<Begin Segment 7>

KE: Is there anything else you wanted to add, or we didn't talk about, you wanted to talk about?

TM: Well, you know, I think the question was, what three activities at JACL that, you know, I'll just say, I guess proud of, was the development of the Pride and Shame anniversary of our, 50th anniversary. And the story behind that is that my two sisters were living in the Bay Area, one was in Oakland and one was in San Francisco, and so I visited them frequently. And I happened to be there, and then I opened a newspaper and it says Norm Mineta, the first Japanese American mayor of a major city. And I had a cousin that was working in San Jose as a banker, my mother's cousin, so I was going to go there anyway. So I dropped in to the mayor's office and naturally they said, "Well, you can't just drop in, but write a letter to Mr. Mineta." And so I did, and we've been friends ever since. And he chose, the letter said, "Would you come to our 50th anniversary and be the keynote speaker?" and he came. And like I said, we've been friends ever since. So that was fifty years ago. So it was interesting. I remember, you know, driving down from Oakland to San Jose, says, "Well, why don't we just drop in the mayor's office and see if we could meet Mr. Mineta?" They were, they said, "No, you can't just walk in here." I don't even know if he was in the office, I think he was by then. But anyway, we wrote him a nice letter and he said he would be willing to come to speak to our... the thing about him is that... so this was, what, six months, nine months later. And that evening, or the day before I get this mail from his office, saying, "This is his speech, give it to him when he gets off the airplane." So he was in Japan, and he chose to come to Seattle direct from Japan to fulfill his commitment, because anybody else would have just said, "I can't make it," or something. So I really admired him for just that. Like I say, a couple years ago, there was an event for him at San Jose. So I went down there, and his two sons, you know, they remembered me and I couldn't recognize them. But they said, "Oh, yeah, we went to Seattle when we were eight years old or something like that." It's been a good relation. But that's just one example of some very nice thing.

And the other person I was thinking of is Gordon Hirabayashi. You know, although we knew each other, but his cousin, Jean, was married to Tom Iwata. So when Jean became aware that I was involved with JACL, they would invite me to dinner and I would have a great opportunity to talk to Gordon for a man, number of days or often. But I remember one time I said, "Gordon, you always talk in fifty minute segments." He said, "Yeah, I'm a professor." So, but like I said, I didn't understand all these issues at that time, but I learned a lot. But you know, I wish I was a little more aware of all those issues. But also because of those relations, when Spellman, John Spellman, who is a conservative friend, he was asked to testify or at least send a letter to support the redress. So his office called me and said, "Mr. Moriguchi, we need your help, would you draft something for us?" I can't remember what the hell I said, but whatever. John used most of it. So all I'm saying all this is that my relation with JACL has allowed me to meet a lot of different people. And I was thinking out loud, you know, Norm Mineta, the few times I would go and meet him in Washington, D.C., he would call Mike Lowry and we would go to lunch together, or breakfast together, and that was a very interesting relation. And this was primarily due to Ruthann Kurose.

BT: Like an aide.

TM: But they would, so I had some very interesting opportunity to get to meet them and talk to them.

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