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AT: If anyone doesn't have anything else to say on that,  I know, a lot of you know him just through JACL in general and he did a lot while he was president. What would you say were some of his, just in general, his major accomplishments? I know he's done so much throughout the years. But just from your own recollections and working with him, what was it like to work with him? What did maybe you both accomplished? What did he accomplish? And what was it like, just to see him as a leader in that environment? Again, whoever can start.

JD: Okay, well, I'll start. So I was really young when I joined JACL and I really looked up to Kip because he was Executive Director of Seattle Rape Relief, I believe, and I think he was vice president of the chapter. So he wasn't president yet, but he was a vice president. And I just remember thinking, gosh, I want to be like Kip, I want to be like Al, I want to be like Naomi. I mean, there's all these really powerful Asian Americans on the board and I just wanted to be like them. And I just remember Kip always just being super positive, and he didn't treat me any differently. Like, I was twenty-four and he was -- I don't know how old he was, but older than that, and he didn't treat me like, oh, you don't know anything, you're only twenty-four, you don't know what you're talking about. And I didn't really know what I was talking about, but I still... and I was a little scared to speak up. But I never forgot that feeling from Kip, that we were all equals in that room, we were all board members, even the young ones, and just really feeling included and felt like a part of community. And I don't remember like specific things because that was a long time ago, but I just remember how I felt, that I could be like him, I could be a leader, I could do things through JACL, I could do things in my career. And I've helped him on his, one of his campaigns. And I like, of course, you're included, and we we're all in this together. And I just felt that, that I was his equal, even though he was already such an accomplished leader.

AM: So I moved to Seattle in 1974 and, at the time, the JACL board was dominated by Nisei men. And I was "allowed" to do the scholarship committee but not much more. And so I really dropped out of JACL for a good ten years and didn't come back until, gee, '98, somewhere around there. And Kip and Janice, you were president during those times when I was gone. But when I came back, it really was the beginning of the shift to Sansei and even Yonsei leadership. And I think, again, we were one of the first chapters nationally to really move that leadership to the next generations. And it wasn't easy. There's still a lot of resistance and it was difficult to have a voice. But our chapter was really able to do that. And I think Kip's leadership really helped institute that inclusiveness that you talked about, Janice so...

AT: Yeah, thank you, I think, I mean, it's really important to understand how he made everyone feel because that seems to be something that was so instrumental in his activism and just including people, as you guys have said, and just getting people on board with working with him and sharing that leadership, I guess.

STS: Actually, and I want to just hop on there too, because one of his projects, he had many projects, but he was the visionary behind not only creating the Japanese Community and Cultural Center of Washington State -- this was his baby -- but he was also the visionary behind creating the Asian Community Leadership Foundation. I think it's really important for me to raise those two ideas in this context because, as Janice and Akemi were talking, one of the things that I wanted to make sure was not lost is Kip was very, very focused on wanting to make sure that Nikkei children do not lose the sense of their cultural identity. That was very important to him, especially as we see so many more mixed race children, it's important to be able to have a place to go and I think that that goes too to why he was so supportive of the Wing Luke and got a significant capital infusion of cash to create a permanent home for the Wing Luke, is that there... I guess three things that are very important here. One is the importance of one's cultural identity and wanting to make sure that for Nikkei children, there was someplace like that, but also, two, the thing that was very important is that his belief in cross cultural communications and support, that is something I think that the Wing Luke has been sort of nationally and internationally recognized, is recognizing how does our cultural identity as Asian Pacific Americans, both specifically within one culture, or ethnic group, spread across other cultural and racial groups. But third, it is about focusing on the next generation. He was so laser focused on that next generation and everything that he did, whether it was through his work as a professional social worker and making sure that children had the optimum conditions in which, not just to survive, that was key, but to thrive, that was Kip. And he understood that children, because of their circumstances, or the circumstances of their parents and families, didn't all have equal access to the same basis. And so he committed his professional life to making sure that there was equity of opportunities and conditions for all children so that there would not be another [inaudible] that didn't have the resources and the supports that were necessary. But he also took a look at our own community and said, where are the opportunities for our young people to get engaged in community service, he really believed in that notion of community service. And so creating the Asian Community Leadership Foundation was really a way for him to create a channel for young Asian Pacific community people who had not had an opportunity to engage in our community organizations, to get to know our community organizations and to develop the leadership skills. Because I think one of the things he worried about was, what happens when the generation of Sansei started to retire as we are right now? Will there be a [inaudible] of Yonsei and Gosei and mixed race children and mixed generation children to step in and to sustain the community institutions that our parents and our grandparents built? Will there be an Asian Pacific American community? And so his understanding of needing to provide opportunities for young people to experience and develop skills was really the, I think, the vision behind Asian Community Leadership Foundation, as well as with -- and maybe Akemi can talk a little bit more about the Asian Pacific American civic engagement -- but it used to be a different acronym, but it's the same... it used to be the same acronym but different words...

AM: Yeah, for equality.

STS: APACE, to give students or, excuse me, young people the opportunity to dip their toes into the political waters because let's face it, until very recently, our Asian Pacific American community still stayed very far away from politics. And he wanted to make sure that he was creating opportunities. And so, Kip's style of lifting up leaders and lifting up leadership opportunities extended from elected leaders in the legislature to young people who might need an on ramp into community engagement. And so I just wanted to add that, his sort of real instrumental role and recognizing that we have a responsibility to help lift up our youth.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2022 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.