roots deep into the past and is nourished by elements therein." And I think that's worth pondering to recognize the connection to the past, and always keep it in mind as we go forward.

BT: Very powerful. I want to thank you so much. And just again, give you an idea of what to expect here is, you know, this interview will be looked at by our committee, and I think shared and we will keep it online. And get information from it. Camila and I will talk a little bit after this, after you leave the recording, and then we will also send you a follow-up email. Feel free to get back to us with any questions. Before I end, Camila, did you want to add anything right now?

CN: No, I think that's it. Thank you again...

LH: You're welcome.

CN: ... so much for your time and for talking to us. Yeah.

BT: And Lois, I just, I'll end this way because I was just jotting notes and at one point I was writing just words as I was listening to you and this is about both you and Phil. I just wrote: remarkable, powerful, fascinating, forward-thinking and, you know, you are just so articulate.

LH: Oh, thank you.

BT: And for me, it's a joy to listen to you. And I am so impressed to see the spark of an activist still inside you. And that's just, it's kind of like, gives me hope. But I just want to thank you so much. I know this is it's been a long interview. But I very much appreciate you taking your time.

LH: Thank you.

BT: And we will send you some follow-up information and some requests. And after you, after David signs off, Camila, if you could stay on the line for a little bit, that'd be great. Well, thank you, Lois.

LH: Oh, you're welcome.

BT: Thank you, David.

CN: Thank you.