Kamidoi, Mary (3/31/2023)

Mary Doi: Today's date is March 31, 2023. This oral history is being recorded at the Hampton Inn in Canton, Michigan. The interviewer is Mary Doi. The interviewee is Mary Kamidoi. This interview is being recorded by the JASC Legacy Center in order to document the Japanese American Redress Movement in Chicago and the Midwest. This interview will differ from a normal conversation in that I won't use verbal cues and responses. Instead, I'll use facial expressions to communicate my interest in what you're saying. It makes for a cleaner transcript if I'm not going "uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh". You can decline to answer any question without giving a reason. We can take breaks whenever you need them. You can end the interview at any point. So, please make sure your cell phone is silenced, and we can begin. Okay?

Mary Kamidoi: Okay.

Mary Doi: All right. So I know that you moved to Detroit from the camps, that 00:01:00you relocated here?

Mary Kamidoi: No, I moved from the camps to Missouri, first.

Mary Doi: Okay, Missouri, but ended up here.

Mary Kamidoi: And then to Flint, Michigan.

Mary Doi: Yeah, okay. So I'm interested in your early involvement in redress. When did you first hear about the Redress Movement, and what was your reaction to it?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, we heard about it in the Detroit chapter as soon as the attorneys got working on it. And so in the Detroit chapter, we had a general meeting and the president made a claim to all the members what was going on in redress. And at that time, they didn't even know this was going on. And we let them know that, "Oh, this has been going on since the '70s." So you know, I said, "Right now, we think that they're going to get to D.C. and something's going to be accomplished because we have the support of some of the senators that we knew quite well." And so I said, "So, all of you will be hearing about it, and also you will be expected to fill out probably a lot of forms."

Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah.

Mary Kamidoi: So I said, so I mentioned this. I said, "So when you do fill out the forms, please make it as accurate as you can because the government has records of all of us.

Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah.

Mary Kamidoi: You'd be surprised what kind of records they have on you." And so I said, "You don't want to goof up your forms."

Mary Doi: So let's move back to the beginning and not, not more like, further down the road. So, why was the Redress Movement important to you?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, because to begin with, I felt that it was just such a big injustice to us. And, and then also to think back when my mom and dad came here, they worked so hard in order to make a good living for the kids. And really, when we got on this, myself, I did say at the board meeting that "I'm not going after these people for my own self. I want to see my parents paid off. They deserve it, and they didn't do anything you know, wrong." So I said, "That's why 00:03:00I'm working on this as much as I can." Because I said, "I, you know, I have a job." But I said, "Anytime I have off, I will help on this." That's how I got involved in it.

Mary Doi: Yeah. And were you already involved in JACL Detroit at that time?

Mary Kamidoi: Oh, yes. Since 1952, I've been a member on the board in every form and fashion, and I'm still doing it. (laughs)

Mary Doi: Who were the other main JACL redress organizers in the Detroit area? Were there-- Yeah.

Mary Kamidoi: Well, the older Niseis, they started the ball rolling trying to get all the members to take part in it and to let them know how important it was for their kids. So we sent out notices to our members and all. And you know, and when we had general meetings, we really stressed it to the Niseis that were here because they weren't on the board. Some of them weren't even members. And so that's how the membership here in Detroit, they really went gung-ho. They wanted 00:04:00forms as soon as we can get them. And we'd laugh on the board, "Was that true? They don't come out to help anything else, but hey, they're rushing us now." Well that's how--

Mary Doi: How about in the time between when the bill is entered, between the hearings in 1981 and 1988 when the bill is passed into law, what was it like in that time? Who were the leaders and were there Sanseis involved also?

Mary Kamidoi: No, we didn't have any sponsors because already--

Mary Doi: Sanseis, Sanseis.

Mary Kamidoi: Oh Sanseis, no, because they were all young and also they were all in high school and all that, so we didn't ask them to help us. But in case we had a big mailing, we might've asked them on a weekend, "Can you help?" But that wasn't very often because my friend and I stayed up till 12:00, one o'clock doing it, but we didn't mind. And so you know, it was really the board, board members and a few that could help for a couple of hours that worked on the 00:05:00redress. And so what our reaction was at the time, "Well, hopefully they're going to think about the JACL board when they get their money." It didn't work out, it didn't work out that way.

Mary Doi: Okay. Do you remember early conversations with the JACL Detroit chapter around the commission bill idea or other redress strategies? And by other redress strategies, I mean, things like Bill Hohri's National Council for Japanese American Redress, that was the route that went to Supreme Court, or the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations, which was really the grassroots movement based primarily in California, specifically in L.A. This was more like the people's effort.

Mary Kamidoi: Yeah.

Mary Doi: So did you, were you aware of those other strains of redress?

Mary Kamidoi: You know, I'd never heard of it. I never heard of it. The only things that we got were from national--

Mary Doi: Okay.

Mary Kamidoi: --what they were doing and what they expected us to do, and we didn't know about all these organizations.

Mary Doi: So I guess that the redress bill, as it is finally passed, has an apology and a financial token amount of money. Was there any controversy in the chapter about whether we should ask for money and the apology, or you know, was there any controversy about that?

Mary Kamidoi: No, I didn't hear any of the JACLers saying that. But when they did get the letters, everybody was calling each other and telling them that they got this letter, "Did you get it?" You know. And most generally, everybody in Detroit did get one. And the sad part of all this was, you know how every chapter's got members that don't come out, they don't take part in anything. So you really don't know they're there. And I think after all these payments were made, these people got word of it, and our chapter had to say to them, "Where were you people?"

Mary Doi: Yeah.

Mary Kamidoi: "We're sending all these notices out, we don't know you're here."

Mary Doi: Yeah.

Mary Kamidoi: So we did get a little bit of flack from these people. But you 00:07:00know, if you don't know they're here in Detroit, there's nothing you can do to help them.

Mary Doi: I'm going to take a little break to turn off the heater because I hear a fan.

Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah I hear something too, in the background.

Mary Kamidoi: Well, we're going to get a heat wave tomorrow, so we won't have a heater going on. Every other day.

Katherine Nagasawa: What's the temperature going to get to?

Mary Kamidoi: You know every other day we get a heat wave and the next day it's snowing, raining. So that's what's going to happen tomorrow.

Katherine Nagasawa: That sounds like Chicago.

Mary Doi: Well, I hit the off.

Katherine Nagasawa: It could be 70 one day and then snowing the next day.

Mary Doi: Kat, I hit the off on the fan and I turned down the temperature to really low. So oo--

Katherine Nagasawa: I don't hear anything on my end.

Mary Doi: Okay. All right. That's good. So I can hear it. I wear hearing aids. 00:08:00So if I can hear it, it's bad or annoying to me.

Mary Kamidoi: Yeah, I can hear that noise, but it--

Mary Doi: If you can't hear it, Kat--

Mary Kamidoi: ...doesn't bother me.

Mary Doi: ...that's okay.

Katherine Nagasawa: Well, I can't hear it through the Zoom. But I'm sure that in your audio recorder, you're probably picking it up, right?

Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah.

Katherine Nagasawa: Maybe it needs to wind down for a minute or something?

Mary Doi: What was that?

Katherine Nagasawa: Do you think it might need to wind down for a minute?

Mary Doi: I don't know.

Katherine Nagasawa: --once you turn it off, it has to slowly turn off?

Mary Doi: I don't know. Oh, can you hear that, that?

Mary Kamidoi: Oh, I can hear it, but I, I feel like the air conditioner might've gone on.

Mary Doi: Yeah, I, I'm considering, I, I want-- What I don't want is this rattle because that's going to really be bad on the audio tape. Okay, let me just see what I can do. Can I stick a, can I stick a pillow on it?

Mary Kamidoi: It's unusual.

Mary Doi: All right. I stuck a pillow on it.

Katherine Nagasawa: Sounds good. Do you still hear anything right now?

Mary Doi: No, it's a lot better.

Katherine Nagasawa: Okay, amazing.

Mary Doi: So one of the things we were just talking about is what, whether there was any controversy about having both an, an apology and a monetary amount in this redress effort. Was there any controversy about having hearings in you know, seven locations across the U.S.?

Mary Kamidoi: About them getting the letters and all, we didn't hear any of the members complaining because they got their check. That was amazing. The hearings, you know, we asked people if they were interested in going to the hearings. And you know, iving in this area, the people here were really leery of being out in the public because now all of this is coming out in the Free Press and the Detroit News. And Dr. Mayeda, he was the president, and he decided he 00:10:00would be the spokesperson for the chapter and the people here in Detroit, which was fine, but he was getting a lot of complaints at the University of Detroit. People were making remarks and the newspapers have this, pages and pages of comments, and they were all hateful comments. So you know the Japanese people sort of sat back you know, because they didn't want to be too conspicuous out there because of all these hate emails. And everyone that wrote in didn't think that we deserved it because the Indians didn't get anything. They didn't, they didn't write in to the government, get anything. I was like, you don't know that. Well, I heard-- I've heard it from an Indian friend that worked with me. They're having a lawsuit going on in Michigan. I thought, "You don't know that, but they're going to go after the government." And then it just seemed like the 00:11:00public, they were so angry about it, and they took it out on all of us. And I was working at Ford at the time. I had all these hourly men come up and talk about, "Your people, this and your people..." And I said, "My people, what people are you talking about?" They didn't know. So finally one elderly gentleman from the hourly department came, "You know that Jap, Japanese..." "Are you trying to say Japanese?" He said, "Yeah, something like that." And I said, "You pronounce it Japanese and don't ever come to my office using Jap. This is my office. And if you don't mind, would you step out of my office?" And the man did step out in the hall, and he said, "I don't know why you're getting so angry. You didn't get laid off. You still got a nice office." I said, "Because I earned this." And on top of that, I said, "Why are you blaming my people? You don't even know who I am." You know, from then on, I would always say to them, if they said, "So, what are you?" "I'm Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese." And lately, 00:12:00I've been using the term Hmongs, and they don't know what the Hmongs are. Some of them said, "You mean among us?" I said, "You need to go back to school." And I said, "No, there's a group of people here called Hmongs. They said, "I never heard of such thing." I said, "Well, I'm telling you, I know some of them." And so you know, oh and then they said, "Well, so, how did they get here? I never heard of them." I said, I'll tell you one thing, "Don't ever step on the Hmongs. They're wards of the government."

Mary Doi: So let's go back to the '80s. And I can imagine--

Mary Kamidoi: That's, that's about then, when it was all happening.

Mary Doi: Okay, so I also know that in Detroit, you had the Vincent Chin killing.

Mary Kamidoi: Yes, yes.

Mary Doi: That was in 1982. The hearings had happened in 1981 in, in Chicago.

Mary Kamidoi: That was because of the, the Chrysler laying everybody off.

Mary Doi: Right, right.

Mary Kamidoi: That's why that happened.

Mary Doi: So, do you think that Detroit, being an auto town was really primed to 00:13:00lash out at the Japanese Americans--

Mary Kamidoi: Yes, yes--

Mary Doi: --attempt to even gain, to even ask for redress?

Mary Kamidoi: Yes, yes.

Mary Doi: Yeah.

Mary Kamidoi: I mean, there was so much hate at the time. And we finally said to Kaz, "Don't go and do all these interviews. Do you know, we have to live with all those other community members?" And when we go shopping and all, I said, you know, I said, "People are getting insulted and everything. And because of all this, you know a lot of the JACL are just taking all this flack and just walking away." And this is how the term "the dumb foreigners"... And so I said, you know, "You hear that phrase all the time. It's because we don't speak up." Of course, everybody said, "Well, I wouldn't dare. You don't know whether they're going to shoot you or not." And I said, "Which is true, but you have the right to be here and you need to speak up and let them know I can speak English, because that's why they call us the dumb foreigners." So they laughed at me and 00:14:00said, "Mary, we're going to call you anytime we need help." I said, "I'd do that." I said, "I don't feel I deserve to be taken and treated that way. I don't feel that they have the right to do that to any Japanese. We didn't cause the war--"

Mary Doi: Right.

Mary Kamidoi: "--and we're not causing the buyers not to buy cars. It's the plants. They're charging too much." And so they said, "Well, Mary, so, what do you do when you work at Ford?" I said, "I fight my way through. And you can ask my bosses, they'll tell you, I don't take any of that guff." But I have one advantage. The person that recruited my sister and I was a head man at Ford. He came and took us out of business college without our certificates. And the school actually gave us our certificates because my sister and I said, "We want our certificates you know and get our degrees so we can't take this." So our professor and the director of the school and everything, they said, "You'll take 00:15:00it. This is an honor for our school. We've been here since we built it. We've never had anybody recruit our help." So we took it.

Mary Doi: So going back to that time, I think you said you started at Ford around 1952-ish. What was it like to be a Japanese American working at an auto company in 1952?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, I'll tell you, we had so much discrimination, my sister and I. We were the first Japanese girls to be hired there. Nobody spoke to us. Nobody. And my sister had a boss that was so nasty to her. She cried every day at her desk. I didn't work in the same department, but when you walk down the hall, you can look into any of the offices, the windows were low. I would see my sister wiping her eyes. When we got home, I'd rake her over the coals. She'd cry harder. And so you know it lasted for quite a while. And I had a man that followed me down the hall every time I left my desk. So finally, I thought in 00:16:00order to solve this problem, because I don't want to continue working in these conditions, and I really didn't want to see my sister sitting there crying. So I said to my sister going to work, I said, "Today, I'm going to solve our problem." She said, "What are you going to do, burn the place down?" I said, "No, I would've done that a long time ago." But anyway, I said, "I'm going in to the head man." She said, "You can't go in that office. He's a general manager." I said, "I don't care if it's Henry Ford. I'm going to go talk to him and ask him if this is their policy, I don't want this job." And so she said, "Well..." you know she says, "You'll probably get fired." And I said, "That's okay. I'll take the chance. Besides, the man that recruited us said, 'If we have a problem, call him.'" I said, "He can't fire me."

Mary Doi: So, you know I know that it was really hard at the beginning. Was, so when you go into the 1980s and there's Vincent Chin, and then there's the Redress Movement, how did that kind of discrimination compare to what you faced in 1952?

Mary Kamidoi: It was almost the same except, I mean, none of us got killed, but 00:17:00they thought he was Japanese.

Mary Doi: Right.

Mary Kamidoi: And this is why I had to preach to the board, "We owe it to help Vincent Chin case. They mistook him for Japanese, and this wasn't fair to him." And the poor kid had just gotten out of school, gotten a job, and so I pushed and pushed. That's why, why Kaz said he would go and testify, and Maryann Mahaffey went and testified for us. And so a couple of us went to the trial.

Mary Doi: Okay. Do you think it energized the Japanese American community to fight for redress maybe even harder because of the Vincent Chin anti-Asian hate that's brewing in the '80s in Detroit?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, you know, by then, by the time Vincent Chin case, most of the people had filled out their forms already. So they were, it was out of their home, their forms were already being processed. Because see, at that time, the 00:18:00government was really checking every form word for word.

Mary Doi: So, I'm a little confused on chronology. So the Civil Liberties Act is passed in 1988, and Vincent Chin is killed in 1982. And so I guess the paperwork starts after the bill is passed, maybe in the late '80s, early '90s.

Mary Kamidoi: That's right.

Mary Doi: So I guess what I'm thinking about is that time between, say, after the hearings until the bill has passed, what was it like? You know was the, was the community activated to reach out to their congresspeople because-

Mary Kamidoi: Oh, yes. We didn't, no, not the Japanese community, just the ones that worked on the redress. We had our friends that were not Japanese trying to get names of everybody we can send letters to. And our president at the time was not Japanese. She went out of her way and she was able to get just lists and 00:19:00lists of names. She's an attorney. And so she helped a lot. And also, this other Jewish fellow, he was you know, one of our members. He joined our JACL and he scrounged around and found all the names that he could find. And this is how we got the list of all the Michiganders that were in politics. And they're the ones that really helped us out a lot.

Mary Doi: Right. I think allyship is so important you know that things that maybe our community can't do, our allies can help us do or do for us. And so I think that that's an unexpected coalitions kind of form.

Mary Kamidoi: It was.

Mary Doi: You know, so you mentioned, you mentioned a little bit about the Chicago hearings, and we have a list of people that went to testify, and these are in the public record. So they were: Kaz Mayeda, Reverend Jitsuo Morikawa, Kazutoshi Mayeda.

Mary Kamidoi: That's the same person as Kaz Mayeda.

Mary Doi: Oh okay, so the same. Roy Seitsuda and Minoro-- Minoru Mochizuki, do you know how they were selected to go and testify?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, you know, when this all started, these people were active in our organization. And so we asked people if they would like to go to Chicago and testify in this. Well, most of the people hesitated. I wouldn't have gone up there because I was already employed by Ford. I might've lost my job. I don't know. And so I never volunteered, but I knew I was going to go to the hearing with my other friends. So these people volunteered. And Morikawa and Minoru Mochizuki, they were in the religious sect, you know. Well, Morikawa has got Reverend, but Mochizuki was also in the church you know.

Mary Doi: In the Christian Church?

Mary Kamidoi: I don't know what denomination it would be.

Mary Doi: But not Buddhist?

Mary Kamidoi: It was in Ann Arbor. Yeah. No, not Buddhist. No.

Mary Doi: Okay. And do you remember, was there a concerted like organization of people from Detroit that went to the Chicago hearings?

Mary Kamidoi: No. Among the Japanese, I think there were just a handful of us that went.

Mary Doi: Okay.

Mary Kamidoi: And you know, we asked people, you know, "Would you go?" Because I said, you know, "There's a little strength in numbers." "Are you kidding?" That, you know people in Detroit were so afraid, and I can understand them being afraid because of what was going on you know all the time. I saw this and I was involved in the hourly people and all, so I didn't blame them. But you know, I'm the kind of person, don't push me too far because you're going to be surprised what I'm going to do. And that's why I was so active in all this and the Vincent Chin because Japanese people were really afraid to go out too much after the Vincent Chin killing. And you know and I always said you know, "I feel bad for 00:22:00Mrs. Chin and all that. That was a terrible way of dying." And I said, "But you know what? We have to get together because he was mistaken for Japanese." But even that didn't faze people. They thought, "No, we're not going to go out there."

Mary Doi: So actually by going out, you mean leaving their houses? Were people afraid to leave their house or...

Mary Kamidoi: Well, they went to the grocery stores and whatever they had to do, but they wouldn't mingle out in a... You know, to show you what it was really like, I have a friend and he was with his girlfriend, maybe they might've been engaged or something at the time. They were driving a Honda now, and Honda is a popular car here, even if you're in the auto company. And so people weren't killing anybody that drove Hondas whatever. Well, they were driving down Telegraph Road, which is one of the biggest main roads here, and a group of Black fellows were in a car, three men. They kept pushing him off the Telegraph. 00:23:00His girl, his girlfriend was so scared. She said, you know, she said, "I'm so scared." She said, "Step on it." Well, you can only step on a economical car so far, you know, it's still fast. And that's what he did. But he lucked out because his uncle had a job working for a tire company that fix tires on big semis, 18 wheelers and things, and so he had this huge tire iron. He had, he was able to get one. So because of the air being as bad as it was, he even asked me if I wanted one. I said, "What am I supposed to do with it knock you over the head?" He said, "No, you're out all the time, Mary." And I said, "No, no, no, I have a tire iron in my trunk." He said, "Yeah, but you need one of these." And I said, "No, I don't want one." And so his, and this was his grandson, and he took 00:24:00one. He told him to take it. Luckily, he did. He had it under the car seat. And when they kept pushing him, pushing him off the road, he pulled over to the side, and he got out, and he grabbed this big tire iron, and he came out. That's what saved him. Now you know, when you have to drive and be under fear like that, it's, it's really scary. And I always said, "Anybody jumped out in front of me, I will mow them down before I even ask them questions." And so my friend says, "Yeah, but you be convicted of murder, Mary." I said, "Well, I'll have to take that chance." I said, "Why would I let them take my life like they took Vincent Chin's? The poor guy was outnumbered, and his two friends that were with him just ran off. They were so scared." And I said, "No." I said, "I have made up my mind. If I have somebody that's trying to kill me or make me stop the car or something," I said, "I will do what I have to do." And, I mean--

Mary Doi: And 'cause this story is so different from the stories that we hear in 00:25:00Chicago, or I'm sure in Cleveland and other places in Ohio, that Detroit seems to have a very unique story because of the strength of the auto industry, and because of the impact that so-called Japanese cars were having on the auto industry in the '80s. And, and that sense of fear is something that I've never heard articulated before.

Mary Kamidoi: Yeah, it is, because you know, my sister has always bought a Toyota. And I said, "Joyce, I guess you don't want to live very long. Why are you driving a Toyota?" She said, "Because they have the best cars, Mary, and all the other cars that I've had were in the garage." So she said, "I'm buying Toyotas." You know, she's had her time on the road. She didn't come right out and tell me and my parents or anything, but her daughter told me one day and she said, "Don't tell Mom. She'll have a fit I told you. She's been on the road and people have tried to push off the road." Or she'd get out of the car and they'd 00:26:00tell her, "Hey, you know, us Americans don't drive Jap cars." She said, "I just ignore them and walked away." And I said, "One day, you're not going to be able to walk away. You're going to get involved with somebody like the guys that killed Vincent Chin." And she--

Mary Doi: So let's bring it back to the hearings. And you mentioned that you were one of the people that went to the hearings. Can you tell me a little bit about what it was like to be in Chicago in those hearings? And I, did you stay more than one day?

Mary Kamidoi: Yes, we had to stay overnight. But my friends and I, we were really upset because there were a few people that were there that talked about, as a kid, they were really young at the time, and they went into camp and they sat there being interviewed and said, "Oh, well, you know, I guess I didn't mind it because we had fun." That's all I had to hear. And I said, "What do you mean, you had fun? You don't stand up there and say we had fun when here we're 00:27:00fighting this redress." And, so you know, and they were not Detroiters, because Kaz said, "If they're Detroiters, Mary, they're going to hear about it." And so you know, Kaz himself did not express himself like he did in the Free Press and the Detroit News. When he sat up there, he did mention the fact that he was about 11 or 12 when he went into camp. And he said, "When I was there," he said, you know he said, "My, the friends on the block, we played a lot." And I said, "Here, we're trying to tell the tale of what we went through and what we shouldn't have had to go through and what our losses were. And Kaz, you're sitting up there saying, 'Hey, I had a lot of fun with my buddies that I met in camp.'" And yet, when he had to get up and give a speech, he broke down and cried. That's how it affected him.

Mary Doi: In the hearings when he spoke, is that when he broke down and cried?

Mary Kamidoi: No, when he was teaching. He's a, he was a professor at Wayne State. So whenever I would go out to speak, I, I didn't want to be the only one, and I didn't want people to think that I was hoarding this job you know, because I wasn't. No one would go. And so I thought, you know, "People need to hear what we went through and I'll do it if, if nobody else wants to do it." So I had taken Kaz and another gentleman to one of the speaking engagements, which were all professors from Wayne State. And when he started to introduce himself, he broke down and cried. So the other fellow got him, and when he started, he told his name and everything and told about you know about his parents, how they had to scrounge around and get whatever they can carry. He broke down. So I said, "Well, I guess, Mary, you got to go up there and finish the story." So I went up there. But you know both of those men shocked me, especially Mayeda. He was a 00:29:00Wayne State University professor. I thought, I would think you would've been stronger than that. And on top of that, for you to be at the hearings and say right in public and everybody's listening to you "As a kid," you know, he said, "I was put in camp and I had fun with the other kids that I met." And so people are going to say, "Well, hey, if you have friends in camp? What are you complaining about?" But that's not the point.

Mary Doi: Well, and it doesn't say anything about what his parents went through or his grandparents went through.

Mary Kamidoi: That's right, that's right.

Mary Doi: But I also think that the listener is as important. Who are you speaking to, could evoke certain kinds of emotion.

Mary Kamidoi: That's right.

Mary Doi: And so he's speaking to his peers at Wayne State in a way where he's like really exposing himself, really being vulnerable with his colleagues.

Mary Kamidoi: Right.

Mary Doi: So I can, I can empathize 'cause I would probably have done the same thing.

Mary Kamidoi: Because you know, with him, because he was a professor, I think it sort of went to his head. So he wouldn't tell the real stories of what the parents and him went through. And this is one thing that when friends and I got back, we used to see him quite often, and we do had to rake him up with a coal a lot. We said, "Why did you do that?" And he said, "Well," he said, you know, he said, "you get up there," and he said, "you don't want the whole world to know that you got, you were a poor kid." I said, "Kaz, what's wrong with it?" Every Issei that came here, they suffered working so hard and every Issei didn't have the money to give all, everything the kids wanted. That's not anything to be ashamed of."

Mary Doi: Right.

Mary Kamidoi: But he said, well, he was simply because he had the title in front of him and he didn't want the teachers, professors at this-- he probably didn't want them to know that his family was very poor at the time.

Mary Doi: So getting back to actually being in the room where the hearings are happening, I'm, I'm really curious about what memories stand out, whether what you heard or what you saw or what you felt. Can you paint the picture of what it was like for you to be in that room at Northeastern Illinois University?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, I'll tell you everything I heard. I thought to myself, well, you know, everybody's sitting up there saying you know, they were ashamed when they came out of camp and all. And see, I don't buy that. It happened to us. You have to go on living and you don't have the reason to be ashamed. Because when people came to Detroit and the Midwest area, you know they struggled to get on their feet. And I am sure in Cleveland, Chicago and everywhere, they lived in the ghettos. They had to. Because when the banks closed down the checks-- the bank accounts in California for Japanese people, they went to camp with nothing. 00:32:00And if you worked in camp, the most you could make was $16 a month. And that would be like a doctor or somebody. So you know, I mean, what, what do you do with $16 a month? My mom worked at a kitchen. She made $12 a month. And if you worked at the offices at the ad building, depending on what your job was, you might've made $14. So when they came out of camp in Detroit, these people live probably next to poverty.

Mary Doi: So do you think the shame was about the economic situation? Or do you think the shame might also have included feeling ashamed that they had been imprisoned without knowing why? You know is there, is there different ways to think about shame?

Mary Kamidoi: I don't think that shamed them. They were mad. And it was like, I was a kid when it went in, but I was mad and I still get upset over what 00:33:00happened. But it was a shame of how they had to live here. In Detroit, there's a place named Cass and Canfield. It's a long street, apartment house after apartment house. And these Isseis had to move in with their children because now they were too old to get jobs. And these kids, the young Niseis, they had to live with a couple families in an apartment. At that time, there was no ruling on how many could live in an apartment. And I know this because when my mom and dad joined the Buddhist church here, my brother used to drive them every week to attend their church. And they had a large farm up north. And when they came to church and they listened to the Isseis talking and they feel so bad because they can't offer their children more. They just feel so terrible. They never talked about it. And so my mom and dad would say to me, "You know, we were sitting there eating and we felt so sorry for them. Next time you come home, Mary, we 00:34:00want you to take all the kinds of vegetables we grow and deliver to them." I said, "Mom, I work." She said, "Well, you can do it after work." Are you sure? And I said to her, "Is that why you guys bought me the car?" Because they bought me a car. That was the reason. So anyway, I did that. And you know, the Isseis, when I take it to the door and tell them you know, my mom and dad sent this, and they would be so gracious. The women would bow and bow and bow. Tears would roll down their eyes. And I used to tell my mother, "Don't ask me to do anything 'bout it, Mrs. so-and-so started crying on me." She said, "Well, of course," she says, "they would because they're just living day to day." And I said, "Well, okay, well I live day to day too. I'm working." But so this is why they're ashamed. And some of my friends told me, "We don't want to burden our children with the life that we had when we were young. That's why the Niseis here would 00:35:00try to do everything for the kids, give them everything they wanted. And then now the Sanseis are doing the same thing for the children, but living conditions today are a little different for the Sanseis because the Isseis and the Niseis you know helped them out so well that they're not out there you know, struggling. So it's a different story with the Sanseis.

Mary Doi: Right. Well, let's go back into this redress story. And I think now we'll move into the lobbying for the Civil Liberties Act in the 1980s--

Katherine Nagasawa: Mary, do you mind if I just chime in with a quick question?

Mary Doi: Sure.

Katherine Nagasawa: I was wondering, so for the people who testified from Michigan, do you remember their process of drafting their testimonies? Like, did they practice them like Jitsuo Morikawa or Kaz? Do you remember them talking about what they were going to say? Or did they do that privately?

Mary Kamidoi: No, I don't think they told them when they were, when they offered to be a witness. I think when they went there, I think from hearing the first 00:36:00people that were speaking, I think they mentioned it, "This is what we'd like to hear." They didn't get a copy of anything first, 'cause Kaz would've told us 'cause he was a good friend of mine, he would've told me. But he didn't say anything about getting a list like this you know to speak on. So when they got there, of course you know a trial like that, they're going to call you and have a meeting to tell you what's going to happen and all that. And so Kaz said that's when they put us through all of this what we're going to talk about.

Mary Doi: Was that in Chicago or is that in Detroit?

Mary Kamidoi: In Chicago. See, we didn't have a hearing here in Detroit.

Mary Doi: No, I know. But I thought, we were I guess wondering whether there was preparation before they got to Chicago.

Mary Kamidoi: No. No.

Mary Doi: Okay. So is there--

Katherine Nagasawa: I was also wondering, do you remember any conversations with any of the witnesses after the hearings? Like what did they say about the experience of testifying? Anything that stands out to you from, from any of them?

Mary Kamidoi: You know, I remember Kaz. He did not say anything right after the trial, but when we all got back and the trial was over, when we had a board meeting, he did report what did happen at the... And so a couple of the board members asked, "How come you didn't tell us when we were in Chicago? Maybe we would've had some flack you know to tell the judge or this and that." He said, "Well, maybe this is what they were afraid of. They did instruct us, 'While you're in, tenants of this building, please refrain from talking about the trial.'" So that's why he said he didn't tell us anything. And when he had the meeting... He called a meeting so he could inform all of us and the people that weren't there, what took place and how you know, it came out. And he did mention that the judge had said that while you're in the premises here, not to talk about it, and when you get back home, you can talk about it all you want to. And 00:38:00I think probably they were afraid what the reaction would be from the non-Japanese members in the court. I think that was the problem because we asked Kaz, we said "Why couldn't you speak?" He said, "I'm not going to fight the judge." He said, "That's his ruling." So, he said he didn't say anything. And so when he got back, he said, I think we should call a general meeting and let the members know because you know, it's important to them just as important to us. And so that's what he did. And at that time, our membership was huge. And so many of the members showed up. And of course you know, some of them, no matter what you do, you're going to hear complaints. So these diehards do complaint over everything and I didn't, I could point them out to you. And so I just said to my friends, "I guess you can't please everybody all the time." And so you know, we accepted their complaints, but we did have a few answers for them also. 00:39:00You know, if this is how you felt, you should have offered to be up there. You can't expect everybody to do your job for you. And of course some members are still, you know, they're so angry because they were probably people that said, "No, no." And they were in Tule Lake. And so you know, even today you'll run into people like that. They won't even join the JACL. They're still holding that against the government and Detroit JACL. When they don't join, I'll ask, "Why don't you join? You don't, you'll never know the Japanese community if you don't join." I'm not saying that we're so active, but when we do have a program, please come out. And then some of them have said, "We don't know a soul there, Mary." I said, "Well, you know me, and as long as you know me, you don't need anybody else." And my sister said, "Mary, will you be quiet?" And I said, "Well, same thing for you. If you know me, you don't need any sisters and brothers." 00:40:00But anyway, I said--

Mary Doi: So did any of the other witnesses like Jitsuo Morikawa or R-Roy or Minoru, did they talk about what it was like to give testimony at these hearings?

Mary Kamidoi: No.

Katherine Nagasawa: At like the Chicago hearings, not the Vincent Chin case, but the Chicago redress hearings, do you remember them talking to you about what it was like to testify?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, no, not so much. Now Kaz did, because he was our board member chairman, and we knew him real well. But with Morikawa and Mochizuki you know when, I think because they were connected with churches, I think they have to be careful what they say. And for that reasons they were very quiet about it. They decided that, you know okay, you know, when we get our checks, we can appreciate it because you know, it could turn out that we're not getting a dime. And they always spoke in the language of a layman, "Don't do this, don't do 00:41:00that." And you know, all this religious stuff. And so really none of us really questioned him. And this fellow, Seitsuda, he never came out to any of our functions. We knew about him and he would be invited just like everybody else would be invited to our installations and all 'cause our, our chapter had big installation and everybody from Chicago used to come, all the Niseis, the old ones. And so you know, he just sort of kept himself. And I don't know whether it was because he was angry about it, but you know, my friend and I said, you know he's sort of different. He just keeps himself, he doesn't even talk to us and he's in the jury cell. And I said, oh, don't worry about it. I said, you and I talk to each other, that's all we need you know. But we didn't let people that were angry about the whole thing, evacuation and the redress if they didn't get 00:42:00what they asked for because you know, originally it was 25,000 and Reagan caught... And I've said to people, I said you know, "That's better than nothing. But you know the young attorneys did go after another fund." And I said, "So what we didn't get, they went after the educational fund." Which is just as important to teach this, all of this in the schools, and that's what the money's going to be used for. And also, I talked to one of the national directors and I said, they said they were going to go and get after all the schools for not publishing enough about evacuation in the books. And they didn't have them. I, I checked the books in the library. There was about that much, and it left me looking at us. So what happened? That was what was published and the national did use the education funds to talk to different schools throughout the United States. And you know, we appreciated that because if we can just get a page of 00:43:00it in the books, we said we'll be happy. And we all knew that the history books didn't have, but just a few lines. And so I said, well now you can get a lot of information on these history books because when I go speak to the schools, they'll ask me things that are printed in the book that they didn't quite understand, so I would explain it to them. And you know, so many of these middle school, eighth, ninth graders would say to me, "Are you mad at the government?" I said, "No, I'm not." "Well you should be after what they did to you and your parents." And I said, "Well, you know, our parents--" I said, "We have a different type of culture." And I said, "They don't stay angry at something that's already done. They teach all of us kids to accept it." So I said, "I 00:44:00accept what happened to us." But I said, "I don't like it," but I said, "there's nothing I can do about it, so I don't hate you kids at all and they look at me and they laugh. "We, we really like you. Will you come back next year?" And I said, "Yeah, I'll be back." (laughs)

Mary Doi: Well, that's great. Let's go into more the lobbying for the Civil Liberties Act in the 1980s, and what were the biggest challenges during the 1980s lobbying for redress bill? Say, what's the biggest challenges that you might've had in Detroit?

Katherine Nagasawa: Mary, one thing that keeps happening is I think one of your phones is like pinging or something.

Mary Doi: Yeah.

Katherine Nagasawa: You think you could turn your phone onto silent? Is your phone on silent or is it coming through your laptop?

Mary Doi: Well, I think it's coming through my phone, but I don't know how to do that and have the memo going.

Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, okay. 'Cause I think on the side button you can turn it so that you could see orange on the side. Could you try doing that? So from, on the left side.

Mary Doi: You mean the, sort of like the volume control buttons?

Katherine Nagasawa: No, it's on the left.

Mary Doi: Of my phone?

Katherine Nagasawa: Above it. There's a silver button. Looks like this.

Mary Doi: Okay.

Katherine Nagasawa: So there, see how this is my volume up and down here?

Mary Doi: Okay, let me, let-- I have mine in a case. So let me just see your phone.

Katherine Nagasawa: Okay, so here's the left side, right? This is up and down.

Mary Doi: Yeah--

Katherine Nagasawa: But above that there's a little switch.

Mary Doi: Oh.

Katherine Nagasawa: You switch it to the left so that you can see a little orange bar. Do you see that?

Mary Doi: Okay, let me try that.

Katherine Nagasawa: Okay, 'cause then I think it won't notify you when you get a text or something.

Mary Doi: Oh, okay. I see a little... So here's my phone and I see that little orange thing, or I see a little... my, my phone--

Katherine Nagasawa: So you switched it to the left?

Mary Doi: I will move it to the other position. I moved it from wherever it was to the other position.

Katherine Nagasawa: Can you put it up higher? I, it should be on the other side. 00:46:00The orange means it would be silent.

Mary Doi: What's orange? Kat, Kat, what is orange? Is it the, something on the screen? Is it...

Katherine Nagasawa: No, no, it's on the button. But on the button, it should just be on the left side. On the left side, if you're looking at it, the switch.

Mary Doi: Yeah, I see it above. I see... So I've got the left side has the volume control of my phone, right?

Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. And so the top button--

Mary Doi: Then above the volume.

Katherine Nagasawa: So you know how it can go from one side to the other side when you move it?

Mary Doi: Yes. So I moved it opposite from--

Katherine Nagasawa: Move it to the left.

Mary Doi: I moved it opposite from where it is... from where it was. And--

Katherine Nagasawa: Okay.

Mary Doi: Do you want me to--

Katherine Nagasawa: Okay, let's try that then.

Mary Doi: Okay. Okay. Sorry.

Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, because then if it was pinging before, then maybe it would stop now.

Mary Doi: Okay.

Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. All right. Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead, Mary.

Mary Doi: So we're going to talk a little bit about the challenges of lobbying for the bill in the 1980s.

Mary Kamidoi: Well, you know actually we didn't get out there physically to lobby. We did a lot of mailing to everybody that would be interested or didn't know anything about it. And I said, "Where are we getting all these names? There's no end to it." And Dave, the Jewish fellow, said, "We have to mail it to everybody that we can get an address, Mary. The public has to wake up to what happened to you people." And he was Jewish. And so I said, "Well, that's okay, but hey, let's get moving here." And he'd always be having coffee. And I said, "Let's get moving here." But we, that was what we did. We didn't lobby or anything. You know, I think when you live in a city like Detroit or a state like Detroit, there's so many things that you don't dare get out there to do. It's 00:48:00like the Vincent Chin case. We had you know, all these people marching, and one of my good friends, he worked at Ford as an engineer, he kept warning me, "Mary, don't get out there too often. Your job is on the line." And I said, "I know." And he said, "And also this is why I'm backing off." Like with the Vincent Chin case, he backed off out of the board. And he told his son also, "Don't get too active." But right now Roland is the president 'cause nobody will take it, so he's had it for a while. But he even asked his son, "Don't get out there too often." Because the gentleman that was the attorney for Vincent Chin case here in Detroit, he started to get so many threatening letters and threatening phone calls, and his mother had to tell him, "Stop. You know, what are you going to do 00:49:00if you're out there and somebody goes after you with a bat? What are you going to do? Don't make much more waves." But he was involved so thick that he kept it up. Then when his wife got after him, he just sort of backed off a little bit because he knew that would eventually happen. So for that reason, we really didn't make a lot of noise on any of the programs that we had here, you know, defending ourselves or fighting for ourselves. And even today, a lot of the Niseis, well, there aren't that many left yet, but the ones that are left, they're still hesitant of being out where there's a lot of people and they're lobbying or they're striking or something. So I said for that reason, as, as busy as I was with Vincent Chin case, I was acting director for a while because I said, "I don't want the director job. I have to go to work." So I said, "I'll do the acting director and I'll work there after my work." And so even myself, I 00:50:00thought to myself, okay, I'll do whatever I can in the office, but I am not marching. And if I do, I'm going to be behind so many people that are taller than me. I don't want my face on the TV because I said, "I work at Ford." So they all understood my position and they didn't push for me to get out there to do anything out in the open where people will see who I am. And our attorney did say, "Mary, I would hate to see the day when you start getting threatening letters, so don't do it." And I didn't do it. So you know, I felt bad for not supporting you know, the group that were out there marching, but I thought, "No, I have a job and I have to work." And so for that reason, I never got right out there where I'd be on the TVs and all. I avoided the TVs when I saw them coming around. And I made it plain to the Chinese community. It's not that I'm afraid 00:51:00to do it, it's because I work at Ford Montgomery. You have to understand my position. I go to work every day there. And I said, "I put up with all this nasty remarks from the hourly people. I take the blame for it." But I said, "I'm not going out there to march. Not Woodward Avenue. That's a big avenue." And I said, "I can't afford to do that." But this other gentleman that kept telling me to be careful, "Don't get out there, Mary, and show your face all over because it's dangerous." And he did back, back off and he, he didn't come to meetings or anything anymore, and I didn't blame him. He had a lot of seniority at Ford and he was an engineer. And you know, they could have mistaken him for Japanese too. He was Chinese. But, but he warned me all the time, "Mary, be careful. Be careful." And I said, "I am." So you know, I guess, in a sense, I mean maybe the men didn't care about the women. They didn't bother me outside of you know, my 00:52:00job, but I would run into people in grocery stores and all. And I'll tell you one incident that strikes me funny every time I answer. I see, see this old video of a lady. Our office first was in Oak Park area. That's strictly Jewish country. So I went just to buy a little jar of mayonnaise before I left the work at the office that night you know. And I thought, well, I don't have mayonnaise, I'm going to stop at this Jewish store. So I did. And this lady kept looking at me like this as I'm walking up the looking for the mayonnaise. I thought, "Well who is this lady? I don't know her." So we get up to the cashier and she was in front of me, I mean ahead of me. She got up there and we're standing at the cash register. She said, "Do you know what? I thought we got rid of all those people." And she's looking at me and I, I noticed it. So I said to her, "Do you 00:53:00know what? Isn't that the truth? I thought they got rid of all those people too, but I guess we're mistaken." And the cashier was a young girl. She looked at me and she got all red-faced. And the lady just looked at me and she just grabbed her bag and took off. And the cashier apologized to me. She said, "You know, she's just an old biddy. She comes in here every day for one item. She just drives me crazy. She always comes out with remarks like that." And I said to her, "You know what? I'm really sorry if I embarrassed you," but I said, "I've learned a lesson. When people talk down to me standing right next to them, I'm ready with an answer." She said, "Well, I'm so glad you came out with that answer." 'Cause she said, you know, "I don't know how you think so fast." I said, "Well, when you run into problems like this off and on, you're ready." And I said, "Today I was ready for that old biddy." And, and I said, "Probably," I 00:54:00said, "something that happened to me. She's an elderly lady and I talk so bad to her." She said, "Don't worry about it." And I said, "Well, I'm not going to lose any sleep over her." but I said, "We run into this all the time, believe me." So even now, when people stand next to me and make remarks, I got an answer going back. And they looked at me and they're so embarrassed they walk away. And I thought, "Well, you ask for it, you got it." Because I don't feel that any of us should have to put up with people talking down to us. I don't feel that they have the right to talk down to me. I'm just as American as they are. And I, I would treat them with respect. I just want them to treat me with respect. Don't call me names and everything. But now I pass it on that I'm a Hmong. They don't even know what a Hmong is, but--

Mary Doi: I think you've done a great job of painting the picture of maybe the racism that you felt as an, somebody that worked at for Ford as well as just being a Japanese American during the eighties when redress is going on, when Vincent Chin trial is going on--

Mary Kamidoi: You know, I have a friend, Scott. He was an engineer at Ford's, and he was turning into an alcoholic at home. And his wife called me up. She says, "Mary, this is Barb." And I said, "Hi Barb, how are you doing? How's Scott doing?" She said, "That's what I'm calling about. You know he works in Dearborn as an engineer. He comes home every day. He doesn't want to eat. He just hits the bar." And I said, "I noticed that when I go and visit you guys. First thing he asks is, 'Mary, you want a drink?'" She said, "Well, that's what he's doing. He's becoming an alcoholic. I've hidden bottles of whiskey." He had a bit of a bar and she took those out and hid them. He went out and bought more. And finally, one day, Scott called me. I said, "So Scott, how are you doing? How's work?" And he said, "That's what I'm calling you for, Mary, I don't know what to do. I got to work this morning, there's a figure hanging from my, the ceiling 00:56:00down to my desk. It was stuffed. Somebody made it." I said, "What did you do with that?" He said, "I took it down, threw it in my desk drawer." I said, "Why did you do that? Why didn't you take it down and take it to your boss and throw it on his desk and tell him, 'What are you are going to do about this?'" He said, "Well, Mary, because," he said, "You know, they don't like me because I'm Japanese. These engineers have been nasty to me and my boss is one of them, so they, he's not going to do anything." I said, "Okay, I'll take you to central office. I know people at central office. I'll take you there. So we go put in your complaints. That's terrible." He said, "Well, not only that, Mary, everything that comes out in the newspaper that applies to Japan and the problems with the company, you know, with cars, they cut it out and they bring it, lay it right in front of my desk." I said, "Scott, how long this has been going on?" He said, "Oh, a couple years, but I never said anything." 'Cause he said, "You know, you got your own problems working as a women with 00:57:00transmission." And I said, "I don't have problems like that because I would've stopped it. But Scott, you have got to do something about it. 'Cause I understand you're becoming an alcoholic, and drinking and being an alcoholic isn't going to take care of those things." But today he's got Alzheimer's so bad, he's in a nursing home. And she called me the other day to see what this flyer was that she got for Keiro Kai, because I'm handling them. And I said, "Oh, Barbara," I said, "you'll attend, won't you?" 'Cause she used to come with-- She's not Japanese. She used to come with Scott to a lot of our get-togethers and she said, "I would love to see you, Mary. I think I'm going to come." I said, "Well, bring Scott. He doesn't have to talk or anything. Just get him out of there and bring him." And I said, "Have your son bring you, and Gordy can handle him." You know, so she's planning on doing that.

Mary Doi: Oh, that's very nice.

Mary Kamidoi: And I said to her, "Why didn't you call me earlier to let me know before Scott became an alcoholic?" She said, "Well, Mary, I didn't want to 00:58:00bother anybody." And I said, "Well, you should have asked me, or told me what you can do." I would've taken him to central office to talk to these managers that I know there. So, you know, this has been going on with a lot of people in their jobs. And don't let them fool you, because these Niseis are not going to tell you things like that. And so, you know, whenever I am talking to my Nisei friends or now the Sansei older friends, I ask them, "How's your job?" And this and that, and some of them say, "I can't wait to retire. I can't wait to get out of there." That just tells you that they're running into problems with their coworkers. And so you know, I always tell them, you know, you don't have to sit there and take it. You need to go to the top man. Don't start with your supervisor because they're too chicken to do anything. They'll tell you, "I'll look into it." They'll never come back with an answer. So you start from the top down because when the top man says there's nothing you can do about it, then that's it. You're at a stop. Dead end. And then you have to find another venue. 00:59:00And so they always tell me, "Gee, Mary, and I wish I was more like you." And I said "You know, I had to become like I am because I ran into so much discrimination when we got out of camp and we went to Missouri." And so I said, "I learned the hard way. As long as you let kids mistreat you, they're going to do it, so you have to stop it somewhere." And they said, "How did you stop the kids picking on you?" And I said, "I went to the mother and I told her what her two boys are doing." But I said, "The man that recruited us from camp, he was a big plantation owner. He was the nicest man you'd ever want to meet. He did everything for us to make our life comfortable." And he had always told all of us, "If you people ever, ever run into a problem with the neighbors or anything, tell me." because all the neighbors were renting from him, he could have just 01:00:00evicted them. So they would've known better than to keep picking on us. So I, that's what I did. And the young kids that rode the bus with me kept holding me back, Mary, you can't do that. I said, I can do anything I want. I'm tired of these kids making fun of us. But the last thing that really broke the straw was they got on the bus one morning. Can you imagine these kids taking a piece of paper like this and folding planes, big planes now? And they would take this red marker, the circle would fill the plane, and they threw it at us kids. I thought, "What are they doing?" That's when I panicked. I thought "I'm going to do something about it." And from that day on, nobody picked us, on us because the word got around in the neighborhood. Plus at school, because the lady at school, that was our teacher, I know she stole the money from me. I always took money with me to stop at the grocery store to pick up groceries because we had 01:01:0045 minutes wait for the buses. And so I would pick up little things. And that day I had $50 and we had to go out for recess. So we stuck everything in our little desks.

Mary Doi: I'm, I'm going to stop you there to get us a little bit back on track with this interview.

Mary Kamidoi: Okay.

Mary Doi: Let's talk a little bit about, you mentioned that you had allies, a Jewish fellow who was coming up with names and another non-Japanese American woman who was the chapter president.

Mary Kamidoi: Yeah.

Mary Doi: Can you think about other kinds of things that you did after the bill has passed to ensure that Michiganders, Japanese American Michiganders get their redress apology and check?

Mary Kamidoi: Oh, well, we decided that they wouldn't tell us when we got it, but when they didn't get it, they were calling all of us complaining.

Mary Doi: Did you help people fill out the paperwork or alert them?

Mary Kamidoi: Oh yeah we did. We did. Because you know, they had never filled 01:02:00out a form like that. A lot of it was about yourself and your life, you know, where you're born and all that. And a lot of the Niseis forgot where they were born and all that. You know they've been here struggling. So anyway, we helped, we've helped them fill out forms, but we had gotten calls from people when they didn't get their check because "My neighbor got it." But see, they weren't listening when this all came out and how they were going to make the pay. And a lot of people didn't get the PC and all this was happening in the Pacific Citizen. And that's where we read a lot of this. And so we'd explain to these people, they're paying from the oldest person. So you know, because you're a lot younger, it's coming down. Eventually you'll get it. Because that was a ruling from the government. They would pay from the oldest person. And it was an elderly gentleman, the first person that got it. And they showed his picture and everything in the Pacific Citizen. And I always said to them, if you would just read that paper that comes from you from national, you'd know just as much as I 01:03:00know and the board members know. And they said, "Well, we don't have time to read the paper." I said, "You have time to sit in front of the TV, turn the TV on and read your paper." But you know, I don't know why Japanese are the way they are. They expect people to do so much for them. They play like dumb. Like they don't know what to do. "So can you help me? What are we supposed to do? What, you know" And so a lot of us on the board laughed, "Gee, when they got their check, they didn't call anybody. Did anybody get a call? And what are we supposed to do with the check?" And we laughed about it, but after a while when we got through laughing, it was disgusting because this is how the members were. Now I got it. And then a lot, a lot of them that joined when all the information came off of redress, we had hundreds of members after they got their checks, 01:04:00they never renewed their membership. And we were really upset about that. We thought, you know, these are ungrateful people. And I used to kid my friends on the board, "I'm glad I'm not like you." I would say, "I'm glad, yeah, that's what you think." But I said, "Well, I'm never going to tell you when I get my check. That's my check."

Mary Doi: Well, speaking of your check, what did you do with your check?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, I'll tell you. First thing I did was I went and bought myself a condominium. I took the bank, went to the bank, cashed it and went and found a condominium. And then when I found a bigger one, I bought this other one. And from the first condominium, I was able to sell it at a good price. And I was short like about $600 from the sale to buy my big one. 'Cause I have a bigger one now. And so you know, a lot of the people that were members, when 01:05:00they'd come to our gatherings, I'd ask them, "So when, when are you going to Hawaii for a vacation?" "Oh, we're not going, 'cause we didn't get enough. 'Cause I bought a brand new car, and you know, this is true, majority of the Niseis and the Isseis that got-- well Isseis, we didn't want to say they should donate. And so we found out that none of the ones that got checks other than the board members, we did donate what we thought we should. 'Cause we were on the board, but the other members that just joined just for that redress, they never gave us a dime. And we were so upset with these people and I don't know, it's, it just, they were just so greedy. You know, they knew that JACL was trying to have fundraisers to keep the JACL going. You would think they would've given us like a hundred dollars or so, but they all would come to these meetings that we 01:06:00had telling us "We bought a new car" and that's a big deal! I'd like to have bought a car too, but I needed a roof over my head! But you know, I, I always say this to even among my Japanese friends, why are we like we are? And they'd always say to me, "What do you mean?" I said, you know, our culture is just so that we shouldn't do this, we shouldn't do that, and this and that. And then I said, gee, when you want help from these people that we've done so much to help them, they don't even renew their membership. Why? So now we're down to about 40 members. Eventually our-- we'll be down to 25 or less, and we won't be a chapter, but you know, it just seems to be it's going that way. And, and a lot of the students have joined because I handle the scholarship and I put it in the newsletter once in a month, but our president put it on the internet. So these 01:07:00people that are not Japanese are jumping on the bandwagon are going to join. So they can get the scholarship. They didn't know that Mary's handling it. And I screen every word and I make phone calls. So we haven't had any applicants for a while, but I have three during the pandemic. They were not Japanese kids and everyone on review, and I thought, who is this? Well, I assumed they got it off the internet. And I call all the reference phone numbers and the people, every one of the applications, they had numbers and names of people that weren't even real. So--

Mary Doi: Well, let's bring it back a little bit more toward redress. You know, I know the scholarship and I know that membership is really important. Whether you're in Chicago or Detroit or Cleveland, I know that that is a hot button issue wherever you are that--

Mary Kamidoi: It sure is, today it is.

Mary Doi: Yeah. But when you think back about the redress movement, what were the main outcomes of the redress movement for the Detroit community?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, a lot of them were glad that now they're going to get some money. But then again, when they came to our meetings, we always stressed that you know, National worked awfully hard. They've got a bunch of young fellows and young girls that became attorneys so this would never happen to anybody again. So now we're sitting here talking about redress and the money we're going to get. So I says, I do think these people that have never joined before, they didn't need us. And I said, I think we need to stress to these people that the Detroit chapter is not going to last forever unless you members rejoin and see if they will join. But years went by and you know, every year or less and less 01:09:00would renew their membership. And so now like I said, we're down to about 40. And so you know, I guess they spent their money and they don't need JACL anymore. That's the feeling that we get on the board. But now see our board, I'm the oldest one there. I could be their grandmother really for all of them, but we have a couple of young people and see, their, their interests we found out, or I found out, it's mostly going to national conventions, MDC meetings for our area. And I'm saying, "You know, I'm the treasurer and I told you how much money we have. We can't be spending that sending people cross country." And another thing, I don't mean to step on anybody's toes, but when we sent delegates and 01:10:00the chapter was really going well, and we had older Niseis and people you know, that attended, we came back and the first thing we did was wrote an article on what the National decided. When we come back from MDC, we expect the same thing from our delegates because we're paying your expenses and this has not happened. So I just want to warn you guys again, this is the balance in the bank. And if you think I'm going to transfer any scholarship fund again into the working fund, you guys are mistaken because I'm not going to do it. Because I'm finding out the expenditures going to the National and MDC are running us into the ground. You know, and I think on the meetings I don't attend, I can almost hear what they're saying about Mary, but that's okay. It doesn't matter. I-- And it's just that when it gets back to me, they'll be, sorry.

Mary Doi: Let's, let's kind of broaden this out. Do you feel that there's a connection between the Redress efforts and more Japanese American conversations about incarceration, not just Japanese American incarceration as internment, but other kinds of communities that are facing you know, whether they are refugees trying to come into the U.S. or--

Mary Kamidoi: Oh yes. Because I know a few people in the Mexican town.

Mary Doi: Yeah.

Mary Kamidoi: And in fact these are guys that come over to contact the, the complex where I live and I signed the contracts and also I get to be friends with these people. And ever since they've been having problems with Mexicans coming across the wall, they've asked me, what do you think, Mary? I said, "I think it's terrible." But I said, "Why don't people in Mexico do it in the proper way?" I mean, I see TV watching it. They have babies in their arms trying 01:12:00to cross over a river and so many of them are not making it. And so they said, "Well, you should go to Mexico and be the governor there." And I said, "I wish I could go there because this is ridiculous." All those people trying to cover, you know, cross rivers, it's dangerous. And then I said, "Then you see the kind of situation where they're put into. Why are these people still coming across?" They see what their relatives and all their friends are going through. And I said, "There's a, there's a certain way for people to be able to come over to the United States." And these Mexicans, they're really nice guys. And they tell me, you know, "That's why we'd like to talk to you, Mary, because you give us advice." And I said, "Well, if you've got any relatives, tell them to do it the right way." Because I said, "If they have babies in their arms, that's terrible." And so you know, and they the Mexicans do face a lot of 01:13:00discrimination here because whenever you hear, well, they think they're Americans, they're, they're you know, they got a background, they're not full fledged Americans. They're criticizing, "All these Mexicans. They're lazy people coming over here." And I said, "How do you know about these people?" I said, "Well, you go to Mexican Town, you wouldn't go back there a second time." I said, "I've been to Mexican town." I said, "They're very nice." And I said, "It isn't fair for you to pass your judgment on them like that. They're desperate. So I guess they would do anything to come here. So you know, we have to be a little more you know, understanding."

Mary Doi: Right, right.

Mary Kamidoi: And I, I never told them why I can talk this way because I've been through it, but they do bring that up. And then you know, the Arabic people went through a lot of discrimination. And the Indian people have come here, gone through a lot of discrimination. And there's another group, I forgot what the 01:14:00name of the group is, but anyway, they've faced a lot of discrimination.

Mary Doi: And do you feel that it's reminiscent of the discrimination that Japanese Americans faced?

Mary Kamidoi: It is. It is.

Mary Doi: Okay. Let's get back to the Midwest region. Do you think that there, what made the Midwest unique in the redress movement, if anything?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, I, I really don't know why it was so unique out here, but the redress program was nationwide for the Japanese people. So I think everybody had the same type of feeling, because when I talked to my friends in California, they would tell me about the redress and that we're going to get this kind of money and we're going to go on a trip and all that. And so you know, I think everybody had that feeling that we deserve it. And it was time the government 01:15:00gave it to us. And you know, I'm, I've never been really the type that always looked for freebies and always talking about money. I've always preached to my friends money is not everything. I've seen millionaires go down the drain. And I said, and you know, I've always believed that as long as you have your health, you have everything. And my dad and mother preached that to us, us 10 kids. And my dad was very giving. And he always preached to us kids, if you run into anybody that needs help, help them, as long as you have food and clothing on your back and a roof over your head, you need to help the needy. And I used to sit there looking at him like, God, there's a lot of things I want dad, but I, I can't get it. But you know, but this is the way I was brought up. I'm not saying 01:16:00all 10 of my, nine of my other sister and brother are that giving. But I always said, I'm broke donating, especially now that you know, there's Covid and everything and all the politicians are coming out. And so you know, and I, and people have said to me, what do you mean money isn't everything Mary? I said, I have friends and I have two family members. Where are they today? They're six feet under, just like every other person. Money did not help them when they took sick, money didn't help them one bit. So there's a lot of truth to that. This money, money, money thing is not what it's meant to be. You can buy a lot of things that most people can't buy. You can live in a million dollar house, fine, but are you really happy in these big homes? Are you really happy? You've got so much room, you're wandering around all over. You don't ever sit in one room long 01:17:00enough to be happy. And so you know, I have friends that come over to visit me in my condo. And of course if I just cleaned my condo, it wouldn't be as cluttered. But-- And, and they stand there and they'll say, gee, you know what, are they selling any here? I'd like to have a condo like this. I said, you couldn't ask for anything more than what I've got here. Everything is here in my unit. So I said, well, if I hear of anybody selling, but I said, I want to tell you one thing you guys, you think giving up your home, living on a condo, you got it made. You're mistaken. Condominium living is not what everybody thinks it is.

Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to interrupt again, and this is a question that I'm really interested in. So we have the redress movement. To me, you know, we talk about redress and reparations, and in my mind it's somehow, points toward the idea of repair. Did the redress movement, the apology, the money help 01:18:00to repair what got broken for Japanese Americans during the war?

Mary Kamidoi: You know I really can't say that it did. Because you know, the Niseis, like I said, they bought cars and, and they might've gone on a vacation and this and that, but they had little children to send to school. So on the other hand, they had to pay for all this schooling that they had. So I'd never really heard anybody say, "Gee, you know, I'm glad we got it because we deserved it" and all that. Because you know, I guess because I used to read all these editorials for days and days. I read the paper at work and this one section would be a whole page of nasty editorials. And I had coworkers that said to me, did you read the paper today? And I said, "I can't read papers." "What do you 01:19:00mean you can't read papers?" And I said, "I can't read too well, don't tell everybody though." I wouldn't tell them. I, I read the editorials, and I'm furious. And they would tell me what they read. I said, "They're stupid." I said, "Don't even read that paper anymore. They're a stupid bunch of people that are writing those hate editorials, one day wait until they get in a position." And they said, "Well, you know, when you get your money, what are you going to do with it?" And I said, "I'm not getting any money." And they said, "Why aren't you?" I said, "Because they figured I didn't need the money, so they just crossed my name off. I'm not getting the money, so don't look at me going down the hall at me like, 'Oh, I wonder what you're going to do with all that $20,000.'" But I had them fool for a long time that I didn't qualify and they thought it was terrible. And I said, why don't you write to the president and complain about me? But they didn't do that. They weren't smart enough to do it, really. But so you know, yes, I mean, it was an advantage to me. I bought my 01:20:00first condominium. I was running up until then, and I think a lot of the Isseis and Niseis, they were able to go out and find a home that they could afford. But the Niseis had made a plea to their Isseis, "Mom and dad, don't be buying next door to another Japanese family." And I think I'm sure that a lot of the Japanese people in the Midwest felt that, felt that way because if they were from California, you know Japan town here and a Japan town-- and you know the hakujin people, they rated you a certain way. Oh, a bunch of foreigners live there. And so, so many of the Detroiters here, they said they told their mother and dad, you know, we're going to move here and there. There's no Japanese there. And his parents felt sort of bad because they wouldn't have anybody to talk to. But they explained to them, "We don't want to live among all the Japanese people because they know all your business and Japanese people do do 01:21:00that." I mean, I have to be honest about this whole thing because I, I am not one to be circling around avoiding the truth. And so you know, I've always said that. I said that to my parents too. I said, "You know mom, the thing is when we move out of camp, don't try to move where there's a lot of Japanese people." And she said, "Why not? We can all be together then." I said, "No, I don't want to live like that." And in Detroit, most of the Niseis felt the same way.

Mary Doi: So why didn't you want to live like that? What, what, what would happen if you lived like that?

Mary Kamidoi: With a whole bunch of Japanese? No, don't you know from my days in Stockton as a young kid from the time I was probably eight, I would listen to my parents talking like, go visit your, your grandmother, grandma. I'd to listen, 01:22:00but I couldn't speak it well, but I understood everything. And they'd be talking about all the Japanese people in town, and I thought, my God, is this what all the old people do? They're criticizing their neighbors. And after that, I just thought, I don't want any Japanese neighbors around me, and I don't want to live in a Japan town. 'Cause it's just too close. And I knew people that live in Japan-- a Japan town, and they would tell me how you know, the older people, they gossiped and then they want to, they want to marry you off to the next family son and the daughter. I said, "Oh God, I couldn't stand that." So that's why the people here, I'm going to use Detroit. They all live in different suburbs. So all these third, fourth generation, well, I guess they'd be the third generation--

Mary Doi: The Sanseis like me.

Mary Kamidoi: Yeah. See, they don't have any Japanese friends. Now see, my 01:23:00sister lived in a Jewish subdivision. All the kids, their friends are Jewish people. They went to school with them. They went to high school with them and all. And today, three of my nephews and a daughter, my sister had, they don't have any Japanese friends. So you know, it's sort of sad. So the nephews and nieces that I have that I haven't got married, they have children. And they're a mixture. And it seems like the men, when they move, I mean when they marry a non-Japanese, they sort of fall towards their in-laws. And so the kids don't know any more than you know, most of the thing about the in-laws. And I see this in my own family, and I, got loads of nieces and nephews, none of them understand Japanese. None of them have Japanese friends. And it's because they all live in separate subdivisions where there's no Japanese feeling. And so you 01:24:00know, in a way it's good, but in a way it's not.

Mary Doi: Yeah. Well, we're getting near the very end of our time here, so I'm going to kind of wrap it up with this one question. What are your main takeaways or lessons from the redress movement?

Mary Kamidoi: The main takeaways?

Mary Doi: Or lessons.

Mary Kamidoi: Well, I felt that, okay, so the government admitted their fault and they paid the Japanese people. But you know, the 20, $25,000, you would've got 25,000. Reagan turned it down. 20,000 you got. It does not bring back all the things that you lost. You're starting all over. And I think with the Isseis, if a few of them got it, because like my mother, she missed it by one week. My 01:25:00dad missed it by a year and a half. And I felt so bad because I always said from the very beginning, you know, regardless of whether we get the redress money or not, hopefully they'll hurry up and pay the Isseis. Because you know,I felt so bad for the Isseis. They lost everything. They worked so hard. And when I used to see my mom and dad burying things in the backyard, we didn't know how long we'd be gone or anything because the government didn't, didn't give you that info. And I used to say, mom, "Why are you digging the hole? We're going to be gone. Don't plant any flowers." And she said, "I'm not planting flowers I'm going to bury our valuables from Japan." So whoever buried things in the ground and the people moved in and took over the homes, they probably just threw them all out. 'Cause they wouldn't know the value of it. And so you know, so many of the Isseis did that, buried things in their backyard. And my mother, when it was money, she tore her coat you know, linings up, and one night I saw her at the 01:26:00dining room table tearing the coat, and I thought, "We're going to be going to camp Mom, you got to save that coat." I said, "Why are you tearing the lining?" Well, she said, "What money we have--" She said, "I'm not going to bury it outside. I'm taking it in my coat lining." "What?" You know as a young kid, I'm going, "What are you doing?"

Mary Doi: Right.

Mary Kamidoi: Thought she was cracking up really.

Mary Doi: So Kat, I know that we're at the end of 90 minutes now. Do you have any questions that you would like to ask Mary?

Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, I did have a question. So you talked a lot about the fear that people felt you know during the eighties with the political climate and the social climate. Do you feel like that changed at all in Detroit after the Civil Liberties Act was passed? Were people less fearful about moving around freely or speaking publicly about their experience?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, after all the people got over the anger, and it didn't come 01:27:00out with the papers, we did have a little quiet spell. But then again, when the car slump came along and Toyotas were selling, we were back into it again. And it's never going to stop for us, as long as Toyotas are selling, because even today, Toyotas are selling. And, and I always said to my coworkers, "You know, you're no different than I am. We work here, we make a fairly good salary and all, but you're going to go shopping and look for the best bargain for the money you're going to spend. It's the same thing with people out there buying cars. They're going to look for the best deal they can get, the best car for whatever money it's costing them. And you guys can't tell me differently." And they said, "We don't have a choice, Mary. We work for Ford Motor Company. We have to buy Fords." And I said, "Yes, we do." But I said, "If you go out of Ford, I'll tell 01:28:00you what's going to happen to you. You will not park in that parking lot where we park today."

Mary Doi: So even now, people feel that?

Mary Kamidoi: Oh, yes.

Mary Doi: Wow.

Mary Kamidoi: And see now, it's getting to that point again. The cars are not selling because they're too expensive. I just talked to my friend, Mike, yesterday. He drove up and he's waving, and I thought, "Who is this yo-yo? I don't know anybody in that blue..." So I stood there and here comes Mike, my friend. He said, "Mary, you don't know a friend anymore?" And I said, "Where'd you get this car?" And he said, "Oh," he said, "I had to buy it. My other car," he said, "fell apart." He said, "I hate this car. If I didn't, if I didn't worry about me working at Ford's, I would've gone General Motors or Chryslers." I said, "Neither one of the cars are any good, why skip around with other automakers?" He said, "Yeah, I hear from people that I don't, you know, that didn't work at Ford, they're buying Chryslers, General Motors, and stuff. They're having problems with it." So I said, "So what do we do now? Because I 01:29:00need to get a new car." He said, "I don't know, Mary." I said, "Well, I, I intend to go out of Ford Motor Company if I have to. I don't want these cars that you've got to find a charging place." I said, "You know what? You travel on the freeways, Mike, and I think, I think you're going to understand how I feel. Say if I was going to go to D.C., like I've been going a lot, where am I going to find a charging station?" And he said, "Yeah, that's going to charge within a few minutes, Mary." It takes hours to charge a full-sized car. And I said, "Well, that's why I'm debating. I have to go out of Ford Motor Company if Ford can't make a car that, that doesn't, doesn't have to be charged." Because really, I said, "You, you're always driving from here to Pennsylvania. Where do you go to charge it?" He said, "Before I leave my place here, I charge it up and I just hope and pray that I'm going to get good mileage and I don't get detoured all over to use my gas." So he said--

Mary Doi: So, so when you talk about leaving Ford, do you talk about, when you think about that, are you thinking about buying American, as Chrysler or Plymouth, or are you thinking about leaving American autos and going to German autos or Korean--

Mary Kamidoi: No, no I would probably buy a General Motors or Chrysler.

Mary Doi: Okay, okay.

Mary Kamidoi: Whatever company that's got a car that I want that I don't have to charge up. I don't want one of these cars where you have to find a charger. I mean, I, I don't think you're safe driving one of those cars, because you know, even with a gas tank, a lot of the gas gauges don't work. So what about these fancy charging places? And so when you're on the freeway, what do you do? Where do you look for one? So now Mike was telling me, he said, "I complained to the dealership where I got this car." And I said, "Yeah, I know where you got it." And he said, "How do you know?" And I said, "Because you had to use my phone number to get it because you need my pin number that I get it for you." Because 01:31:00when he quit Ford's, he couldn't get the discount anymore. So he said, "Oh, that's right. I've got to use you for the discount again." But he said, even himself, he's not happy with the Ford he's got.

Mary Doi: So, so let me kind of understand this, that one of the lessons from redress is that there's still a sensitivity about owning a Japanese car when you work in--

Mary Kamidoi: Yep.

Mary Doi: --when you live in Detroit, when you're a former Ford employee, or even a Chrysler or Plymouth employee. It's still there. It's still the, there's a little reticence on your part?

Mary Kamidoi: You will not find very many Niseis or Sanseis driving a foreign car. And you know, and I've noticed that with all my friends. They don't buy foreign cars. So I'm on my sister's back all the time. She's got a Toyota. Her daughter's got a Toyota. I said, "You know, you guys are going to be targeted one day." And my sister said, "Well, if somebody shoots us and kills us, Mary, 01:32:00you'll know what happened to me." And I said, "Yeah, and I'm going to say, 'I told you so.'" But we laugh about it. But I get serious and I tell her, "Joyce, you're really not safe driving around in that Toyota." She's got a fancy Toyota. Her daughter's got an SUV. So many times when I have to haul things, they'll say, "You can take--" Lisa will tell me, "You can take my SUV." I said, "Are you kidding? I'm a Ford hired employee." And I said, "Somebody will shoot me that would know that I work for Ford's." I said, "No, I can't do that. If I'm going to move things out of my place, I'll just go and rent a U-Haul."

Mary Doi: So there's that continued fear about, about buying foreign.

Mary Kamidoi: Yep.

Mary Doi: Now, one of the people that--

Mary Kamidoi: But see, hakujin people or anybody else can buy, but don't let the Orientals buy because they don't know the difference in whether I'm Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, or whatever.

Mary Doi: Or whether you're Japanese American, not just Japanese.

Mary Kamidoi: Yeah, they, they don't know that.

Mary Doi: Right.

Mary Kamidoi: That's why we're all from the old country.

Mary Doi: Yeah. So perpetual foreigner.

Mary Kamidoi: And when they tell me, "But I'm an American," I said, "Are you crazy? You're Polish, you're Polish American." "No, I was born and raised here." I said, "I was too. And don't you know your history? The only Americans here are the Native Indians. And if you don't believe me, you go up north." They had a big lawsuit here in Michigan, and one of the girls that worked with me, she was one of the--

Mary Doi: Plaintiffs?

Mary Kamidoi: ...descendants. So when this all came to a head, she said to me, "You know what?" Because she was discriminated, too. And she said, "You know what? When I get that check," she said, "I'm not even calling this company to say I quit." She said, "Let them try to find me because my husband and I are going to pack and we're going all the way up north to live." And that's what she 01:34:00did. And so many people in section said, "I wonder what happened to, to Bennett. She's not working here. She didn't come to work yesterday. She didn't come the day before. I wonder if she's coming back." And they'd sit there talking about her in front of me. I said, "You don't know this, but she quit. But I'm not telling you guys. You find out for yourselves. You didn't talk to her. You weren't nice to her like I went through. And so you know what? Now you find out for yourself what she's doing." And later on when the subject came up one day, we were at a little gathering, and somebody brought it up, "Geez, you know, has anybody heard from Evelyn Bennett?" And I'm sitting there eating, and I said, "No. She just dropped out of the face of the Earth. Wonder where she went or what happened to her." And they went on and on and on describing her and how she dressed and everything, and I got fed up, so I said, "Let me tell you guys something. I'll tell you what happened to Evelyn Bennett." They said, "Oh, how 01:35:00come you know?" And I said, "Because we, we're friends before she left, and she sends me Christmas cards every year." "Oh, well, Mary, you're just an exception to the rule," and all these things. I said, "No, I've got friends and you don't. Okay? So I'm tired of you guys cutting her down, how she dressed, how long her hair was, and her shoes and all that. You know what? She dressed the way she could, and she could afford. But now, I'll tell you what the laugh is on you guys. She was one of the descendants. She came into a bundle of money. They just left their house in Allen Park and left. They had a small bungalow. They had no children. So she told her husband, 'When we get that check and we cash that, we're hitting the road and we're going to buy a house all the way up north, and we're going to furnish it with all the new furniture. We don't want this house anymore.'" And it wasn't you know, a house that would've sold for a hundred thousand or anything. So I said, "You're going to just leave your house there?" She said, "Yeah, the city can have it. Because you know what? As soon as this 01:36:00came into a bill, my husband had said, 'We're not paying taxes on our house.'" So they owed taxes for about five years. So they said they'll just let the city have it because they didn't pay taxes five years.

Mary Doi: So you feel a kinship in terms of the redress and reparations that they were able to secure?

Mary Kamidoi: Mm-hmm. That's why you know, I always argue with people that criticize foreigners. I say, "What do you think you are?" "I'm an American." I said, "You're not a full-fledged American. You don't look like an Indian." They say, "What does the Indians got to be with my ..." I mean, this is how much these people that are so discriminating know about people. And you know, so often, when I go to school, this is what they want me to talk about. The teachers have actually asked me, "Do you want a job here? I'll get you one, because we really want teachers." I said, "Are you out of your tree?" I said, "Instead of students coming and shooting the teachers, I'll probably shoot the 01:37:00students." So I said, "No, that's a, that's not a very good idea, you guys." And we laugh about it because in Detroit, there's so many young kids shooting teachers.

Mary Doi: Oh...

Mary Kamidoi: When you hear and you see the picture of a six-year-old kid going to school, grammar school, with a gun, shooting the teacher, that's pretty sad. And this is why--

Mary Doi: It is, it is.

Mary Kamidoi: ...I always say when I get into a conversation with kids doing that, I said, "Where are the parents?"

Mary Doi: Right, right. Right.

Mary Kamidoi: The kids couldn't go out and bought the gun. Parents had to buy it. And I said, "It's the parent's fault." They need to put all the parents that bought guns for their kids and... Instead of sending the kids to jail, send the parents to jail.

Mary Doi: Yeah. Well, I think we're going to have to wrap it up here. Kat, do you have another, any other questions or comments?

Mary Kamidoi: Nope.

Mary Doi: Katherine?

Katherine Nagasawa: Just one last quick question. You know, I think something I noticed about you is that you're very fearless about speaking out and speaking your mind and you know, holding people accountable, even though you face 01:38:00discrimination. I wonder you know, why did you feel so compelled to speak out publicly about incarceration and advocate for redress in spite of the climate in Detroit? What, what do you feel like gave you that, that courage?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, I'll tell you one thing that gave me a lot of courage is when I worked at Ford's, the managers used to see me talking to hourly people. They'd be in my office and they'd hear me because I didn't whisper to these people. I said, "Get out of my office. I don't want all that grease off your shoes or your clothes. Get out of my office, first of all." So they'd back out into the hallway. Managers would be working the hall, and they'd hear my voice because I didn't whisper. I thought, "Hey, I got something to say. I don't care who hears me." So anyway, they would stop by on their way back and they'd come in and say, "Mary, we heard you talking to that hourly man. You know what? We 01:39:00give you a lot of credit. Don't you let anybody talk down to you like that." Every manager was my friend, not as a manager, as a friend. And every day when they came to meetings, all of them would be carrying cups of coffee down to my office. And all the other people would say, "How come you know all the managers?" And I said, "Like I said, you have to know the right people, because you know what? That's what's going to get you a job, and that's what's going to get you ahead." So I start from the top. I don't need to know you peons, you know? You can't do anything for me. But they said, "You know what, Mary? You have more guts than brains." I said, "That's what you need today, especially when you work in an auto company. I'm sorry, you guys, but you guys are complaining to me all the time about your boss this and your boss that." I said, "Why don't you speak up to him? Your boss is really a good for nothing man." I said, "His boss is a friend of his from Cincinnati. So he gets away with raising 01:40:00his racing pigeons right out of the Ford parking lot." So I said, "Hey, so why do you take all this guff from him? He got a job through somebody else. He didn't earn that job, and now he's doing that, and you guys watch it, and you guys have said to me, 'Come, come down the hall with us. We want to show you something.'" When I saw it, I stopped on the way back in Paul's office and I said, "By the way, Berger, do you get paid raising racing pigeons out the parking lot?" He looked at me and said, "Mary, how do you know I do that?" I said, "I watch you from the end of the hallway." And I said, "And then you're bugging me for overtime. How dare you?" I said, "As of today, overtime is cut off for all my people." And he said, "You can't do that, you know, I have five kids and a wife to support." I said, "Hey, feed them pigeon. You've got all those pigeons flying out in the park." And you know, and you know, I used to 01:41:00think to myself, "If you think I'm going to bend for you guys because you are not nice to me, because you're only nice to me only because you have to report to me. I sign your time cards. That's why you're nice to me. But behind my back, I can imagine what you're saying about me, which is fine. Just don't let it get back to me." And so you know, they always kidded me about it. "You can do anything, dear Mary. You know the general manager." And I said, "Yeah, he's a good friend of mine." I said, "Don't step on me." And they said, "Are you kidding? Do you think we're stupid?" And I said, "Yeah, you guys are a stupid bunch of people that I work with." But I said, "You know what? Don't cross my path and upset me," because I said, "I'll walk right down to the end of this building and I'll go see Mr. Manoogian hey. And if Henry Ford walked in here, I'd talk to Henry Ford, too." And they said, "You wouldn't." And I said, "Why wouldn't I talk to Henry Ford? He owns this big company we work at, and I'm 01:42:00going to ask him, 'Is it all right if I buy a Toyota?'" They said to me, "Mary, you wouldn't ask him." I said, "Give me the chance. I would."

Mary Doi: Kat, did you have one more question?

Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. So you know, outside of your work in the auto industry, what made you, what gave you the courage to speak up for Japanese Americans and push for redress?

Mary Kamidoi: Well, because--

Katherine Nagasawa: Even though you know... Oh, go ahead.

Mary Kamidoi: Because I'm Japanese and I faced a lot of discrimination when I was younger and when I was going to grade school. And so I said, "I took care of that problem," because our landlord owned everything. The school and the town where we went to school. All I had to do was drop Mr. Donald White's name, and it intimidated everybody because they were on his land, farming. And so it's like this neighbor lady, she knew she was in trouble when the kids were in trouble. So she started baking cakes and pies, and the kids would bring it over 01:43:00to us, and the kids would always bring it to my place, at my parents' house, and tell me, "My mom and dad said, you know, would you pass it around to everybody?" And I gave it to everybody. And my mom always said to me, "Why don't you eat this?" I said, "I'm not hungry, Mom." You know what I always thought? "She's probably trying to poison me." That's why I wouldn't, I wouldn't touch anything that she baked and gave us. And you know and, it's like, you know my mom got upset because I spoke out on the bus and everything. I said, "Ma, you know what? They made these things here and they threw them all..." I took one home you know, and I showed her. She said, in Japanese, she said, "My goodness," she said, "That's a terrible thing for kids to do." And I said, "The bus is full of those." And I said, "And you know what? The two adults that were on the bus with me, they didn't dare open their mouth. Never. They never opened their mouth. They were afraid that the kids would all gang up on them." And then I had to threaten the bus driver before all this stopped. I thought, "I'm going to 01:44:00threaten everybody because now I got Mr. Donald White on my side, and these people are at the mercy of our landlord." So they all changed their mind. All the kids on the bus, they sat down when they got on. They didn't run around, and they were throwing paper wads and everything. I went up to the bus driver and I tapped him on the shoulder. He was driving. I said, "You need to stop this bus." And he said, "Why? The coast is clear." I said, "That's what you think. Maybe the road is clear, but it's not clear in this bus. You need to stop these kids from running around. And you know what? They're throwing paper wads." And I had them in my hand. I said, "They're throwing these things at us. And sir, if you don't start telling these kids to sit down, instead of running around, picking on us, you won't have a bus to drive tomorrow." He looked at me like, "How dare you?" He gave me that look. I said, "Oh, you think I'm kidding, don't you? I've 01:45:00taken enough abuse and we don't, we shouldn't have to put up with that kind of abuse." And the two older ones said, "Yeah, but they could have ganged up on us. That's why we don't say anything." I said, "Well, they could gang up on me, too." But I said, you know, "It's just not right. We don't do anything. We don't say a word to them. And because we're Japanese, they're picking on us." And then I said, "What cut the cake is those planes with the big red dots on them." Parents had to help them make it because every kid had a pocket full of them. And I told Mrs. Bird that. "So how long did you stay up? You and your husband stay up helping your kids make those planes?" She said, "I don't know anything about it." I said, "Don't play dumb with me, Mrs. Bird. This is what brought it on. I don't think we should take that kind of treatment from your boys." And she was very sorry. And I thought, "Sorry doesn't cut it, lady, because I'm not taking your apology." But she sent all this bake stuff. And when we moved there, 01:46:00moved from there, I told my mother why I never ate cakes and pies. She said, "Baka" she told me "Baka". She said, "You think she would've poisoned you?" I said, "She would have tried."

Katherine Nagasawa: Do you feel--

Mary Doi: Okay. Kat, what were you going to say?

Katherine Nagasawa: Mary, do you feel like there was ever a point in your life where you were more deferential to authority or quiet, or were you always somebody who spoke up and had that kind of--

Mary Kamidoi: I always spoke up.

Mary Doi: Chutzpah!

Mary Kamidoi: I fought my little girlfriend at school, grade school, all her battles. Her name was Mary Ladd. She was a rich girl. The mother and father dressed her spotlessly, and all the kids made fun of her. They would yank at her hair, they'd pay the-- they'd pull the ribbons out, they'd yank at her clothes, and she would have shoulders ripped. And I thought, "I you know, I can't just 01:47:00sit here and see these people doing this to her." She didn't do anything. She just dressed so well. And they called her all kinds of names, and she cried and she cried all the time. So I became a friend of hers. So from the time I was eight or nine, I really fought for my friends. I just could not see kids being mean to another kids, if they didn't ask for it you know. And so when, when I found out that I couldn't go to the house anymore because I was Japanese and the father would've lost his job, and he was the general manager of all these banks in that area in Stockton, and that's what made him afraid. "I can't have a Japanese come into my house." I could understand it, but it did make me mad.

Mary Doi: It must have hurt, also.

Mary Kamidoi: It did, because I thought, "I fight all your battles," and then 01:48:00she did start crying, and she told me, she said, "Mary, you could, can still be my friend, won't you? I need you because everybody picks on me." So I said, "Of course I'm going to be your friend." So I don't know what happened to her after I left and we got put in camp. I could never get ahold of her, and the first trip back to California, I went to visit her. The home wasn't there. There was a lot of homes built in their property because their home's set way back, and it was a fenced-in big lot. And I sat there in the car thinking, "I know they lived there," because I noticed the bridge that we had to cross to get over to there. So I, I tried and tried, but I couldn't get any information. I even went to the city hall to ask if you knew where the Ladds move to. And they said, "Even if we have the information, we're not allowed to give it to you. It's confidential." So I gave up looking for her. And even today, I can, if I'm just sitting here, I can see her, and I wonder whatever happened to her. But you know, when you saw 01:49:00Charlie's Angels, that Cheryl Ladd that was on there, I'd, I watched that all the time. I thought, "You know what? She's got blonde hair like my friend Mary has. She's tall and thin--"

Mary Doi: And gorgeous.

Mary Kamidoi: Yeah, and she was so pretty, because as she got older, her facial... And, but the kids never let up on her. So ever since you know, I've been a young kid, I've always fought for the underdog, and I still do it. And when I, when I do this at the condominium where I live, I get nasty people telling me, "God, you can't be too smart being a friend of hers." I said, "Yeah, I'm pretty stupid talking to you." And you know, and people are just, I don't know. It just seems as though all of a sudden, people are so nasty. They're so hateful. You run into that all the time. So when my friend told me that she went 01:50:00to this Kaufman Funeral Home, it was-- and she said, you know, "I walked in, Mary, and a lady came up to me and said, 'What in the world are you doing here?' That's a Jewish funeral home." I said, "What did you do?" She said, "Mary, I was so shocked. I just ran out the door, got in my car, and cried all the way home." I said, "Well, thank God you live so close to the funeral home. You probably would've had an accident on John Lodge."

Mary Doi: So this was a Nisei friend of yours that went to the funeral?

Mary Kamidoi: Yes. And I mean, we laugh about it every time she talks about funeral homes. And she says, "Oh, I can't see you today because I've got to go to the funeral home." I said, "You're not going to Kaufman's, are you?" And she said, "No, thank God I'm not." I said, "Well, let me give you a word of advice. If you go to Kaufman's the next time, you better have that in the back of your mind. Somebody comes up to me, you tell them off." But you know what? She always said to me, you know, "I always feel so safe when you go shopping with me. I don't have to worry about somebody picking on me." I said, you know, "Toshi, I've gone through so much discrimination when we got out of camp, and even when 01:51:00we moved to Michigan. The city that we went to, they never saw Orientals. Kids in school never talked to me or anything." And I thought, "Well, here we go again." So finally you know, I noticed you know, they had kids that were monitors at every door. There was four doors to the school. They always picked kids to be monitors. So I would watch this and I said, "How do you get to be a monitor?" So one day I asked one of the girls and she said, "I don't know, because I'd like to be a monitor, too. They get credit for that and they don't have to be in class." so I said, "Well, I'm going to find out somebody." She said, "Who are you going to ask?" And I said, "Well, you know that secretary, she more or less runs the school." And I said, "She knows all the students." And she'd been talking to me, "Hi Mary, how are you today?" So I thought, "Okay, now I've gotten to the doorway." So I asked her one day, and she said, "Mary, I've been meaning to ask you to be a monitor for a week, one, one week," because they 01:52:00get monitors for one week at a time because she said, "I've noticed your grades are good." I said, "Is that the way you get to be a monitor?" And she said, "Yes, we consider the grades." So after that day, the first day, everybody's looking at me with the books, going to classes, and I'm at the front door, the main door, and I thought, "You guys take a good look. I haven't seen you guys sitting here." And so I sort of made a joke of it and I laughed. And so finally, the superintendent came out and he said to me, "Mary, you're doing a good job. That's why we put you at the main door." And I said, "Oh, any door, I would've did the same job, Mr. Thompson. You know me. I don't do you know, a job just halfway." And he said, "That's what I like about you, Mary. That's what I like about you."

Mary Doi: I think that's a great theme and ending for this story, that you know 01:53:00you not only stick up for the underdog, but you've had this sense of righteous indignation since you were a kid.

Mary Kamidoi: Yeah, I, I just wanted a fair treatment.

Mary Doi: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mary Kamidoi: 'Cause I thought, "If I look different, I can't help it. But everybody looks different." But you know, if everybody's born here, we're right to the-- we have the right to be treated properly. And I always said that to my sisters and my brothers, and they said, "Yeah, you don't want to live very long, do you?" That's what they used to tell you, "You don't want to live very long, do you?" And I said, "Well, I don't know about that," because I said, "Living with you guys, you're always picking on me. So I don't want to live here that long." But they always kidded me about it. And one of my brothers, the youngest one, said to me, "Yeah, one day somebody's going to take a pot shot at you." And I said, "Well, they better take a good one because if I survive it, they're not going to live to tell about the rest of their life." But you know--

Katherine Nagasawa: I love all of your--

Mary Kamidoi: --my siblings always kidded me about me being mouthy. That's how 01:54:00they put it, "Mouthy Mary." So when they had to make decisions in the family, they always had Mouthy Mary make the decisions because, "If she's wrong, we'll crucify her."

Mary Doi: Well, I think that that's a, a really good image to leave on, that you're, you're mouthy, but you're mouthy in a good way, that you are sticking up for principles, you're sticking up for people, you're sticking up for, against unfair treatment.

Mary Kamidoi: That's right.

Mary Doi: You know so--

Katherine Nagasawa: Mary? Yeah, I was just going to say, I'm going to just stop the recording for now so we cap it at two hours.

Mary Doi: Okay.

Katherine Nagasawa: But we can continue talking. Continue talking.

Mary Kamidoi: Okay.

Katherine Nagasawa: I'm just going to stop it.