<Begin Segment 1>

CN: Yeah, hi, thank you, Bill. Hi, Ryan, nice to meet you. Thank you for taking the time to have us talk to you. So yeah, my name is Camila. I'm a junior at the University of Washington. And I'm studying Environmental Studies and geography. I'm originally from Oakland, California, and I got involved in this project through one of my professors from last year. And I'm interested in it because it relates to my own family history. Two of my grandparents were from the Seattle area and then moved down to the Bay Area later on. So yeah, I'm passionate about these topics, and I love learning more about it. And I'm also interested in talking with you because I'm also Chinese and Japanese, so I think it's interesting to hear your experiences. So if you're ready, I'd like to start off just by having you tell us a little bit about yourself and where you're from and your experience growing up.

RC: Yeah, so thanks for that intro, Camila. I am from Seattle, born and raised. I'm, like you said, half Chinese half Japanese. My maternal side is Japanese, my paternal side is Chinese. On my Japanese side, I'm fourth generation Yonsei, and then on my Chinese side, I'm third generation. So, let's see... on my Japanese side, both my grandparents were also even born in this area. My grandfather was, kind of grew up in the Mukilteo area and my grandmother grew up south of Seattle. So yeah, I was born and raised here. I went to the University of Washington like yourself. I majored in business and let's see... on both of my sides, my father was very... he volunteered a lot in the community. And he actually, since you're from the Bay Area, he grew up here, but he went to San Francisco State and he was there when kind of the parts of the Asian American Studies movement started at San Francisco State. And so that's... it was a very, a crazy time there. And so he came back, and then he volunteered, started to volunteer here. And so people also like my aunts and my uncle on my maternal side are also kind of very involved in the community and like to volunteer with different things, both in terms of civil rights, and as well as a lot of stuff that we're related more towards, like APA kind of related groups. Let's see. Yeah, so I guess that's a that's a good starting point.

CN: How would you say that, like your father and the rest of your family being involved in like, APA issues in organizations, how did that influence you as you were growing up?

RC: So I didn't say that... I actually grew up in a single parent household, my parents were divorced when I was only three, and I was actually raised by my dad. So he volunteered a lot, he also worked for the government his whole life. So he worked for the city, for the Department of Community Development, and kind of his area when he was working for the city was the International District. So how to do, like, what things would be best in terms of trying to help out the International District from a city perspective, and what are kind of the issues there. Then he went to work for the state and did other stuff that was not related to that kind of work. But being a part of a single parent household, especially when I was young, it just meant that a lot of times, since there was no one at home, he would just end up bringing me to the meetings, just to sit there because there was no sitter. And so for me, it just kind of became, I guess, a way of life, it was just part of my social fabric. And it became kind of intertwined with me, which was... played out to be very interesting over time, because as I grew up and as I started to volunteer, then I would start to interact with some of those people that were in those meetings. Which was kind of interesting, because you would go from like observing them just as an observer, as a child, to interacting with them closer to a peer-to-peer level, but it just really became kind of intertwined with me.

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<Begin Segment 2>

CN: So how did you originally get involved with the JACL?

RC: With the JACL, so I've always kind of, even before JACL, I kind of volunteered on different things, although it wasn't in the arena of social justice and civil rights. But when I... and I had always actually kind of wondered, or I had wondered how to get involved. I became aware of JACL because my uncle was the president of JACL, Kip Tokuda, for a time, and so my grandmother would, she would make note of it, I would visit her every Tuesday night for dinner. And so it was just something that she made me keenly aware of when I was a child, and I always was kind of curious, like, okay, so what do they do and how do I get involved? And back then -- we're talking about like the '90s -- so this is like before really the internet took off and stuff like that. So you would mainly hear about like the activities and how to get involved just through like word of mouth or someone directly or the newsletter. So I didn't really for a long time know how to get involved and especially in my, when I was younger. But I applied for a scholarship my junior year at the U-Dub, and I ended up winning a scholarship. And that kind of started my involvement. And it started very slow or where it was, I won the scholarship. And I was also friends with some people on the board, actually, my dentist at the time or still my dentist, Dr. Christine Shigaki, was on the board. And she invited me to come to a meeting just to see, "Hey, would you like to come to a meeting?" This was like after winning the scholarship. And I was like, "Oh, yeah," and then it kind of really came up with that where people were like, "Okay, you're at this meeting? Oh, would you like to join the board? Okay. Okay, would you like to get involved at the district level in being like our youth Rep?" and it just kind of, like, cascaded from there.

CN: So like, as a student at U-Dub, I know you said that like it kind of built kind of slowly, your involvement. But like, when you were younger, like college age, or like, just after college, what work did you do with JACL? Like, outside of just like going to meetings and being aware of it?

RC: Yeah, so let's see. And things escalated quickly. At the beginning, I was just on the board, and maybe for, like, the first few months to maybe the first year, I was kind of observing, trying to get my lay of the land trying to figure out like... and, quite honestly, as a young person observing, I just kind of wanted to figure out my place. Like you don't know... like what should you say, what might be a waste of people's time, et cetera, et cetera. I kind of wanted to get a feel just like what was appropriate, what's valuable, and things like that. But slowly, I would just do the things that they would ask of board members. And then I don't even remember what the origin of this was. But I had the idea of doing a fundraiser to see if we could get more money for youth activities. So for... and I don't even know how I came up with this idea. So I ended up putting on like a fundraiser where we sold curry dinners, like Japanese curry. And then for some reason I intertwined like a silent auction and then a book sale into it. Even though it was... there was like, it was an open time window, and it wasn't like... there was no like, show or anything to go along with it.

RC: So I ended up doing that, like in my first year, and also at the time, the governor, the person in charge of JACL for the Pacific Northwest region, so like Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, from our board, Elaine Akagi. And so Elaine was like... each district typically, amongst their leadership, has a youth representative. And so she asked me, "Do you want to be the youth representative?" And so I did that. And that gave me exposure to more the national organization. So being kind of a district rep. there was like a National Youth Conference and some different events, in particular for youth. And so that quickly escalated, like within a year or so, for me like running for the National Board of JACL, which I ran for the Vice President of Public Affairs. So the board has a president and then it has four vice presidents under it. So I ran for one of the positions, I ran unopposed. But, and to be frank, there was some challenges there just because, one, I always have looked -- you probably empathize -- I have always looked younger than my real age. And my real age was twenty-three, twenty-four, so that was not something that was customary at that point. I think maybe things have changed since then. But even running unopposed, there was like some worry or thoughts among the people that were kind of in my circle of my campaign in terms of, will people vote -- because they don't have to vote for anyone -- will people vote for someone that looks so young and is quite frankly, so young? But they did. And it's kind of like how my involvement went.

And it was, that was a very interesting time, this is like 2000. And so how terms run for national JACL is they run for two-year terms. And so in 2001, was 9/11. And in 9/11, obviously, there was the terrorist attack. And as a part of that, there was mass confusion and a lot of paranoia. And so the talk became, there were murmurs of should we... would it be appropriate to kind of create something like, not exactly like camps, but should there be something that... a way of cordoning off people, even though they're Americans. So in particular, like, people may be that were Muslim, or people that some in the general public associated with the terrorist attacks. So that was an interesting time. And there was... also in conjunction -- well, not in conjunction with that -- but there was, there's still a lot of stuff in relation to like, anti-defamation, like there was a movie for Pearl Harbor, a Ben Affleck movie. And so during that time, we got involved with other organizations in making sure that we were able to kind of like, preview some of these things that were coming out in terms of media that might contribute to anti-defamation. And figuring out, how can we make sure that the story is, I guess you could say, somewhat balanced? Or how do we make sure that we're not completely villainized, to be frank. So that was really, it was a good, a great time. I mean, public affairs' role is to kind of establish the stance of the JACL in terms of what policies are pursued and how we pursue them. So being a part of that was interesting.

I worked real close with the D.C. director at that time, Christine Minami. And as a part of that, that was really great, because she was also young, too, and anything I wanted to push, and I push really hard, she would, generally help out with that, too. So we... I wrote a lot of press releases with her, and taking stances and a lot of our position papers I wrote personally. Which... and that's just part of the nature of how... I have an aggressive personality, because there's a little bit of growing with that. I mean, because first, even after I got elected, there's still a little bit of feeling out from everyone else that was elected and even staff trying to figure out what, how much can we turn over the reins? Or how much can we give this twenty-three year old? And since I'm so aggressive, normally, the board only sets policies, and especially at that level where there's paid staff. But since I wanted to pursue a lot of stuff, and there just wasn't enough staff to pursue it, that's how I ended up doing things like writing some of the press releases. And really, in the infancy of the national website, trying to, I kind of took that under my own reins and actually did a lot of it myself. But it's just a shortage of staff at the time, which you'll always have at nonprofits. But yeah, that's kind of my early involvement. I would say that's a look at my first three to five years getting involved in JACL.

CN: I didn't realize you were so young when you were the vice president. That's amazing. So Bill had mentioned that you won like a chapter award when you were student. Is that different than like this the scholarship that you were talking about?

RC: Yeah.

CN: So I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about the award and like, what kind of student activities you did that led to you receiving it?

RC: Oh, I don't think it was related necessarily to any student activities, it was mainly related to some of the stuff that I did at the time. And really, I think it really was surprising to a lot of people that you could have someone who's like twenty-one or twenty-two just volunteer to create their own fundraiser and kind of run the show on it, run point on it. And that kind of... that's kind of my interpretation of what, one of the drivers that led to that award. The award was this kind of a discretionary award, like at the annual banquet, they're set awards, but this one was, I think, it was just called the Presidential Award. So it was basically, it's not an award they gave out every year, it's just, they decided ad hoc to give me an award at the banquet that year.

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<Begin Segment 3>

CN: So then you became the president of the Seattle chapter of JACL in 2011?

RC: Yeah.

CN: So what types of things were you able to accomplish as chapter president?

RC: Oh, man, okay, I have to think a little bit. So I really... what happened was, I started at the chapter level, then I went to the national level, and then I kind of took a break for a few years. And normally, the progression is different. Like, if you're going to go up to the national level, the natural kind of steps would be you kind of go, and you become like, a president at your chapter level, and then maybe become involved at the district level, then maybe the national level. So it's kind of odd that I had that break between the time where I joined the chapter and then I came back a decade later and became the chapter president. But what that allowed me to do is, it allowed me to observe a lot of things. And there was like, it also allowed me to see being on a national level to see kind of the concerns of the organization kind of at a 30,000 foot level. And very evident... even like, even before, I mean, I'm sure it was even evident before I kind of started getting involved in 2000, that the organization was aging quite a bit, because it was really tied to the Nisei generation. So it would be on the older end, my grandfather and grandmothers' kind of generation to younger people kind of in their same generation. So I got to see that unfold. And really a lot of it, my concern stemmed in part, in regards to what does the organization look like ten to twenty, let's say ten years after my presidency, I guess that would put us now, in terms of what's the viability of the organization, and do we have the right infrastructure in place to make sure that it lasts. So that was that was one concern.

So one thing I did during my presidency, is it kind of on a personal level, it bothered me that we would have an annual banquet every year. But we would run deficits. And so a great portion of the year when we were sitting in meetings, we would talk about how do we fundraise. And that really bothered me because it took away from the core competency of focusing on civil rights issues. So we have a finite amount of time and a finite amount of people power and energy. And so to put so much into fundraising as opposed to, like, chasing down social justice and anti- defamation issues, that really kind of rubbed me the wrong way. So I made a concerted effort to cut our biggest expense, which was our office and we had been in... I want to say decades we'd been in there. And it was used by other groups, too, it was a pretty well used office. But I couldn't reconcile in my head having this one expense for this office, and us basically talking about how we would fund the office most of the time, as opposed to actually going out and doing the work. I thought that was important. So I mean, it's not a sexy thing, because it deals mainly with like, money and kind of infrastructure as opposed to, ideally, I would have liked that all set, I would have liked a surplus of money, and I would've liked to chase the issues.

But I just, I felt it was very important, because what would happen is, for example, my feeling is if you bring in young people, and they come to meetings, and the majority of time, we're talking about fundraisers, I mean, nobody's going to get passionate about fundraisers within themselves, it ends to a mean, they'll get excited about the mean. Okay, like we actually made this difference in society. And it's just a, it's a recipe for burning out young people and turning them off, if you dominate them with talk of fundraising and seeing how you could solicit help with fundraising, as opposed to how they could change the world and better it for people. Because generally speaking, that's what most of the people in JACL want to do. They're there for a reason, that they believe the organization could have a positive impact on society. So that was one, that was kind of a cornerstone.

And I also... it's kind of tied to that, but I was wondering, how do you put in like the foundation, in terms of prospering in the future and growing in the future? And I really believe that the way to do it is to create programs and programs that get funded, that you become renowned for, that you become very good at and you become kind of a subject matter expert in a certain area. And the idea in my head was, actually it was tied to youth, it was basically a leadership series where we would go to different campuses, and during evenings, and then we would bring like three to four speakers who are community leaders to those events and give people exposure. Because for me, I was, I would say, fortunate because when I was a kid, I'd get to sit in these meetings, these different board meetings, I get to go to these different events. So it gives me a much closer, like a one degree connection to people who are influencers and leaders in the community. But I can imagine people very much in the situation I was in, in college where I was explaining, like, I didn't know how to get involved in JACL, or something like that. And so I didn't... it was hard for me. So the idea of the APA empowerment series was to try to see if we can not only create these kind of intimate-ish environments between students and leaders that they would not have access to, but, it's twofold. It's basically giving people access to leaders they wouldn't have access to, and the other thing is just kind of letting those leaders talk about the different issues they see out there and some of their experiences. So education, as well as helping them bridge or create kind of a network if they chose to do so, with a better in. So we ran that for, during my year and got some funding for it. The whole idea that I wanted to try to do is to kind of build on that so that it was more perpetual so that that program could continue each year, and it could be funded and be become something that benefits youth and creates like a stronger network into community organizations in the future. So those are kind of the two biggest things that I tried to focus on during that year.

BT: So I just want to add on this, actually, we wanted to have this as a conversation also, not just question and answers, but I just want to add a little bit more on Ryan, because I always thought of Ryan as one of our transformational presidents. Basically, a lot of times when someone becomes president, what they concentrate on is continuing the programs exactly as we did in the past, and just doing the same thing in a different year, but trying to make it a little bit better. But I think what Ryan did was look at the entire organization, and actually take a look at it in the future. And like he said, one part was the office, which was the major expense. And that was not an easy decision, or it wasn't easily accepted by the board. Because a lot of the older members, to myself, somewhat, there's a lot of ties with that office. But the bottom line is that Ryan was right, it was like a weight around our neck that was that was consuming us in terms of fundraising. And the bottom line is, we only actually probably used the office two or three times a month.

The other thing that Ryan did was, he did an institutional look at our board, and had the LIOS, Leadership Institute of Seattle, and they did like a six-month study of our group and looked at... our board interviewed them. And the final result was we needed to change, we had people on the board that were there for a long time. And they were kind of burnt out, but they didn't want to say, they didn't want to say, "I can't do it anymore." But the bottom line was, yeah, so I think what happened is we did lose a lot of board members. But that also marked getting a lot of new people, a lot of younger people, and I think that's the start of our rejuvenation from the Seattle chapter.

The other thing Ryan did, which I thought was really good, is he got us to systematically store all our records, and everything went onto [inaudible], that he started up. Unfortunately, I really got into that and I put everything on [inaudible], except that about two years ago, it went belly up and we had to transfer everything over to another site, and that was kind of like an incomplete transfer. Yeah, but I think... and the thing about the programming was important because we had, Ryan had us look very carefully at each program we do and what is really necessary for us to continue doing while keeping our mission viable. And so I think that was a good look. And the idea of funding programs is something that I think that we have stepped up with, and a lot of our programs that we have now are funded by grants, which make it easier than fundraising and asking our community just to give. So I want to, I wanted to include that in the record, that the accomplishments that Ryan did were very good. I did have another question, too, just to go back a little bit. Ryan, when did you first join the board for the JACL?

RC: I'm trying to think if it was '98 or '99. Probably late '98. '98.

BT: Ok. And the first time you ran for national office was 2000, so two years later.

RC: Yeah, it was it was very fast.

BT: And when you were president, Vice President of Public Affairs, who was the executive director? Was that John Tateishi?

RC: Yeah, it was John.

BT: Okay, and the president, was that was that Floyd?

RC: Yeah. Floyd Mori.

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

<Begin Segment 4>

CN: So I think it's interesting how you mentioned like being chapter president is more focused and infrastructure-based and small projects. And I'm wondering, where they're intersections? I know you took there's like a break between working on the national level at the chapter level, but were there like intersections between your work on a national level and like the Seattle chapter? And I don't know, which one, like which side of it did you like better? Working on bigger picture things or working more hands on, just on the Seattle area?

RC: They're just really different animals, and I enjoy them in different ways. So on the national level, especially like 2000, we just... you could really, like, leverage the connections that the organization had and the visibility. So it would be like, okay, it would be like, we oppose the detention of Muslim Americans or any kind of thought of that. And so because of our clout, we're able to reach out to other organizations and get their backing as well on it. So like with different things, because we had that presence and that history, we could get the support on different issues that may primarily impact APAs, but we'll still get, we will still get the backing of AJC, American Jewish Committee, the NAACP, obviously OCA, but all these different other groups, we were able to get their backing, too. So if we want them to sign on to a statement, we wanted to show, mention on the Hill that they were also, like, supporting us, then it was very easy -- not very easy, but it helped a lot to move things on the national level and get visibility to it a lot quicker just because of the clout that the organization had. So that is, it's just a very cool thing to have.

But on a on a chapter level, it's more, you can also, we can also do that at a chapter level where we could kind of move things that way, because especially in the Seattle region, just because we're so established here. But on a chapter level, since you're working with other people a lot closer because we didn't have any paid staff. So basically, you do the work. So you end up doing a lot more work with people. Like at the national level, a lot of people, you could just -- and most people did generally set the policy. So they'll say, like, well, okay, we should focus on this, and then that would kind of be the directive to the paid staff and other people. But that's less hands-on. And because we're coming from different areas of, all different areas of the country and flying in for meetings, it takes longer to build the personal relationships out. But on a chapter level, you build that out a lot quicker. So I would say like on the chapter level, it's much more fulfilling in terms of the personal bonds, national level, it's much more interesting in terms of how much more you could impact discussions at a U.S. level or a much higher level than just your city. So they both have their own merits.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2020 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

CN: So just in terms of like Seattle JACL outside of redress, what would you say are the biggest, the three biggest accomplishments that Seattle JACL has done?

RC: I'd have to think about that. But I think that a lot of the work that the chapter did that really predates me, that's why I'm having a little bit of trouble with it, but a lot of the work that they would have went in doing in regards to segregation, anti-defamation, and those kinds of things, were very important. I mean, things are quite... yeah, I mean, it's like a totally different world. So Bill knows this, but the chapter used to always do, participate in the Seafair parade, which is such a weird concept right now, to have like a float in the Seafair parade. Oh, I don't know if you know the Seafair parade. Okay, it's like, it was like Seattle's Macy's Day Parade. I guess I could say, like that. And so that's such a weird concept, like an organization, a nonprofit has a float. Usually... well, some nonprofits do nowadays, but a lot of it's like commercial and a lot of it, I mean, it just takes a lot of money and effort just to put together, decorate a float, to maintain it to house it, everything like that. But it's... why it's interesting is because there was a lot of stuff that the organization had to do to combat anti-defamation and other things, to kind of go the extra mile to say that we're Americans and we're a part of your community as well. We're just not within our own segregated enclave. So I kind of think about those kind of things when I'm thinking about, like, the things that the organization did outside of redress. I mean, redress they did a lot of stuff. And there's always like, things that you kind of, like, have to respond to, or different, like, legislation that comes up that organization has to take a stand on. So for example, even though affirmative action was effectively kind of revoked at the government level in Washington, there was, it was called Initiative 200 in, I think it was 1998. Those kinds of things like crop up, and that's why it's important to have that organization taking a stand and being a part of that, and trying to figure out ways not only to take a position on it and make it known, but to leverage the people that are supporters of the organization, and figuring out how to get them involved and mount the pressure on the people setting the policy and the people who are kind of dictating discussion in trying to combat these things. Yeah, so I might have to think, a little bit more on that actually. [Laughs]

BT: Ryan, you can, if you think of something, just email us. This is not, this is not a quiz here. So if you think about, yeah, just email us back. Okay.

RC: Okay, okay. Thanks, Bill.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2020 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

CN: So kind of along those same lines, in your opinion, who are like the three JACL, Seattle JACL chapter leaders who you think have had the most impact on the chapter and why?

RC: Okay, well, I mean, the first one is Cherry Kinoshita, Cherry, really... oh man, she's, she was like a bulldog for redress. She worked so hard with Mike Lowry, who was one of the lead sponsors in the House, for redress. He was Seattle's representative. That took years and years. And it wasn't only that, it was like, getting recognition for some of the staff for Seattle Public Schools, and how they were discriminated against as a result of that. So I just, I mean, redress was not a fast moving deal. It was like ten to twenty years of just grind before the wall kicked in. So just to have that much dedication, because, like, especially in times like today, where people have shorter attention spans and they have so many more things occupying them, it's hard to fathom how you stick with something that long that you're not getting paid for. You're not getting, it's not your livelihood, you're raising a family at the same time. So I will put Cherry at the top. That's kind of funny, I didn't mean to put it that way. [Laughs]

Who else would I put up there? You know, there's a lot of people that I could say that would predate me pretty far. But I... so I really respect the people that have kind of, just speaking on a firsthand account, I respect the people that kind of keep the torch going. Because for me, what happens is I tend to burn myself out. So I do look at people like Bill, and I look at Elaine Akagi, and it's just being able to kind of maintain that continuity and like do the right thing and keep the organization going, that is super powerful. Like when I joined JACL because it was so entrenched in older generations, those people, they would be in the organization for, like, decades, decades, they would do their thing. So we had like a banquet committee of like, twenty to thirty people every year that ran this fundraiser for like, four or five hundred people. I mean, it's just hard for me to fathom now. And part of it, like, dovetails into my thinking when I was president is like, okay, given the changes in our society, it is a concern, how do you maintain that continuity? How do you maintain that the torch will keep going on? So I do, I admire people like Bill and Elaine, who have like kind of kept that going after the prior generations aged because I don't know where the organization would be, post me, if that didn't happen. I've seen plenty of other organizations that were also like, kind of built in a different time, like started like, pre '60s or whatnot, and they've kind of faded out. And if they haven't faded out, they don't have that continuity, or that bridge between the past and the present, which, I don't want to harp too much on the past. There's eternal, great gratitude there. But I always want to be forward looking. So that's there. But it is important to have certain aspects of at least noting what has made the organization valuable in the past, and what has made it successful in the past, retaining that. Because if you can't retain that, then that there's a good chance you'll falter in the future, if you don't know what made you successful or brought you to this point in time. I don't like harping on it all the time, I really, I really don't like... I try to limit how much I look in the past, but there are certain aspects of it that are super critical in keeping things going. So just from my experience, that's what I would say, and that's just my general observations. Part of the reason for the organization being alive for so long is no doubt because of the value that people saw in terms of giving them a bigger voice in society and representing them. But quite frankly, a big part of it was, it was an important part of their social fabric, too. Like I said, you meet people, you're working with them, and you have fun with them, and you get to know them, but that's just not how society is today, like, with younger people. And part of that is because all of the opportunities that I have, like, because there's not segregation and things like that, I have so many other things I could do and spend my time on. Now, that wasn't the case in '60s, maybe '70s and before that. So it is hard to retain people and it's hard to keep things going because people, they may dabble here and then they quite understandably may want to like go help out another organization or do something else, and that's human nature. So that's why I want to put the emphasis on, in my experience, having those people around like Bill and Elaine that kind of kept that going. I give them a lot of respect, because quite frankly, I couldn't do it. I burned myself out multiple times.

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CN: So speaking of the future, you kind of mentioned that when you became president that you saw, like the Seattle chapter is kind of like an aging organization. And you had like, just talked about continuity between the past and present. So I was just wondering what some of your thoughts are about Seattle JACL? And like the next hundred years and in the future, where you see it going?

RC: Yeah. So I think, the organization, yeah, it's aging. They managed to bring on younger people since I left. I mean, the value for the organization is still there. When the organization was younger, it was, like I said, there was at least part of it that was a social outlet as well. And to the success of the civil rights movement and organizations like JACL. Like I said, younger people today have a lot more outlets, they can do a lot more things. And JACL really isn't part of... they don't, they wouldn't participate in JACL for like social activities. So it's really shifted more in terms of giving those people a bigger voice and being able to take a stand on things that they're passionate about. And this, I had, well, a lot of people had kind of this little this sentiment before I became president, before I kind of took a break from JACL. But a lot of issues now are not as focused on Japanese Americans, just because Japanese Americans were very fortunate in... they've been able to do pretty well, I would say. But I think that where the organization will go and kind of has the focus, is to say... whereas if you look in the '60s or '70s, there would be a much tighter focus on what is impacting Japanese Americans in particular. I think it rose out from there in terms of some of the same issues exist, like discrimination, or anti-defamation, and things of that nature, but you had to broaden your scope in terms of it impacting other groups, other people that may be impacted more heavily for different reasons.

So like, you have to focus more on how are things impacting not just Japanese Americans, but the first obvious thing is branching it out to like, Asian Pacific Americans. And I saw an interesting article from Naomi Ishisaka today in the Seattle Times, and she was talking about is it time to separate out, to not use the term "Asian Pacific Islander" or "Asian Pacific Americans" anymore? And I kind of think she's right, because what happens is, I think when you start to bundle in people, they, you start to think of them as one, but actually, Pacific Islanders have much different issues still. Like they're more likely to be impacted by discrepancies in education and the education system, for example. And there's other ways that they're more likely to be impacted. So I think that was even, at that time, when I was still involved, like a decade ago, it was fairly obvious. Like you need to broaden the scope just beyond Japanese Americans, you need to, there was talk like, do we look at... do we try to involve the Shin Issei, or new people that immigrated from Japan that are part of a different kind of immigration. So they might have come in here for education, whereas like the earlier Japanese Americans came just to be able to make a living in hard manual labor. So but I mean, even beyond that, obviously you go to supporting, like, African Americans, and then Hispanic Americans with different ethnicities, but then you also break into like, how are, how do we get more aggressive or assertive at impacting people that are, like, discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or because of their religion or things of that nature? And I think that if I were looking at things today, aside from pure discrimination, I would really... I kind of thought about this, I just did not, there was not enough bandwidth during my year, but I would have thought about what kind of things... how do you attack things... at work, I would say much more upstream, shift to the left.

So for example, like, yes, we could see that certain groups are, there's a big wealth, discrepancy, income discrepancy between different groups. So if you keep shifting to the left, figure out why that is, and keep going to the left until you can't go any further to the left. So like, you may say, like, oh, okay, it's because, there's different factors, it could be because they don't have the same level of health coverage. So why is that? It could because they don't have the same level of education or the same quality of education. So why is that? Keep going to the left until you can't ask why anymore. That's kind of where I would head in, I would look, I see the organization broadening out in terms of the kind of discrimination that they focus on, but I would kind of think about like, okay, what kind of other things are leading to systemic discrepancies between different groups of people and causing these inequalities? And keep going 'til figuring out, okay, how do we get people better education, better access to education, to quality education? Things like that. I don't know. Is it like, looking for more government funding for students to get, like, enough money for college? Is it giving teachers or whoever, like, more help in terms of students in the classroom or something of that nature? I don't know the answer, but I know that the answer, or the way to solve these inequalities, which was fundamental to kind of the purpose of the JACL, at a very high level is to keep drilling on some of these things that are not at the surface level, like if I call you like, a racial slur, or ethnic slur or whatnot, it's very at the surface is very in your face. How do you take it a step further now that things are, you kind of get past that surface level and go much deeper and solve much more complicated systemic problems? That's kind of where I see the organization going.

CN: Think, yeah, I think that's really interesting. Just, I was kind of thinking just about how like Japanese American activism today like, there's like Tsuru for Solidarity, it's like a lot of solidarity movements, like rooted in the experiences of Japanese Americans. And just, I don't know, my sister went on, like the Kakahashi trip a couple years ago and she was kind of critical of how it split up Japanese participants and non-Japanese participants. So I think it's interesting, just hearing you talk about, like, how there needs to be some branching out in working with other groups.

RC: Yeah, I mean, like, so the thing is, I could walk into a place today and someone could say, like, call me a "Jap." So that's pretty rare today or much more rare. And the thing is, the general consensus now is shifted in the U.S. to that. Like if you told most people that they would have an adverse reaction, so things are, they're not blatant now, and, and I think solving the problems now in terms of inequalities is much more, they're far more complex, and that's why they kind of haven't been solved, but to really kind of try to figure out what's the root cause and what are some root solutions that are... I think that's kind of the, that's what I would focus on now.

BT: Camila, anything else?

CN: I think those are all my questions. If you have anything to add, Bill.

BT: Ryan, did you want to add anything else? Well, Camila and I will get together and we may send you some follow up questions, or we may not, we'll send you an email.

RC: Okay.

BT: But I just wanted to add one thing real quickly, though, because I think, Camila... it's kind of interesting. I think it was 2004 or 2006. And Ryan, was, I don't know how old you were back then, but you told me you were thinking about running for national president. And I said to you, "That's pretty good, Ryan, but you're pretty young. How do you think that's going to be, how do you think that'll be received?" I don't know if you remember what you told me.

RC: Yeah. Well, I remember aspects of that conversation.

BT: You said something to the effect that, well, the way I looked at it is everybody in JACL is always talking about youth, youth this, youth this, youth will be our future, and it's kind of like, well, our future is now. It's time to put their money where their mouth is. It's like, if they're not going to take me seriously as a leader, then, basically, then I don't want to have anything to do with this organization. But it was basically you putting it on the line, saying, you can't argue to give power and leadership to youth and not actually do it. And I was really impressed by that, when you said that. Anyway, I want to thank you for your time, I know you're really busy at work. And this is, especially right now at the quarterly point. And Camila, I want to thank you again, because your interviews are always good. And we'll have this as our recording. And otherwise, thank you. And if there's nothing else, then we'll catch you later.

RC: All right, yeah. Thanks for having me.

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