<Begin Segment 7>

AF: Kyle, was there anything you wanted to add before we close up?

KK: I've always been fascinated about kind of the rogue phenomenon. And I know it went back all the way to the start of conversations about redress. But I didn't directly sort of witness it, I would hear bits about it. But I was just sort of wondering about reflecting on that, because apparently, this just went on for decade, in relation to, compared to, say, other chapters or the national? So, anyway, any perspectives on that?

AM: Yeah, I think it's because Seattle is pretty unique. We're a pan Asian community, unlike many other places. So in California, there's enough Vietnamese, there's enough Chinese, there's enough everybody to have your own separate organizations, and to have them be pretty viable and vibrant. But in Seattle, our numbers were, they were big enough, but not quite big enough. And so we're much better working together as a pan Asian organization. And I think that cross fertilization with other Asian groups, just sort of expands your mind. So the Japanese indirect communication and the consensus that everybody wants but no one really agrees to, like what do you want to have for dinner, it takes us three hours to decide where to go to dinner, that kind of thing. So there's something about working beyond your own ethnic enclave that makes you more flexible and makes you more open, and I think the chapter really has that. And the leaders, those Nisei men that were leaders in the '70s when I first went to JACL in Seattle, they were leaders in their professional communities. So Sam Shoji, Min Masuda, those were all people who were very active in the social work community, in the mental health community, in the business community. So I think that's how the economy was expanding and giving people opportunity, and the fact that we were pan Asian. It's a theory. We need a sociologist. [Laughs]

KK: So this might have been a little bit before you got to Seattle, but I'm also wondering about the influence of say the Black African American activism in Seattle, and that obviously was pretty big in the '60s, I'm wondering whether that also might have had sort of an indirect effect on the thinking? That might have not been quite so obvious around '73 or so, but I'm just curious, because that's actually one of my projects is to kind of research that kind of influence. So anyway.

AM: So the Panthers were really active in Seattle. That by the time we hit the '70s, the Asian community, for me was much more organized, and was much more community-based than the Black community. And even now, when we try and build coalitions with communities of color, it's harder to build a coalition including Blacks, because they weren't as organized. But now, with Black Lives Matter, I think there's a real opportunity to do some cross fertilization with grassroots. But that was always really hard for APACE, too. So we could find community leaders who spoke for themselves, but not organizations with a big base of people. So I don't know, Kyle.

KK: Okay.

AM: I used to work for... oh, shoot, I forgot his name. He was a Panther back in the '60s with his brother.

KK: Aaron Dixon.

AM: Yes, Aaron and, and Elmer Dixon. I used to... Elmer Dixon used to be my boss.

KK: Oh, how funny.

AM: Yeah, I did anti-racism training for educational services, so his organization.

KK: Interesting.

AM: Yeah. But again, the Seattle community's small, which is why we know each other. So certainly in the '60s and Asian American movement, the Black movement, the Chicano movement, sure, we talked to each other and certainly, Bob Santos and the Gang of [Four] really had something to do with that as well.

KK: Yeah, great. Okay. And I guess that was kind of what I was thinking. Other interesting thing, I got a, I got a map of the segregation patterns of both, separately of Asians, and then black African Americans. And if you look at it, they were all in the same place.

AM: Yeah, below the Ship Canal.

KK: Right.

AM: In the central area.

KK: So that's why I was wondering, just that the mere fact that they were all together in one place, that they, there must have been some influence because you could see what was going on, and whether that influenced some of the Japanese American people who were active. So anyway...

AM: Well, I think that totally influenced my generation, the Sansei, but I don't know about the Nisei. So all those Third World Liberation movements cross fertilized each other.

KK: Okay. Well, interesting.

AM: Yeah, it is interesting. Yeah. Now, it's ancient history, my god. How did I get so old?

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