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JSG: Hello, I am Joy Misako St. Germain, a past president of the Seattle, Japanese American Citizens League. Really happy today to have an interview with Ray Ishii, and he served as the Seattle JACL president in 1994. This project is funded by a national JACL legacy grant, and it's aimed to preserve the rich history and legacy of the Seattle Japanese American Citizens League through preserving historical documents, as well as supplementing the written materials by adding recorded oral interviews with pivotal leaders who played important roles in the Seattle JACL chapter's history. The interview team today is Ana Tanaka, and myself, and Ana will serve as the lead interviewer. So thank you so much, Ray, for agreeing to be interviewed for our project. And I'll ask Ana to introduce herself and start the interviews.

AT: Yeah, thank you, Joy. Well, I'm Ana Tanaka. Ray, it's nice to meet you. Thank you for being here.

RI: Thank you.

AT: I am one of the interns with JACL, and I go to UW. I am majoring in American Ethnic Studies as well as Human Evolutionary Biology. And yeah, I'm excited to be here. So, Ray, if you'd like to introduce yourself, or just tell us about yourself?

RI: Okay, sure. I'm Ray Ishii, I'm a Sansei, and like Joy said, I was president of JACL back in 1994. And professionally, I'm a CPA with my own practice, and I also have taught somewhat regularly at Seattle University, and now at the University of Washington Bothell. So, yeah.

AT: Excellent. Thank you. I'll be taking notes on the side. So that's what I'm doing, yeah.

RI: Okay.

AT: So, I guess, how did you become active in the Seattle JACL, and what inspired you to become president?

RI: Well, I think I first got involved, it was probably in the late '80s or early '90s. And I remember going to a meeting. And then, and I met, I met both Al Sugiyama, who really was instrumental in my getting involved, but I also remember that Janice Deguchi was at the same meeting. And so we got to work together through the years as well, but really, it was Al who both suggested I get involved and then really inspired me to serve the community. And and he served as very much a role model and somebody that I could look up to, so, yeah. And then how he got to become president, I think it was because Joy asked, way back when I had no thought of becoming president. But I was fortunate in that Joy asked. Several folks helped me out and guided me and provided support. And so for better or worse, I became president.

AT: [Laughs] I think people would say for better, I'm not sure, but I wasn't there.

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