<Begin Segment 1>

BT: Hi, my name is Bill Tashima and I'm a past Seattle JACL president and current chair of our chapter's Legacy Historical Project. Our project, funded by the national JACL Legacy Fund grant, aims to preserve our rich history and legacy of JACL through online preservation of our historical documents as well as supplementing this material by adding recorded oral histories on pivotal leaders. In this session, we'll be talking with Kathryn Bannai. Kathryn was a Seattle JACL chapter president during the early 1980s. Kathryn became president during an exciting period for the chapter as JACL became engaged in a variety of civil rights and community work and activities. And the chapter worked in earnest toward the redress campaign for acknowledgement and restitution from the government for injustices wrought upon Japanese Americans during World War II. Kathryn represents the next stage of Seattle JACL with leadership of women and Sansei, third generation Japanese Americans. Leading our discussion today will be Elaine Kim, a UW Junior. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Elaine, who will introduce herself and begin the conversation with Kathryn.

EK: Hi. First and foremost, I just want to say thank you, Kathryn, for being able to contribute your time to this. Just like Bill said, we are here to document leaders like you who had such an impact on the Seattle JACL chapter. But just a little about me is that I'm Elaine and I'm currently a UW intern for the Legacy Fund grant project. And, I guess, without further ado, we'll just head right in. So Kathryn, if you don't mind telling us a bit about yourself? An introduction, if you will.

KB: Sure. Well, first of all, thank you so very much for having me. I'm delighted to be a part of this project and I think as will become clear through our discussion today, I really feel that it was a great privilege for me to serve the Seattle chapter and in particular, as its president in 1982 and certainly have ongoing gratitude to the people of the chapter for their impactful and inspirational ongoing work.

I grew up in Gardena, California, when, during my childhood, it had the largest concentration of Japanese Americans outside of Hawaii. I was active in Girl Scouts, church, and in school leadership activities. After having spent some time in Michigan and Japan, I attended the University of California Hastings College of the Law and later moved to Washington State. Subsequently, I resided in British Columbia and then moved to Northern New Jersey, then the New York metropolitan, New York City metropolitan area, and I currently reside in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo neighborhood. Professionally, I worked as a lawyer and as an adjudicator in Seattle and in Vancouver, British Columbia, as a labor adjudicator -- as a human rights adjudicator, and in New Jersey as an adjudicator and human resources professional. As a volunteer, I served as a trustee of Eastern Washington University, as president of the Seattle and New York chapter JACL, as a governor and trustee of the Japanese American National Museum, as a board member of the Little Tokyo Community Council, and as an advisory council member of Kizuna, an organization that seeks to educate, engage, and empower next-gen Nikkei. I served on the Seattle Public Safety Civil Service Commission as a member and as a chair and on the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.

EK: Perfect thank you, Kathryn.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2022 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.