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BT: I'll leave one question, and this is something Kristen added, is there anything else -- I'll put two questions -- first one, is there one piece of information or advice that you'd like to pass on to the next generation? And also feel free to add on anything else that you wanted to do that we missed? So, there's two things here. One is what's one piece of advice that you would pass on, and the other one is, is there anything else that we missed that you wanted to add?

SS: I think what I would like to add on -- I mean, as far as for the future, would be for our community, for JACL, just to be tenacious and don't be afraid to make mistakes. Because sometimes hesitation, it's not a good thing. It's a bad habit to get into. Sometimes you have to just go out there and fight the fight,  and especially if you know it's the right thing to do, and not to be scared, or, "Oh we don't want to offend anybody." Sometimes you have to, unfortunately, to make a change. I think we always have to look at ourselves first. What are we doing as individuals? What are we doing as a chapter? What are we doing as a community? I think we have to look in first before we can go out, and make our stand and say our, speak our truth. We have to know what the truth is.

I think those are my... complacency -- I've always said this, I've always said this -- complacency is really a luxury we cannot afford. We just can't afford it. And back in my day, I used to call this subtle racism. I think today it's micro aggression -- Is that the term? Is that the hip new word now? -- Which is basically, it's the same thing. I used to always talk about those subtle, racist and bigoted things that we do, we say -- we don't even know we're doing it and saying it sometimes -- and I think those are things that we can't afford anymore to do, we have to call those things out. Even if it's embarrassing, sometimes your best friend might even say those things. I've caught myself. So, it's a new world. There's a lot of new things that we never thought of -- I'm talking about "we" meaning my age. And I hope that... as now the old guard, that we help and support the new leadership, even if we don't understand it, maybe completely, or get it all. It doesn't matter. We need to support our young leaders, and help guide, but definitely support them all the way up, all the way. And that means sometimes you have to be on the street, too. So that would be my thing.

Anything I would add? I can't say... Again, I bear no ill will ever, even when I left. And I was just kind of deflated. I still always believed in JACL and their mission and their goals. And I've always wanted them to succeed. I'm now a member of -- I have been for the last few years -- with the Puyallup JACL, and so is my daughter. So there's still a lot to do. Some of this other stuff is... all the hurt, all of the whatever, it's still, it's legitimate, but we got to look at the bigger picture. There's a lot of work to do, so much work to do. And I'm very proud to have been a part of JACL and Seattle Chapter. I've done, I've gone on and done a lot of things, and I learned a lot from those years I was there, and I have gone on to do more things. Things that were again, not popular. But I'm glad I did them anyways. So, I did learn that from Seattle Chapter JACL 2000. [Laughs]

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2020 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.