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EK: So this is a very broad question, so I apologize in advance. But there are still individuals who continue to make claims that even when an event such as incarceration happened long ago, individuals who carry such scars, such scars from such events need to move on. For example, I think of Mitch McConnell and redress in terms of like slavery, and how he's just like, why this happened, this happened with my ancestors, why do we need to be the ones who pay for it, just examples like that. But, as an individual who believes that as time passes from when incarceration occurred, you believe that the bigger lesson now is how we learn and use such experiences to repair the injustice that occurs in our society today stem from inequality and discrimination. So just from that kind of background and your own thoughts for individuals who make such ignorant claims, what would you wish they would learn through your own belief of carrying such experiences onward, to combat injustices that occur today? A heavy a question, sorry. [Laughs]

BT: [Laughs] Okay. That was a simple question. So, no, that's, there's a lot of layers to what you just said. Okay. And the first thing is, it did happen eighty years ago. And in the terms of our history, which is relatively short, that is a long time. The bad part is it's indicative of a pattern that has occurred throughout our history and it's a pattern that hasn't been learned. When I think about JACL -- I mean about JA incarceration. I do think that it's been a long time. I remember one of my Nisei friends, when I asked her about a camp, and she said, "Bill, that was seventy years ago, I don't think about it." And that's one way to think about it, for her. On the other hand, I think that what we need to realize is we're not bringing these things up to talk about our pain in terms of... we're so, we were so, kind of like asking for sympathy or something like that. I think the important lesson is that, again, this is a pattern of something that's happened throughout our history, and it keeps happening. And it's time where we learn about this.

I'm gonna talk a little bit more on depth on this, if you don't mind. When they first talked about redress -- and I was from Cleveland -- I actually was not in favor of redress. And part of the reason was, I just didn't see how asking for money was going to solve anything. And I didn't see how you could even put a price on the dignity and the loss of freedom that my parents and my grandparents went through. And I didn't think that it was right, that they say to make things good we'll have redress, okay. I, my opinion changed because when I moved out to Seattle, I had the opportunity, a couple opportunities. One, I had the opportunity to see the farm that my grandparents farmed in Wapato, Washington, south of Yakima, which they were never able to return to after the war. They lost it. I was able to visit Heart Mountain on the way to Washington -- I recognize it from the freeway, I stopped, I saw the desolate place that my mom was incarcerated at. But more than anything else, in September of 1981, about a month after I was here, I was able to attend every single redress hearing that they had, at that time, Seattle South -- South Seattle Central College. And for the first time in my life, for three days, I heard person after person give testimony about what happened to them and their families during the war. These are stories I had never heard before because my parents only talked about the good things. When they talked about incarceration with their friends, there would always be laughter or, "Do you remember that food we used to get or remember playing with these people?" I hear the stories of what they left and how they had to leave their friends and their pets behind them, things like that. I also heard a remarkable person, Bill Marutani, lawyer from -- a judge from Philadelphia. And he said something to the effect that asking for redress is the right of every citizen. If you look at the first amendment, and they talk about freedom of religion, press, and speech, they also talked about the right of every citizen to petition the government for redress of wrongs that were committed. And that, like, lit a bell in my head, this is our right to ask for redress. And then he said, "Redress is not about the amount of money, there's nothing can repay for lost time or loss of liberty, but our society is a monetary society, and our society is based on dollars. And when you put a penalty high enough, that teaches people, the government, you can't do that again. Because if you do it again, you're gonna have to pay again." And then it began to make sense to me. Yeah, this is our right, and we have to teach the government a lesson. So I think that, I carry that with me a lot.

And so when I think about redress, again, the lesson here is, I don't want to just repeat the story about what happened to Japanese Americans. I actually brought some things that I want to show you, if I can. This is a piece of art that my grandmother, who was an Issei, did while she was at that camp. And I bring this up because, like many people, she came to this country for a better life, no other reason. She wasn't trying to be subversive to our government or anything like that. But even in these times of trouble, she was able to do something that was beautiful. The other picture is -- this is Heart Mountain as we traveled through, on our way to Seattle. And I recognized it and then we asked the gas station guy, and he told us how to get there. And then this is the actual -- you probably can't see it. This is the actual letter of apology that the President of the United States sent everybody who received the redress check. And, yeah, it's -- the words are really touching. And finally, I have a plaque written in Japanese and of course, being Sansei, I can't read a word of this. [Laughs] But the translation basically is, "In spite of all your contrite words, the tea cup is still broken." And I put this all together, I usually set a presentation on Day of Remembrance at University of Washington. And I think this is one of the things I get from when you ask that question is the important part of any type of action that the government does, the important part of racism in our society, the important part of the lessons that we learned from World War II, how we treated Japanese Americans, needs to be presented in the lowest common denominator, which is people. When the government, when people discriminate against a class of people, they are discriminating against a person, against the family, and there's real consequences to this. It's not something that's theoretical, you are harming a fellow person. And that's what we need to do to stop these types of actions. I bring this up about "In spite of your contrite words, the tea cup is still broken." You can say whatever you want, the government can say whatever you want, but we know you broke the tea cup, so we're going to be watching you again. And every time something happens -- and I don't care if it's against the Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Muslims, Arabs, Sikhs, LGBT people, we're gonna hold you accountable because your actions harm people. And that's the reason why I think -- why redress, why reparations, why Day of Remembrance is important. It's just not saying that's because it's happened with Japanese Americans. No, this is an American story and it's been repeated too often. Is that...

EK: Absolutely. That just obviously developed so many thoughts in my head while listening to this. I, just thinking about reading about the history of incarceration, everything, and I've always thought to myself, what is, what is redress? And what, what does it amount to when it, in regards to, like you said, you can't put a price on everything that has happened.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2022 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.