Densho Digital Repository
Seattle JACL Oral History Collection
Title: Ray Ishii Interview
Narrator: Ray Ishii
Interviewers: Ana Tanaka, Joy Misako St. Germain
Date: April 21, 2022
Densho ID: ddr-sjacl-2-41-4

<Begin Segment 4>

AT: So kind of going off of that, I know that the JACL board voted to be the fiscal agent for the AAPI Homophobia/Homosexuality Education Project.

RI: Yes.

AT: And so, yeah, I just, so what did JACL do to kind of address these things that were going on? Like how everyone was, that sentiment that was so against the LGBTQ community and everything?

RI: Well, I think while we certainly in addition to serving as fiscal agent, I think, especially folks like Kip Tokuda, and Karen, Bob Shimabukuro, and other community members, really rallied the community to show that it wasn't just a small group of people that were being affected, but that really did impact our entire community, whether we knew it or not, or we want to acknowledge it or not. And I remember one of the things they tried to do was to take away some of the stigma of being gay, lesbian, or taking away the stigma of a different sexual orientation. And so I remember they made a, we made a big poster. All different people from the community got together, I can't remember how many people there were, but all, and took a picture. And nobody would, just looking at the picture, would know who's gay, who's straight. It's just here's members of the API community. And I remember that was pretty powerful. Right? I don't know if I still have a copy of the poster. But there were a lot of people there that took part in that. That was really, that was really inspiring.

AT: Yeah, wow. That'd be so cool to see that picture.

RI: Yeah, I'll see. I might... I'll see if I still have a poster. I think I gave some to Bob Shimabukuro. But yeah, I'll see if I still have one.

AT: Yeah.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2022 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.