<Begin Segment 5>

EK: And I guess just moving on, if you can talk about the times and environment during the period in which you work with a chapter personally, organizationally, systematically? I mean, can you just share some notes on that? That would be great.

BT: That's interesting because I think that when I came on and became active with Seattle JACL, organizationally and within the chapter -- within our board, let me just talk about the board. It's really cohesive, it's kind of like a mind meld. At sometimes you actually want a little bit more disagreement and confrontation perhaps. But, that's a good question. The things that I could tell you about working with our organization in our community, I'll tell you, one thing is Seattle JACL has a history of just being so much a integral part of the community and everything that -- people that were involved with the community, if you were to look at the leaders of JACL in the '50s and the '60s, and the leaders in the community, they were one and the same. And if anything that happened somewhere along -- I would say the 1990s to 2000 -- our leaders in the chapter still remain strong, but -- this is going to be a little hard to explain -- but to me the community base changed slightly. Because the board, if you went down the board, probably two-thirds of them were not from Seattle, they were like me, they were like from outside. And I think that would have been a harder time a little bit earlier when you had all these high school and elementary school connections. But by that time, it was not as strong. But that definitely was... I felt that at the beginning there was a certain -- I don't want to say rift, that's too strong of a word. There was a lessening of that tie between being Seattle and being Seattle JACL. But I think now, you don't feel that at all. I think that, for the most part, there hasn't been very much personnel, organization systemic change.

There are definite differences of opinion within the Japanese American community and within JACL. Perhaps the strongest is, because JACL, especially Seattle JACL's position on actions taken during World War II have changed. And because JACL was perceived to be such a pro-government organization in terms of cooperation with incarceration and things like that, that Seattle JACL later organized a reconciliation effort to recognize not only our effects, but those who opposed the draft during World War II, and those who resisted during World War II. And I think for myself, that's a good move. But again, for people of that era, especially our members who were the sole JACL during the war and afterwards, that was a lot harder emotion to come to grips with. For me, I'm removed from the exact situation. I wasn't in camp, I wasn't called names for being a JACLer, but for these people, there were still that antagonism between the two camps. And, but I think, like I said, sometimes we lose members, but I believe we're doing the right thing. I think that our view right now is proper, that what happened during the war is a terrible thing and the enemy was not our fellow Japanese Americans. The enemy was the government, the enemy was racism, inaction, and so let's keep your eyes on what's important here. Yeah, otherwise, I think, like I said, I didn't have to directly deal with that. And in fact, I find, for the most part, I find the community just very welcoming. Everybody has divisive opinions and that's going to happen when you have a great community. Does that answer your question?

EK: It absolutely does. It absolutely does. I actually was able to take a class on incarceration with Vince and learning about the JACL and everything, there are definitely different accounts of it. And so just to see that, at this point, it's really just about fighting the good fight is just amazing to see that kind of progression because of seeing those different accounts within history. But like you said, at this point, it's all just about really fighting good fight. And even though there are differences in opinion, it's recognizing that it's we, not us against them, kind of thing.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2022 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.