Densho Digital Repository - Stan Shikuma Interview (Densho ID: ddr-sjacl-2-33-5)

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AT: So I guess on another note, going back to kind of like your activism within JACL and Seattle, I know that you've done a lot of work with Tsuru for Solidarity and Hiroshima for Hope and things like that, and I was just wondering if you can kind of touch on those things that you've done.

SS: Yeah, so okay, so with JACL specifically, I was pretty active during the redress movement. And then we won redress in '88. And then, so my, my job ended. [Laughs] Actually, I think it ended before we actually, the bill passed. Because I graduated, and I got my nursing degree, and so then I got a full time job at University of Washington. So that was in '86. So I probably stopped working at JACL in '85, so it must have been like '83 through '85 that I was working there. But I think in... so there's a little hiatus and then in, let's see, '91, the Tule Lake pilgrimage had been happening every year or two until '84. And then everyone who was organizing the Tule Lake pilgrimage got involved in redress. And so there wasn't anyone to organize it. So, there was a little hiatus and I think the next one happened after redress. So I think it was '91 when people started saying we really need to do a pilgrimage again. So in '91, they started up and I got more involved with the organizing of it. And that kind of became more of my center of attention. Also, I had kids by then, so that also took up a lot of time.

So I got back into JACL in 2011 when the Power of Words fight was going on. Mako Nakagawa, who's also a past president of JACL and was active in redress, getting redress for the young women at that time who were fired by the school district or forced to resign after Pearl Harbor. So she worked with the school board to get them redress in the '80s. Anyway, in 2010, she proposed a Power of Words resolution to JACL, basically arguing that we should get rid of all the euphemisms around camp, like evacuation and relocation and pioneer communities. It's kind of like, no, we weren't "evacuated," it wasn't like a tidal wave or an earthquake where you evacuate people for safety, it was kind of like forced removal at gunpoint. It wasn't a "relocation center," like, Boeing's going to move its headquarters to Chicago, we got to relocate all those staffpeople. No, it was kind of like, yeah, we're going to lock you up, send you to a concentration camp and keep you there for the duration of the war. So she had this idea that we really need to get rid of the euphemisms, that you can't really teach a true history, unless you use words that really reflect what the facts on the ground were. That she put it, "Words can be used to reveal the truth, or they can be used to hide the truth. And we've been using words that hide the truth for much too long, so we got to use words that really reveal the truth, express the truth." And it got a lot of pushback within JACL. And I think that was largely based on fear of upsetting people, that it would be controversial. And some people just being uncomfortable with rocking the boat. But Mako was relentless and so she kept pushing it and finally got it passed. And then someone wanted to, the next year, wanted to make a "correction," quote/unquote, that would water it down. And so she was fighting against that.

So in 2011, they had the National Convention in Bellevue. So Mako wanted to do a workshop on Power of Words and why it was so important and necessary. So she asked, pulled me in to organize the workshop, because she knew... because people in Tule Lake pilgrimage had been talking a lot about terminology because of the nature of Tule Lake being the segregation center, and people being called "disloyal" because they didn't answer "yes-yes" to the "loyalty questionnaire." And so terminology and what you call things and how you name things was really important within the Tule Lake Committee. And she knew that I was working with them, so she said, "Well, you'd be a good person to organize this workshop, because you have contacts with people who know about it and have been working on..." So that's how I got involved. So we actually formed a Power of Words committee, and there were like five of us that would meet like every two or three weeks, usually at the Panama Hotel or Bush Garden, and go over ideas of, "So how are we going to get this workshop off the ground?" And then after the convention, it was like, how are we going to get the Power of Words distributed and actually used? And so then, so then she says, "Well, I'm getting kind of older, so I'm going to retire and step off the board. So we need someone who knows Power of Words on the board, so you should do it." [Laughs] So Mako's not the kind of person you can say "no" to very easily. So I ended up joining the JACL Seattle board. And then she was also on the district council. And she was like, "Well, we really need a voice for Power of Words on the Pacific Northwest District Council, so you should be the Seattle rep." So again, couldn't say no. So I said, "Okay, I'll do that." And then she said, "Well, since I'm no longer on the district council, and you are, then I can't really be on the National Education Committee. But since you're on the district council now, you can be on the National Education Committee." So I got put on that, too. So it was really Mako that got me back, activated within JACL. And then it was Bill Tashima who got me interested or coerced into being president.

AT: Wow. Is this... I happen to, like, right next to me, have the Power of Words handbook. I didn't even know I had this. My baachan gave this to me the other day, and I was like, "Oh, cool, yeah, I'll take it." Is that... I guess that's something that, I didn't know that was such like a movement. I didn't, I thought that was just something that someone came up with to write about.

SS: Yeah, it really took off. Because when Mako first started this, nobody was using terms like "incarceration," "concentration camp." JANM had done one exhibit in New York, where it said "America's concentration camps," and had gotten pushback. Actually, it wasn't even really, in the beginning, it wasn't the Jewish community. That was what the big fear is, that we would have had the Jewish community if we said concentration camp. But even in New York City, it wasn't the Jewish community that initially opposed it or objected to it. It was the national park superintendent. It was at Ellis Island and it was because they were concerned that the Jewish community would be upset. So then they said, "Oh, well, no, we can't have it called concentration camp, American concentration camps, because it would upset the Jewish community." And then they started calling up people in the Jewish community. So then we had to, JANM had to have a big conference with them and they eventually said it was okay to use the term. But even JANM had to think about whether to use it or not, and other Japanese American organizations. So it was a real struggle to get the resolution on Power of Words passed through the JACL National Council, and then to get the booklet printed up, and then to get it distributed, and then get people to actually use it. Because we're thinking we need to get it to media people. So like, when they report things that they say, so they stopped saying, oh yes, Japanese Americans were "evacuated" in 1942, sent to "relocation centers." And then also educators, higher ed, and K through 12, and in textbooks to get that change. So there's a lot that needed to be cleaned up.

SS: Yeah, I think my professor, I'm in a lot of Asian American Studies classes and one of my professors has used "internment camp" and so then everyone in class starts using that. And it just seems wrong now that I know that it's... that that's not even the right term to use. But yeah, definitely see the importance in the language. [Laughs]

SS: Yeah. The "internment" one is probably the most difficult one because it's... and it's partially our fault, I mean, the movement's fault. Because we started using "internment" as an alternative to "evacuation" and "relocation" back in the '60s and '70s. We started... because we didn't want to use those terms, so we started saying that, well, people were "interned." But we didn't really understand the legal definition. And people in the '60s and '70s didn't really know about the Department of Justice camps. Like even in Asian American Studies courses, either they didn't really know that Department of Justice camps existed or Army internment centers existed. Or it got like a one sentence thing like, oh yeah, there were, the Department of Justice also locked people up. So the distinction between internment of, which is the legal definition is that in times of war, you intern citizens of enemy nations. And that's what the DOJ camps were, because they only took Issei, citizens of Japan, an enemy nation, and locked them up. So those are correctly called internment camps. But if you're locking up your own citizens, you can't... you're not foreign nationals, you're not of an enemy nation. So it's incorrect to call it that. Because even the commission, Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, has got it wrong. So it was really after the '80s and the '90s, or even in the 2000s, before people really started making that distinction.

AT: I mean, even calling the Issei when they were rounded up, like they weren't allowed to gain citizenship, right? So like, they were forced into that sort of label anyway. So even that feels a little wrong to call them interned.

SS: Yeah.

AT: Yeah.