Densho Digital Repository - Tomio Moriguchi Interview

Densho Digital Repository
Seattle JACL Oral History Collection
Title: Tomio Moriguchi Interview
Narrator: Tomio Moriguchi
Interviewers: Kristen M. Eng, Bill Tashima
Date: November 2, 2020
Densho ID: ddr-sjacl-2-23

<Begin Segment 1>

KE: Yeah, hi, okay.

TM: You're a student?

KE: Yeah, I'm a student, I am going into my second year at U-Dub. I am direct to the engineering department, so my plan is...

TM: What are you studying?

KE: I'm studying Human Center for Design Engineering. I'm really excited about that. And I'm planning on minoring in Informatics, so I'm really excited about that. Yeah, okay. So why don't you start by telling us a little bit like about yourself, your upbringing, maybe some activities, where you went to school?

TM: Well, first of all, you're aware that it didn't start out as JACL a hundred years ago, it was considered the, what was it? The Progressive Citizens League or something like that. The reason I know that is when we have our 50th anniversary, I think people from Fresno called us to say, "No, you guys are not the original JACLers." But anyway, that was, I wouldn't say a surprise, but they were very upset that we said that we were the 50th JACL. But for me, I was born in Tacoma, you know, actually, a couple blocks away from your great grandfather. They had a hotel, as you know, my father had a grocery store. And so Mako was my age, Joe was my brother's age, so we kind of interacted quite a bit. I'm assuming my father knew your... I mean, not assume, I know that they had a very good relation with your great grandfather, great grandmother. So I was born in Tacoma. And so we went to camp when I was five or six, 1942. I was six years old. And when we came back to Seattle, went to Bailey Gatzert, Washington, Garfield and University of Washington. The other day, Bill, I took the consul general up to the Columbia Tower Club for lunch, and I told them that I could see every, the four schools I went to from the Columbia Tower. They weren't that impressed, but anyway, always like to think of it, but I haven't gone too far from where I kind of started in Seattle.

KE: Yeah, that's awesome. That's really interesting; that's so cool.

TM: So as my father, he learned, he was born in the city of Yawatahama, which Ehime-ken. Then he after ninth grade, in Japan, it's mandatory to go to ninth grade. After that, it's an option. And so after the ninth grade, he went to the city of Wajima, which was then a very vibrant city. Just to give you an example, when I first went there in 1962, they had about 100,000 population. Probably it's down to like 40,000 now. So the point is, but at one time, it was a very vibrant city, and the fishing industry had industry in they also made small fishing boats. So they it was a very prosperous city. Anyway, my dad went there to learn how to cook, make satsumage and kamaboko. So when he came to Seattle... he came to Tacoma, excuse me, so he opened the business. Actually, before he even got married, 1928, He was making these kamaboko at nighttime and in the daytime, he would deliver it to various camps and Bill just mention a camp in Fall City, but you know, they had camps around Tacoma, oyster camps, sawmills and fishing camps and things like that. And so he would deliver rice and soy sauce, miso plus kamaboko. And that was what distinguished him from the other peddlers, they called them, because he made these product for others. So anyway, so the reason I mentioned that is, since I was a middle age, I mean, I had older brother, older sisters, so third. So my mother couldn't take care of three of us and didn't want to take care of me, I guess, so he would. My dad would take me and I would sleep on the rice in the back of the truck or something. So I got to travel a lot with him. And so it was, I don't remember in detail, but it was always a nice experience. Because all the people that we met, the few ladies we met, they always gave us something to eat or drink and things like that. So that was good. So I don't know what else you want to learn.

<Begin Segment 2>

TM: But I guess one of the questions was why did I join JACL? Well, you know, when we were in business from 1946 on, the First Hill Lions was a very active business organization. And so people like Dr. Toda and Frank Hattori and others asked me to join the First Hill Lions. But they met every week and I said," No, that's just too much time." And also my brother was kind of in and out of the First Hill Lions membership. So about the same time I ran into people like Ben Nakagawa, or Don Kazama, and Min Masuda, and they said, "Why don't you join the JACL?" So I said, well, I'd better join something, so that's how I got a little bit involved with JACL. And then two things happened. When I became, I don't know, I think, elected vice president after a couple years, and then Min Masuda was the president that year, I think 1969 or 1970. And he was approached by MOHAI, the Museum of History and Industry. And there was a lady that was in charge, and they have a number of collections from the Japanese community, nothing in depth, but they had dolls and they had pictures. So it was her idea for us to kind of display that as the Japanese community, I don't know, history. And so Min says, "Okay, Tomio, you're vice president, so you're in charge of this." So, okay. And so I made the mistake of going to educators, though, because then Ben Nakagawa was an educator, I think, vice principal at that time, and his wife, Joan, you know, they were all in education, and then they introduced me to people like Larry Masuda. And they said something like, "Well, you know, dolls and pictures are nice, but you got to tell the story about the incarceration." And I says, "Oh, gee, that sounds like a lot of work." But anyway, that's how, why the Pride and Shame exhibit turned out to be what it is. The lady director at that time, I forgot her name, I could look it up, but she was very upset because she just assumed we would put up pretty dolls and, you know, pictures, all the nice things. But when we came up with the idea that we want to show the incarceration, that's not exactly what the had in mind. One instance is Roy Tsuboi, you know, helped with the graphic, and one of the graphic we did was, we use the old poster that says, you know, "Japs go away," or something like that. So we put that on the one of the exhibit, the next morning, it was all covered. So, you know, that's... the point I'm making on that is, the exhibit, to me, I learned a lot. And I think it was successful because we told the history of the Japanese incarceration, which the museum people probably wasn't even thinking of, or didn't want us to do. But as you know, Min Masuda wrote a proposal, and we got a hundred or 150 thousand dollars to convert it to a traveling exhibit, and we went around the city. And I guess, to me, it was a very interesting learning curve. And I'm glad that it was... I don't know how to say it, solidified the local Japanese Americans who were not all JACLers. And, Bill, you know, some history behind that, that not all the younger Japanese were into.

<Begin Segment 3>

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.

<Begin Segment 4>

KE: So you touched on being on the board for Keiro. But what was, can you describe both your personal and Seattle's JACL's involvement with establishing the nursing home, and what was the motivation?

TM: Well, Tosh Okamoto is a very good friend, unfortunately, passed away a few years ago, but he was the Vets commander and I was JACL active, and frequently as vice president or some officers, Min or Don Kazama would say, "Tomio, you go to these banquets," so I kept running into Tosh Okamoto. And one time, he told me an interesting story, he said, well, you know, he had friends his age, they had fathers, one father that I think I know of, that was in a nursing home. And so he accompanied the son to the nursing home, and the son turns around and says, "You got change for a dollar?" And Tosh says, "What for?" He said, "Well, if you give a quarter or fifty cents, the nursing aide will take care of my father. Or if you don't give him, they ignore them." So, the point is, the nursing home issue became very important. And then when I was a vice president of JACL or president, I can't remember, Mitch Matsudaira and I, you know, we started this so-called Social Concerns organization, branch of the JACL. And then we would, once or every other month or something, go to the different organizations and try to meet the board members. And so we said, "Okay, what's the issue?" They always came back invariably with those Isseis there, that, "We need a nursing home." They had a Hirabayashi nursing home that had only six beds or something like that. They kept saying there's a need for a nursing home because at that time, I don't know exact number, but fifty or sixty Isseis were scattered in about fifteen nursing homes throughout Seattle. And like I say, when you hear the story, like Tosh told you, that, you know, language is a problem. And, you know, and just the industry itself was not geared to be that nice to the people. I mean, they were always good, but there was always a few percentage that were just not being treated well.

And so here again, Tosh Okamoto's daughter, Joyce, was working in L.A. and working for the Los Angeles Keiro nursing home. So I knew Joyce very well, and every time we would talk, she says... oh, you know, the director at that time, Bill, I don't know if you've met Edwin Hiroto, he was the executive director of the L.A. Keiro. Well, anyway, he would come up frequently to go fishing. And one time, Glenn Akai, who was a member of our community, was a real estate person. And he calls me up or called me and says, "There's a sixty-two-bed nursing home available, and it's old and it's almost going to run out of the license because it's not been well kept. And so we looked at it, we said, "Oh, gee." Just by then, coincidence, Edwin was in town for vacation, and actually, Tosh wanted to take him out to dinner. And so he called me and Edwin just happened to be there, and we showed him this old site. And he says, "Buy it." He says, "It's a deal." Because in those days, getting a license was very expensive. So this site already had sixty-two beds, and it was like, $300,000. So it's only five thousand a bed. He said, you can't build -- it in those days -- for even ten, fifteen thousand dollars per bed. Right now it costs you $250,000 per bed. Anyway, so he encouraged us. We were not that interested to buy the damn thing, but he encouraged us. And he said another thing, he says, "You pay $300,000 for the building and the license, but you gotta raise $200,000 to run it because it's going to, you're not going to make money for the first couple of years." So we went out to raise $500,000 and then getting back to this JACL, so we went to, at that time, Kato was kind of active, what's his name? Well, anyway, so we went to them and we said, "Can we borrow your mailing list?" And of course they met for five hours or five, ten hours. He finally said, "Okay, we won't give you the list, but we'll send out, mail your flyers begging for money." So that's how... so they not only mailed our flyer requests for funds to the community using their mailing list, they also, I think, donated $1,500 for postage or something. So to me, the Seattle JACL was instrumental in the seed money in providing the mailing list to get us going.

BT: Chuck Kato?

TM: Yeah Chuck Kato. Anyway, that's how... I probably have some dates mixed up, but generally, that's how it got started, yeah. And then you said the difference of JACL. Well, in our days, it probably, JACL was very Japanese-centric, you know, I mean, we didn't know about pan Asian or, very frankly, the Chinese had their own organizations, so we kind of did our own thing. So that's a major differences I see it. And it's after people like Don Kazama and Min started to take on other social issues. Up to that, it was strictly a Japanese-centric organization with people like Frank Hattori, Dr. Toda, you know, they were very good people, but this whole notion of pan Asian or social issues was not a big deal.

<Begin Segment 5>

BT: So Tomio, what do you think about JACL today, then?

TM: Well, I'll be very frank, I was very disappointed when they selected Dave Ushio, so I kind of got out of there real fast.

BT: That was a while ago. [Laughs]

TM: Yeah, but the point is, I was so disappointed in the way that they selected him. He had no experience whatsoever. And, you know, so I was really disappointed in the Nisei leadership for selecting somebody like that that had very little, if any experience. Anyway, so it was just a good time to leave.

KE: What's one piece of information or advice you would want to pass down to the next generation?

TM: Well, I think, to me, JACL or any legitimate organization is good to get involved with because looking back, also after [inaudible] you guys sent me, I said, "What the hell did I get out of JACL?" Well, I'll be very frank. I got up to meet a lot of people and very nice people, you know, just to start off with the JACL. Mas Sato was the executive director, and Masaoka, and then Dan Inouye. But I really admired Sparky Matsunaga. So get to meet a lot, and then, you know, got to meet Norm Mineta, we stay in touch. The point I'm making is JACL is okay. I mean, not to say, but you've got to encourage young people to get involved because you get to meet a lot of different people. As long as it's a legitimate cause, it doesn't matter what the cause is, you meet different people. And in addition, I think without JACL, I would have never met people like Min Yasui and who's our local person? But, you know, I'll be very frank, I did not enjoy meeting or talking to Min Yasui. But the fact is, you know, you get to meet these people and try to understand.

BT: I'm laughing because I have heard stories about Min Yasui from Hood River. But it's also interesting because a lot of the names you've mentioned are, they were personal friends with my father, like Mas Sato and Mike Masaoka and those folks, because my dad was really active in the late '40s and '50s in JACL. And Tomio, I have never considered you out of JACL because even though, because you've always been helpful, and always there. I moved to Seattle in the '80s. And I remember Elena Akagi telling me about how you were deeply involved in the '88 convention and you wanted to have it as, you know, coming home and having at the University of Washington campus and things like that. And I know, even in our last convention in 2012, how you're able to put together with the Hokubei Hochi the hundreds of century, your history of Japanese Americans in the Puget Sound.

TM: In fact, I've got to talk to you, I'd like to see them updated again, you know.

BT: You know, I think that's something that was worthwhile, I think that you should come back to the chapter. But the other thing and just, you know, and have your thought on this, but, you know, JACL has been Japanese-centric, and I remember in the '70s when Asian American became more of a topic. And a lot of people were saying, "Well, we're Japanese Americans, we don't have anything in common with other Asian Americans." But the reality is, how people view us, and there's more people that view us together and that we have very many goals and objectives that are similar, and you're stronger with other folks than you are by yourself, and so that's natural. I think that you know, your company is a prime example to me, of how you can expand successfully. Because Uwajimaya was always considered -- when I first moved here -- as a Japanese grocery store. And you've successfully kept the Japanese American name and association, but at the same time, have marketed yourself very successfully as an Asian grocery store. And I think that's something that JACL can emulate, and I think that we try to do that. And so I'm kind of curious, because you've also mentioned some of the old leaders, but what do you think about some of our new leaders like Sarah Baker, or Akemi Matsumoto is not new but...

TM: Well, she's my second cousin.

BT: Oh, you know, people, Tatsuo Nakata and folks like that, and I think that Joy Shigaki, these people have been leading us into, you know, keeping us vibrant, in my opinion. What do you think?

TM: Well, I just haven't been too involved, you know, I've been so busy with my own business. You know, I think I kind of did what I did and then moved on. But, you know, like I say, I was just turned off by JACL. But having said that, you know, I had the opportunity to meet people like JD and Irene Hirano, you know, they were all fringe interested in JACL. But, Irene is, for an example, started to realize that JACL was not going to be overly concerned with relations with Japan, so she kind of started her own. Because the point I'm making on that is that element is important. You know, it may not be current to JACL, but you can't ignore it, you know. And this is where Irene, we didn't have extensive talk, but I stayed in touch with her and I supported her for that. And so the point I'm just making is that JACL has now become more of a social type of issues, which is fine, but there is still need for, you know, organizations or relations to Japan, because that's where our culture is. Especially for me, that's where my business core is. So that's why... we struggled with this issue, too. Just to give you an example, you know, just to give you one example, we have ramen from Korea, do you put it in the Korean section, or do you put it in the ramen section? I mean, that's just one example of how we have to struggle with all this. Fortunately, you know, most customers, they don't care as long as they find the damn thing. But those are issues that we had to deal with internally.

BT: I was smiling because when I go to Uwajimaya, I'm very particular about what I buy. [Laughs]

KE: Me too.

TM: Well, you know, the other thing is, it's easy to just buy the cheapest thing. But here again, it's a conscious decision to try to sell not on price, but on quality. But then you have to, you know, you can't just triple your... so there's those are issues that we have struggled with, those are the challenges we have to deal with. And, you know, I don't know. But I'll be very frank, when my daughter was selected by the board to be the CEO, I said, "I'm out of here," because I didn't think my daughter wanted me to be sitting at the same board table, so I got out of there, and they seem to be doing fine.

BT: She got a prestigious award the other, a couple months ago, yeah.

<Begin Segment 6>

TM: So Kris, tell me a little bit about yourself. So what did you grow up?

KE: So I'm from Kent. Yeah, I went to Kentwood High School.

TM: I know your uncle was living in that area, too.

KE: Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of Kosais actually living in the Kent...

TM: So how many siblings does your parents mother have?

KE: My mom has two brothers, Mark and Brian. And I have... so Mark has three boys. Ryan --

TM: One of them used to work for us. Is that Mark?

KE: I think it was probably Uncle Brian.

TM: Oh, Brian, yes.

KE: Yeah. But we're actually going to see each other, like all of us over Zoom sometime I think in the next two weeks. It's the, we're doing the service, the memorial for my grandpa, because it'll be twelve years, but technically thirteen years. Yeah, I can't believe it's been that long already. What else? Yeah, I'm just at the University of Washington trying to get, study my engineering and stuff like that. But yeah, I know the Moriguchis are really close together still? Like you guys are very close. I actually... Tyler's your son, right?

TM: Huh?

KE: Tyler's your son, right?

TM: Right.

KE: Yeah, I go to church with him. And I actually coached his, your grandkids for chibichan basketball.

TM: Oh, okay. You have kids yourself?

KE: No, no.

TM: Nieces and nephews?

KE: No, but I consider Ryan's kids my niece and nephew, so my cousin's kids. But one of my... so when I was in high school, I was involved with Camp Fire. And so for one of the awards I did I organized chibichan basketball. So that was really fun to do.

TM: Say hi to your grandparents.

KE: I will, yeah.

<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.

<Begin Segment 8>

BT: Tomio, I have a question for you. So when you did the Pride and Shame exhibit, you mentioned that it was, a lot of people in the community were a little wary about this type of bringing up these issues because, you know, a lot of times people don't like to talk about things that were bad. What are the barriers did you face? Did you face any hostility from outside groups that you can remember?

TM: No. Well, first of all, we didn't have too much relation with people outside the community. But, you know, this whole issue of redress was just starting to, you know, I mean, people just didn't talk about it. You know, I don't know about your parents, but my mother never mentioned it. And my father, he died when I was only twenty-something, so we didn't have much chance to talk about it. He was very pro-Japan, so he wanted to go back to Japan.

BT: Where were you? Were you at Minidoka?

TM: No, no. Tacoma people went to Tule Lake with Sacramento people just by coincidence, and then I'm just guessing my father had the option to move to Minidoka, but he became a pro-Japan and wanted to go back on the first ship. Fortunately, my mother's brothers, or my father's two sisters, some ways, told them, "Don't come back, we can't feed you." So I'm glad, but my father was all ready to take the family back to Japan on the first ship.

BT: Was he a member of one of the groups at Tule Lake?

TM: I don't know much.

BT: How old were you? You must have been pretty young.

TM: Yeah, six and eight. All I remember is we used to find the best cafeteria with the best dessert. [Laughs] I'll be very frank, you know, we just, we were playing with all Japanese kids. Bit because my father wanted to go back to Japan, we had to go to Japanese school half of the day. So that's why I, that's my excuse for my English being so bad. My Japanese, it wasn't any good either.

BT: You're pulling our leg here. [Laughs]

KE: Yeah, my grandpa, my mom, when we talk about the incarceration period, she just talks about how my grandpa just talked about playing with the other kids.

TM: Oh yeah. And you know, all the girls were there, and we were younger, but I remember my older brothers and things, you know, they were always going and having dances and things like that. And we would just snicker on the side, you know. But I still remember, there was fifty-eight blocks, I think, and we knew every cafeteria, everyone that treated us good, or gave us delicious dessert, or you know, yeah, so that's what we did. We just went around.

KE: When you were talking about the dances, I remember hearing stories about my Auntie Hatsumi going to those dances because she was older at the time.

TM: And Tule Lake also became, a lot of Hawaiians came. So, you know, there was a lot of, I guess, fights and things like that.

KE: It is the biggest camp, too.

TM: Well, it became a high security. But the point is, the more they labeled them "troublemakers" were concentrated. So I think there was a couple of killings, too, isn't it?

BT: Yeah.

TM: But my father was active in the so called pro-Japan.

BT: I don't know you knew that Seattle JACL and Stan Shikuma, as our president, were one of the main players in getting a resolution pass at the national convention last year, asking for kind of, like, acceptance of people from Tule Lake, because there's always been a stigma.

TM: Oh, yeah, I read that a little bit in the Rafu but I don't know the details of it.

BT: Yeah. So it was interesting only in the fact that, you know, JACL is a lot different now. And if you go to a convention, I would say like, two-thirds of the people are under forty, and probably half the people are under thirty. And that's a good thing, but, you know, it's just different from when I grew up in JACL, everybody was over fifty, maybe. My first national convention was actually in San Jose when Norman Mineta was a city councilman, and part of the planning committee for the San Jose convention. But the thing is, the bitterness still remained. And in the debate for that resolution, there are not only a few of the survivors, but a lot of descendants from other camps, and especially older JACLers said they could never forgive being taunted and humiliated by other folks at Tule Lake. So it was just one of those things where, you know, you would think seventy-five years later, all of that's passed. But sometimes it's hard to... you can forgive the government, but your own folks, your own people, it's harder to come to grips with. So anyway... but I want to give it back to Kristen. Do you have any other questions, Kristen?

KE: No, I think that was it. And Bill, I'm taking Vince's class right now about Japanese American Studies, and we just went over Tule Lake and that period.

BT: It's an amazing story. I mean, you know, there's no one story that talks about Japanese Americans. That's the whole thing. So, Tomio, first I want to ask Kristen to stay on the line for a little bit after this is done so we can --

TM: The point is, Kristen, you have my email, so if you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to --

BT: Tomio, we are going to send you a couple more questions. Okay? But did you have anything else you want to say before we cut out?

TM: No, not at all. Good luck on your program. And, you know, JACL, personally, you know, I wasn't too involved after a couple of years, but it's a good program. I mean, like I say, a program like this allows people to get to know each other and I think that's important.