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BT: Tomio, I want to ask you a question here. When you're talking about the Pride and Shame exhibit, I think in my mind, I had a different time period. But you're saying that that happened when you were, you were in charge of it when you were vice president?

TM: I think so, right.

BT: That you were given that task? Because, yeah, that's quite a... that was quite an accomplishment. And if you ever read Bob Shimabukuro's book, he posits the Pride and Shame exhibit, and the subsequent tour through Washington, of really setting the groundwork for Seattle's eventual redress effort. Because that kind of, like, galvanized the community as well as informing more the outside community exactly what happened to gain their support also.

TM: Not only outside community. The internal community didn't want to discuss that either. So by having an exhibit, I think it was easier to have a show and tell type of situation.

BT: But the part that you mentioned about how part of it was covered up is interesting, because that's still happening today. That's what happened in Bellevue, at the community college when they talked about what's his name, that family, you know, the newspaper publisher, and then they took that down, because, you know, they don't want people to know about it happening today.

TM: But the side issue is the current director of MOHAI, I forget his name. But anyway, he was the assistant. And he encouraged us to do this, so... well, anyway, his name will come to me. But he turned, he became the director. I credit him for moving the museum and expanding it and making us successful, but he always encouraged us, so that was always good. But I have to feel that, yes, the exhibit was a great learning curve for many of us. And I was able to get a lot of people involved, and I think that's good. And also the reason why I accepted this challenge is that, I don't know why, but maybe I had lady friends or friends that were with the Baptist church or congregation. They all were celebrating their 75th year, you know, about that time. So I saw pictures, you know, of these churches. I said, oh, it would be easy, just get those pictures and put it in, you know. [Laughs] It didn't work out that way. But that's why, naively, I thought, well, sure, I could take this on. Because, you know, Buddhist church, Methodist church and Baptist church were all kind of celebrating, not quite the 100th year, but the 75th year, 85th, 90th year or something like that. And so, you know, people like Massie Tomita, you know, that age group, that's very well, because we were already working on the nursing home. So, you know, I was in touch with these people. And as a board member from Keiro, we used to go to these churches, and they will show us these exhibits. So I thought, well, it'll be a slam dunk. Just get those exhibits, put it up. That's why I said there was a mistake talking to the educators because if it wasn't for that, that's what it would have been, just the history of the churches and organizations.

KE: What year did you join the JACL? Like, how old were you?

TM: Pardon me?

KE: How old were you when you joined the JAC, or around what year?

TM: Like I say, it was about, I got active in 1965 or something. So would I be thirty years old? Twenty-nine, thirty?

KE: Yeah. One of the interesting things like I caught on, when you were talking about how you kind of grew, you're from Tacoma, like around the same area my grandparents were, I mean, my grandpa was. And that's like how you said my great grandpa probably knew your dad and stuff like that. That's, I feel like that's full circle now. Because I'm really close with Taryn and Lauren and Nicole. Taryn Louie? Yeah. So I think that's really funny and interesting.

TM: Well you know, Joe was, your grandfather, I guess, was the very, very closest to us. You know, he, I still remember he's the one that introduced me to Governor Booth Gardner, you know. And then, so we became very good friends. Booth and Jean, we went to Japan once together. And anyway, I told Jean, I said, "Let's go see the sumo," and she said, "No, I'm not going to go see these half naked people." Anyway, I convinced her to go, and she said it wasn't so bad. But Joe, your grandfather knew Booth Gardner very well, I guess they taught at the community college together or something. So we had a number of lunches together.

KE: That's really cool.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2020 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.