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Title
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
Subject
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Japanese Americans--History.
Description
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This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
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Creator
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Publisher
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Doi, Mary
Nagasawa, Katherine
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Yoshikawa, Gordon
OHMS Object
https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=YoshikawaGordon20230410.xml
Interview Keyword
Nisei
Tule Lake
Topaz
Japanese American Citizens League
JACL Cincinnati chapter
JACL Midwest District Council
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
Northeastern Illinois University
CWRIC Hearings
Civil Liberties Act
OHMS Object Text
5.4 4/10/2023 Yoshikawa, Gordon (4/10/2023) 1:30:54 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection REDR Redress Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded, transcribed, and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Nisei Tule Lake Topaz Japanese American Citizens League JACL Cincinnati chapter JACL Midwest District Council Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Northeastern Illinois University CWRIC Hearings Civil Liberties Act Yoshikawa, Gordon Doi, Mary Nagasawa, Katherine video 1:|10(5)|21(7)|33(5)|43(5)|53(9)|63(1)|71(10)|78(2)|85(4)|95(6)|105(11)|113(6)|120(13)|126(12)|132(13)|146(6)|157(9)|164(11)|174(6)|180(1)|185(3)|195(8)|206(6)|217(9)|227(9)|234(7)|245(13)|254(2)|266(2)|272(1)|281(12)|289(4)|301(1)|311(7)|331(7)|347(7)|358(5)|365(6)|377(10)|384(8)|397(1)|411(7)|420(1)|427(8)|434(3)|440(13)|447(5)|453(6)|460(8)|466(2)|472(6)|483(5)|495(12)|509(7)|518(6)|526(2)|531(13)|541(8)|552(7)|559(7)|577(1)|593(13)|607(7)|624(1)|631(10)|647(12)|654(10)|661(17)|668(10)|675(15)|687(6)|698(1)|715(13)|736(14)|746(13)|753(15)|759(13)|772(4)|779(5)|785(14)|792(8)|807(5)|819(4)|829(5)|836(8)|843(5)|855(4)|874(1)|893(5)|908(9) 0 https://vimeo.com/825115622 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/825115622" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; Gordon Yoshikawa, a nisei who resettled in Cincinnati, OH after being released from incarceration, discusses his involvement with the Cincinnati chapter of the JACL from the 1960s to the present day, focusing primarily on his memories of the redress movement. He describes how redress created an opportunity for former incarcerees who had remained silent for many year to open up about their experiences during WWII. He recalls his own experience as an audience member at the Chicago CWRIC hearings at NEIU, and reflects on his friends and aquaintances who testified. Notably, he shares details about attending, along with his sister, the presidential signing of the Civil Liberties Act in Washington, DC in 1988. He also describes some of his more recent experiences as a public speaker about Japanese American history. Katherine Nagasawa: So today is April 10th, 2023 and this oral history is being recorded digitally over Zoom. The interviewer-- the interviewers are Katherine Nagasawa and Mary Doi and the interviewee is Gordon Yoshikawa. This interview is being recorded by the JASC Legacy Center in order to document the Japanese American redress movement in Chicago and the Midwest. So Gordon, I wanted to just start by talking a little bit more about your early involvement in the JACL. So could you talk about when you first became involved in the Cincinnati JACL? Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, I guess I, I first joined JACL in Cincinnati in 1965 or 4. My, my sister was co-chair of the Cincinnati chapter in 1965 so that sort of got me involved. Up to that point I didn' ; t do too much with the JACL at all. Katherine Nagasawa: And when you joined, what was the makeup of the chapter in terms of generational breakdown and age, gender? Gordon Yoshikawa: Age wise, I guess it' ; s a little bit older I guess because it' ; s the people that had come to Cincinnati after evacuation. So that was the bulk of the membership. And they had children but the children were, at that time too young really to participate. Katherine Nagasawa: And beyond your sister, did any other family members get involved in JACL? Gordon Yoshikawa: I had two, two sisters. Two sisters were involved, the brothers were not. But the one, one sister was working with the YWCA but she didn' ; t get too involved with the chapter itself, you know, basically as a member. Katherine Nagasawa: And I remember you mentioned to me when we talked that you were actually chapter president pretty early on. Can you talk about that as well? Gordon Yoshikawa: (laughs) When I joined in ' ; 65, I guess probably the year after I had joined, I became president of the chapter. So they' ; re always looking for new blood for the chapter. And I became president again about 10 years later. So I' ; m sort of lucky ' ; cause I only served as president twice, whereas some of the other members served maybe four or five years at a time. So it' ; s getting almost to that point again because there are fewer members and as a result the, the officers that are in right now tend to have to stay in a little bit longer than they had anticipated. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you think you' ; ll take another rotation as president? Gordon Yoshikawa: Probably not at this point, so-- Although can' ; t pass it up. One never knows. But most likely not. Katherine Nagasawa: I also wanted to ask about some of your early recollections of the redress movement. Do you remember around when you first heard about it and what your reaction to it was? Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, the redress movement I guess as I was going to JACL national conventions, I heard some rumbles in, in the late seventies that there was something going on with redress and it eventually became more organized and the redress movement sort of took off probably from 19-, I guess ' ; 79 or ' ; 80. And then they started formalizing some of the organizational activities. And once the commission was formed and had hearings, then we had a legislative education committee formed. So then that, that started the support group for the redress. Katherine Nagasawa: What was your reaction to the idea of asking for redress and reparations? Do you remember, at the JACL convention where you heard about it, what you thought? Gordon Yoshikawa: I think the average member probably would be for it since they, their parents or friends you know had undergone hardship when the evacuation occurred. But I guess on a personal level, you' ; re not quite sure how you want to do this and whether this will be successful or not. But you are hoping that, that something along this line would take place at some point. Katherine Nagasawa: Within your family, did you talk openly about the camp experience? Gordon Yoshikawa: Not in my family and probably not in 95% of other families. Between 1945 when we left camp until the redress movement started in, in the late seventies, they probably didn' ; t speak about evacuation, hardship, the losses, at that time. I think the redress movement and the hearings that started up in the late seventies then started bringing people out more. I had a brother, my sister' ; s brother-in-law who was in MIS during the war. Of course after serving in MIS then they' ; re not really allowed to talk about it. But even then, on a family basis he didn' ; t speak about it to family members either. And there was some, I guess, activity in regards to public getting interested in it. And the public radio station had contacted me. I guess over the years they would, around December 7th they would start contacting people who had been evacuated and they would talk about their stories. And the public radio had contacted me and I talked to my brother, my sister' ; s brother-in-law, and whether he would be willing to speak with the public radio and he agreed to do it. And this is the first time that he would openly speak about it to anybody. So it was an amazing time when people were just starting to be able to say something or be able to talk about their experiences, whether it was good or bad. Katherine Nagasawa: During the redress movement, do you feel like the other Cincinnati JACL chapter members started opening up more? The people who were the core group that was involved? Were they more forthcoming? Gordon Yoshikawa: I think they were because the people that would organize the chapters were about the same age group and they had all undergone evacuation so they would start talking about it a little bit. But usually back then the conversation was usually " ; What camp were you in?" ; and they would maybe talk about family and activities, things along that line, but they would probably not talk about the detrimental effects of evacuation unless it really bothered them a lot. But usually it' ; s all the, the general stuff of where were you. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember when you first heard that the Chicago Commission hearings were happening in 1981? And how did your chapter identify representatives to testify? Gordon Yoshikawa: We didn' ; t have anybody that I recall from the Cincinnati Chapter testify. I was part of the Midwest District JACL so I knew some of the people that were going to speak. I had gone up to Chicago with Mas Yamasaki from Dayton Chapter and he was one that was going to speak early on at the hearing. Later on I had heard that Hank Tanaka from Cleveland had spoken, Masa Tashima also from Cleveland and Hank Tanaka from Cleveland. And I knew Kaz Mayeda, Kaz Mayeda had been involved in the redress movement early on. He had been MDC governor and I, I happened to know him through playing golf so. Katherine Nagasawa: I think you also remember mentioning, or you, you mentioned to me Toaru Ishiyama and then Tom Nakao Jr. right? They' ; re both from Ohio, I think. Gordon Yoshikawa: I had heard that, that Tom Nakao Jr. had testified, same way with Toaru. Toaru is, was a professor and he was very articulate and a lot of times his, his talks were a little bit over your head, but, but that' ; s the way he was. He was a plain guy because he' ; d be there in, in jeans or, or something like that, very casual. I was watching the hearings and I watched Toaru' ; s statement that he had given and talked about. You know, usually he' ; s sort of grubby and he had to find a suit for the hearing. So, but he' ; s a very interesting guy and you get uplifted every time you get together with him. But the hearing website is very nice because you get to see the people that you used to know in sort of real time at that time. And it was nice to see Kaz when he was a bit younger and to see Toaru since he had long passed. And I guess I' ; ll try to watch some of the others. I watched the interview with Chiye Tomihiro from Chicago. So I' ; ll probably look to see who else that I know and then find out a little bit more about what they had endured. But the evacuation sort of hits a lot of people a lot of different ways. I remember speaking with a former president of Dayton Chapter. And she talked about her mother, how devastated she was, when she had to be evacuated and you had little time to process your, your belongings. And she had things that she couldn' ; t take with her like kimono and rather than to just let it get into disrepair or into somebody' ; s hand that wouldn' ; t respect it, she burned it. So you have a lot of extreme reactions to what was going on with evacuation. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, I think that' ; s the thing I love the most about listening to all the testimonies, is just the diversity of experience that' ; s conveyed through all those individual stories. And like you said, it' ; s, it' ; s almost as if people are frozen in time. It' ; s very different to watch it on video instead of just to listen to audio of it. So I' ; m so happy they have the videos. They actually didn' ; t know where the, the cassettes were for many years but only recently discovered them and digitized them. So I' ; m so glad you were able to watch them before our conversation. Gordon Yoshikawa: I had heard that there was audio because I figured they would tape record the entire proceeding. So I was pleasantly surprised to know that there was video to go along with it. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. I was curious, did you ever consider testifying yourself when they did a call-out for participants? Gordon Yoshikawa: Not myself, because I was too young when I came out. So I was seven years old when I went into camp, 10 years old when I was released. So there isn' ; t too much in the way of, of my testifying. Might' ; ve been different if I had spoken to my parents. Never did talk about the evacuation and the effect that had on my parents. And I know that it would' ; ve been very, very difficult for them, although they really don' ; t show it. But the fact that when in camp they had the questionnaire which bothered many people. They had answered " ; Yes, yes" ; , to keep the family together and to be able to get out of camp. But in doing so, they were relinquishing their Japanese citizenship. Which means that they now had no country that they belonged to because up until 1952 the Japanese were not allowed to become U.S. citizens. So they didn' ; t know at the time so they couldn' ; t have predicted that they could wait and then become citizens at that time. So they were, I guess under extreme pressure and they just decided to do family first. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember anything about the journey that you and Mas Yamasaki took to Chicago? You said you guys drove together. Do you remember where you stayed and who you coordinated with from Chicago around the hearing? Gordon Yoshikawa: No. Our family sort of went out piecemeal. In 1943 when we were in Tule Lake, California, my brother, oldest brother, had gone into the army. My second sister had gotten a contact, gotten a job in Cincinnati with the YWCA. So if you were able to get a job outside or have families of friends to support you outside or go to school, go to a university, then you could leave camp. So in early part of ' ; 43 she left and came to Cincinnati to work for the YWCA here. So once she was established here, then my oldest sister came to Cincinnati and got a job here. And then in probably 1944, my older brother left Topaz and came to Cincinnati to continue his high school education. So usually in the camps were the parents and young children. So it wasn' ; t until May of 1945 that my parents and I were able to leave Topaz, Utah where we had transferred from Tule Lake in 1943. So in May of 1945, then we were able to come out. And it' ; s the usual $25 and a train ticket. And we took the train from, I guess Delta, Utah, eventually to Chicago. And we had stopped and saw some friends in Chicago and then proceeded on down to Cincinnati. But I don' ; t really remember that much about the train trip. Even when we went from Marysville, California to Tule Lake, I knew that after the fact that we had gone by train and then by army trucks into the camp. So that' ; s sort of the extent of the travels. Katherine Nagasawa: And it was mostly your older siblings who put down roots in Cincinnati first before you ended up joining them? Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah, it was my sister that had come out to work at the YWCA that prompted everybody else to come to Cincinnati. So Cincinnati also had a hostel which she didn' ; t stay at. But it was sort of a center point for people who had evacuated and come, who had then come out of camps to settle down with a job and a temporary home, eventually a permanent home. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. I' ; m curious, did any of those sisters or did your brother end up attending the Chicago redress hearings at all? Or was it just you and your family that went? Gordon Yoshikawa: It was... Let' ; s see. I went up with Mas Yamasaki and I think (not able to make out name) who was at one point in time, president of, of the Cincinnati chapter. But there was only a few of us who had gone up. I don' ; t remember my sister Frances going up with me, so, so I guess it was just a handful of us. Katherine Nagasawa: And I want to just get a sense of what your experience was like at the hearings themselves. What sort of memories stand out to you when you go back to that? You know, I guess it was two days that you spent at Northeastern. Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah, it was two days. And I remember hearing some of it, but it really didn' ; t sink in. That' ; s why the, the videos that you have that we can go back to and watch now are so impressive. That you saw people who were able to articulate, basically, for their parents and for their family, the conditions and situations, about that time. Katherine Nagasawa: When we talked on the phone, you did say that there was an emotional atmosphere in the room. Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by that? Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, the emotional factor that I was thinking about really was at the signing of the Civil Liberties Act, 1988. The atmosphere at the hearings, I guess, were a lot different because this is where people are pouring out their stories, so the emotional charge is different. And you hear all, all the sad stories, the difficulties that the parents had, the fact that a lot of them lost members of the family. So it' ; s much, much different situation. So from the back, it, it was sort of hard to catch all of it, but I remember some of the people speaking. And we really get, didn' ; t get that much content at the time. And that' ; s why I was interested in, in the audio. That' ; s why I' ; m so glad that the video is available now. So I' ; m hoping that, that members of JACL will get, you know take the opportunity to look at the videos and see what was really going on in, in 1980 or ' ; 70 something. So... Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember any conversations you had with Mas about his testimony since you guys went to Chicago together and you kind of accompanied him for this experience? Gordon Yoshikawa: Didn' ; t really talk about it. So that' ; s why I was interested in seeing what his testimony would be. And, and it seems like most of his testimony had to do with the emotional trauma that everybody went through. And whether it was their own trauma or whether it was their parents' ; , it just seemed to be universal that everybody really went through a great deal of trauma, emotional trauma. And as a youngster growing up, you know, you don' ; t see any of that. So as kids, we' ; re at camp. Did kid things. So it wasn' ; t much of an effect on them. But I remember, I guess John Tani was speaking about some of the, the breakdown of family because when we got to camp, the, the nuclear family sort of fell apart. Because, I guess usually at mess hall the kids would eat together, the youngsters would eat together. And that, that left the parents sort of eating by themselves. And, and the whole dynamic changed. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s true, where kids were much more separated from parents maybe outside of where they slept in the barracks. Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I wanted to ask more about the years after the hearings where you were part of the legislative education committee and doing a lot of fundraising work. Can you talk about your role in that and also the role that Grace Uehara played in that committee? Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah, once the hearings were over, then you had the legislative education committee that was trying to, to get money so that they could take this through Congress and have the reparations come to life. JACL would try to get all the chapters to take part in getting funds together for that. And the legislative education committee that Grace Uehara had chaired from Philadelphia was really the focal point of the activities that Redress would do at that time. She would put together sample letters for support to the congresspeople, congressmen, and senators. She would pinpoint the people on certain committees that we should try to contact and persuade them to help us in, in the Redress effort. Let' ; s see, she did quite a bit of that. So through her efforts there was a unified effort to, to get the Redress going in Congress. Katherine Nagasawa: In what ways did she stay in touch with all of the chapters? Did she correspond... I guess what was her communication method for coordinating all of this? Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah, she was doing like alerts all the time. So if there was some congressional get together or some activity on that, then she would send out these alerts. So you would contact your, your state congresspeople and try to get them to vote your way. So she was always on that, and so you just had to wait until she, she sends you a letter and, and tells you... Well, she even would find out who you should be contacting because she would know what committees are doing what. So she would do that, send letter-- example letters, and that helped a great deal because you know you sit down and you don' ; t really know what to write or what to say to be more convincing. So she would give you some examples. You just follow that and it seemed to get pretty good results. She would also give you phone numbers so that if you sort of inundated your congresspeople with letters and phone calls, then that would affect what they' ; re going to do. Katherine Nagasawa: Beyond writing letters and calling the congresspeople, did you ever have in-person meetings with any of them? Where you kind of lobbied on behalf of the community? Gordon Yoshikawa: We had talk with local congresspeople because my sister would go to some of the town hall meetings. And when she would do that then she would talk to the congresspeople about the Redress efforts. Just to let them know what it is so that then they can take a look at it and, and see for themselves whether they want to get interested in it or not. So I guess my sister did most, most of that, so that worked out well. Katherine Nagasawa: When you think about the core people in Cincinnati who were involved in this lobbying process, who besides you and your sister were doing this kind of work that you can remember? Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, we had a number of people that were chapter Redress chair at one time or another. And some of the names that come to mind are Betty Breyer, Jo Okura, Tak Kuriya, Stogie Toki, Fred Morioka. I think these people all took turns in doing the Redress effort. Katherine Nagasawa: Are any of these folks still alive? Gordon Yoshikawa: I guess the only person left is Betty Breyer. All the other ones have passed on. Katherine Nagasawa: I' ; d be curious to, to talk to her about her experience just because it' ; s true that you know a lot of people have, have passed. Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, she never went to camp. She was born in Cincinnati in the mid ' ; 40s. She' ; s also-- Katherine Nagasawa: Is she technically a Sansei then? Gordon Yoshikawa: Pardon? Katherine Nagasawa: Is she technically a Sansei then or is she Nisei? Gordon Yoshikawa: She' ; s really a Nisei because her parents are Issei. She' ; s also a cousin of Tonko Doi. So if you know Tonko, there' ; s the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Mary Doi: Yes, yes. Gordon Yoshikawa: Because she met a fellow that was one of the orphans in Manzanar. And she says, " ; I bet we' ; re related." ; And in a roundabout way she was. Katherine Nagasawa: Wow. Gordon Yoshikawa: He was the, he was a nephew of my sister. So through all that she was right. She, she is connected with him. Katherine Nagasawa: Mary, I know you had a question about how the different Ohio chapters communicated during this time too. Did you want to ask it? Mary Doi: Right. It, it just seems like, and for example, in the state of Illinois, I think there' ; s the Chicago chapter. In Michigan, there' ; s the Detroit chapter, but Ohio seems to have, because probably a lot of small towns, a lot of chapters. So we hear about Cleveland, we hear about Dayton, we hear about Cincinnati. Do you, do the chapters communicate closely or are you autonomous, or how does that-- Gordon Yoshikawa: They used to be closer, but Cleveland being where they are, we don' ; t get in contact with them that often. It used to be more in the past, not as much now. We still stay in touch with Dayton quite a bit because we' ; ll have, we' ; re only like 50 miles away from each other. So we' ; ll have joint installation dinners. So we recently had a joint installation dinner. So the contact still is, is pretty close. Dayton has a summer picnic, which a number of the Cincinnati people go to. Sometimes I guess before the pandemic, Hoosier chapter from Indianapolis, some of the members used to come over to the Dayton picnic also. It seems to be a little less so now I think because of age but they used to come over. But I think between Cincinnati and Dayton, there' ; s still a closeness because as the small-- chapters get smaller then doing joint things help keep the numbers there. They still do a international festival. And it' ; s probably getting harder because their numbers are going down. But Cincinnati used to do the same thing, but they' ; ve discontinued the festival. Mary Doi: Related to this, you know I' ; d, I' ; d say that a lot of the Chicago activities might now especially center around civil rights as opposed to culture. Would you say that the Cincinnati chapter, the Dayton chapter, because the numbers are dwindling, maybe didn' ; t pick up the civil rights movement of the... Oh well, I only know Chicago, of the Chicago way rather than... I don' ; t think Chicago focuses that much on cultural events that it' ; s really much more of a civil rights organization. How would you characterize Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland that way? Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, I guess MDC gets involved with civil rights more than Cincinnati would by itself. So Cincinnati would support the activities of MDC as it does. So we recently had a shooting at a Japanese food store, but luckily no one got hurt. But there was a fellow who seemed to be a little mentally deranged who had fired a number of shots into the store. And he was spouting off a number of things, which didn' ; t make any sense. Luckily to his right was a Chinese restaurant that had about nine customers inside at the time, and he did not fire into that establishment. So they were very lucky and the police came right away and took him away. And I don' ; t know that there' ; s going to be too much being done about that because of his mental state. So it' ; s sort of unfortunate for, for them, but I think one of the members of the Japan America Society had started a GoFundMe for the Japanese store to help take care of damages and loss of business. So I' ; m hoping that it' ; s still going okay, I haven' ; t talked with them in a while so I don' ; t know. Mary Doi: Was this in Cincinnati? Gordon Yoshikawa: This was in Cincinnati. Mary Doi: Okay. Did it seem at all related to COVID or was this just a, possibly a racist rant that had nothing to do with the time of COVID? Gordon Yoshikawa: I don' ; t think it had anything to do with COVID. I don' ; t know... They couldn' ; t say that it had anything to do with race particularly, because he was just ranting all sorts of things. Mary Doi: Okay. Katherine Nagasawa: Kind of going back to Mary' ; s earlier question about how the chapters communicated, how did you hear news about Redress you know, from Chicago? Did you exchange letters and being part of the Midwest District Council also, what was the main form of communication between those chapters? Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, Midwest District has district meetings periodically. You get maybe some correspondence from Bill Yoshino who was the Midwest District Regional... I forgot his title now. But we would hear from Bill Yoshino fairly often when things needed to be done on a district level. So we, we, I guess through the district meetings, they would get to know what the other chapters are doing. Katherine Nagasawa: I wanted to make sure we asked you about your experience attending the signing of the Civil Liberties Act in 1988. Can you tell us the whole story you know from you being at the JACL convention on the West Coast and then being called to attend? Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah, that was, that was really a nice experience. This is going back to early August 1988 JACL, National JACL had a convention in Seattle. And we were told early on in the meeting that there might be a signing of the Redress bill, possibly the 11th or so of August. And the convention started around the 6th of August. So on the 8th of August I think, they said the bill' ; s going to be signed and the, I guess the LEC had gone over a list of names of people who would be asked to go to the signing or be available if they wanted to. So they had a, I think, a list in JACL, maybe a couple of hundred people and they were cutting the numbers down. And, and at the convention they were down to maybe 50 names or so. And I found out that my sister and I who were representing, would be representing Cincinnati chapter. She was there in Seattle as a booster. So she was not at the meeting when, when the announcements were made. So I knew that she would want to go. So we were told to make arrangements with the travel agency in, in Seattle who was going to handle all this for us. And we were trying to get hold of my sister who was visiting Caroll Nursing I think at the time. And it was hard getting hold of her because all the phones were being used to make arrangements and, and no cell phones back then. So we had to wait and try to track her down, finally did. And we made travel arrangements and then that evening we went to the airport around 8:30 and I guess there were... They had selected like 50 names. I don' ; t remember being that many people there, so I don' ; t know if, if all of them were able to, to make that arrangement or not. But there must have been at least 30, because we were all sitting there waiting to, to go. So we, the travel agent set up a bus for us to go to the airport in, and from the airport, I think we went to Salt Lake City first, and then to Atlanta, and then from Atlanta, we were going to DC. So we' ; re, I guess, in Atlanta late at night, because we left Seattle I guess around 8:30. And so we must have gotten to Atlanta early in the morning and I think we took like a 6:30 flight from Atlanta to DC. So once we got to DC, then we have to sort of get cleaned up, shave and, and change clothes, go from travel clothes to more presentable clothes, and then take cabs. But we had time, well, we went and they had set up breakfast or brunch for us, so we did that. But then we had time between that and the signing. Signing was going to be like 2:30 in the afternoon, and it was supposed to be in the Rose Garden, but it was August, it was 90 degrees or so in DC. So they changed it to, I think, Rayburn Executive Building or something. So we had time between the luncheon and the signing. So my sister and I went to see Willis Gradison, who was in the House of Representatives from Cincinnati, and she had attended a number of his town meetings, so she knew him. So we' ; re able to go over and meet with him. There were two senators, John Glenn and Howard Metzenbaum, but we didn' ; t have time to get together with them. So at least we got to see the congressman, and we went over to the Rayburn building to get ready for the signing. So it was a room with a small stage. You had TV cameras in the back, photographers in the back and seating for, for us. So there was a lot of buzzing, a lot of talking going on. You can feel the electricity in the air. And so that was a great experience, and I remember Patty Saiki and some other, I think Bob Matsui and some other people around the table on stage. And at 2:30 then President Reagan came in and said, I guess, basically, " ; Let' ; s get to it." ; But he said, " ; We gather here to right a wrong." ; And he sat down and, and signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which then gave us the apology and the reparation for redress. So that was a nice experience. Katherine Nagasawa: What were the conversations like afterwards? Who else was there that you remember besides your sister? Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, I guess people that we were on the plane with. I knew George Sakaguchi from, from St. Louis pretty well. We also golfed. And so I guess everybody' ; s congratulating each other and, and sort of soaking in the moment. I think I had gotten some postcards to send to different people about the occasion and to get it stamped for August 10th, 1988. So I hope people kept, kept those. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you know if anybody... Do you have a postcard that you may have sent your family? Gordon Yoshikawa: I looked around and I did not find one, so I don' ; t know. I can' ; t remember who I sent them to, either. So, I' ; m hoping somebody still has it, anyway. Katherine Nagasawa: When you were in the room that day and you saw President Reagan signing the legislation, how did it feel for you to see the culmination of more than a decade of effort? Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, you knew it was a historical moment, so to be part of that was really gratifying. To, to know that this is what should have happened for your parents, and that it' ; s too bad that many of the parents probably were not still alive at the time, and that really is a shame. Katherine Nagasawa: I know you mentioned to me that your parents were not alive to receive their redress checks, but you know, you and your siblings did. Can you talk about what you ended up doing with your redress check? Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, I guess we were married for about 10 years at that time, and I think we just put the money in the bank. I don' ; t remember doing anything else with it. I guess there was talk about donating it back to JACL, but we figured we would do that through normal donations and, and our activity and, and doing other things for JACL. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember what you did with the presidential apology letter? Gordon Yoshikawa: It' ; s still around. It' ; s, it' ; s a mass printed thing, so it' ; s not as, as indicative as if it would' ; ve been individually signed. But it' ; s, well, it was signed by Bush, though, and the signature is such that you can' ; t really read the name, but you knew who it was. So I don' ; t know. Katherine Nagasawa: One of the things you said earlier was that the redress movement really opened up the community to sharing more stories about camp and the hardships experienced. Within Cincinnati, can you talk about how redress changed the community and you know some of the work you' ; ve done yourself to educate the community around Japanese American incarceration? Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, I think what it really did was it, it opened up the memories of the people that had gone through evacuation. And I think I tried to put some of that in, into the newsletter. I had talked with some of the men that were part of MIS, and I did a series on, on that. So there were about three or four people who had taken part of MIS. Tried to talk to more, but I don' ; t know that I did. But I think anybody that, that we had interview... I did a number of interviews of chapter members and I' ; m not sure where the tapes are right now, but I had talked to them about their experience then, and quite a number of them do not remember the details of going from home to assembly center or to camp. They might have a little more recollection of the trip from camp to Cincinnati. But I think I had charted the, the people that were here from camp, and I think I only had one from, from Wyoming, and maybe one from Idaho. Bulk of them were Tule Lake, Topaz, Rohwer. We' ; re going to Rohwer, and next month they have a pilgrimage going on early next month. Mary Doi: I' ; m going to be there too. I' ; ll meet you there. Gordon Yoshikawa: Oh, okay. That' ; s great. Because I' ; m taking my cousin Betty Breyer down there. Her cousins, well Tonko and her family were down there, and so I wanted her to be able to speak to people about their experiences, since Betty was born in Cincinnati, so she doesn' ; t have that information in her mind. So this will help put it in perspective and maybe we' ; ll hear a lot of stories. But my late wife used to get ticked off at George Takei because she would tell him about playing around with pollywogs, and eventually I think the pollywogs became part of his memories too. Mary Doi: Oh, oh! Gordon Yoshikawa: But, but I guess we' ; d run into George Takei several times, because his, he had come to speak to the Dayton chapter at a joint installation dinner. He had come to Cincinnati to do a narrative on Star Wars with the Symphony Orchestra, and during that time, they had invited a number of us, given us tickets to the, to that presentation. So we had met, met him in the Green Room and, and everybody' ; s taking pictures with him and the Pops conductor sees this group of people in there, so he comes in and he talks to everybody. So everybody' ; s taking pictures with George. But it' ; s good though. George does a good job of talking about the internment, and I looked at his book, sort of the comic book version, which was interesting. And of course, we' ; ve seen him in, in a number of stage presentations. So he brings the story out there. So that' ; s, that' ; s good for him. Good for us. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s true. And using different mediums, too. Like doing it in a graphic novel or comic format is a different way to get the story out to you know, readers who are more visual, or kids. Mary Doi: Right. Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah, any way you can is good. Katherine Nagasawa: I was curious, you know, you had mentioned you did interviews with people in Cincinnati who had resettled. Was that a personal project, or was that part of an oral history effort from the JACL? Gordon Yoshikawa: It was really a local history effort, and some of the, the histories of the people in Cincinnati I had put in the newsletter, I had hoped to be able to be able to have the videos on a borrowing basis so that people might see what other people had experienced. But I haven' ; t been able to find them lately. So I' ; ll have to look again. Katherine Nagasawa: It would be wonderful to digitize those and make them available. I feel like you know that' ; s invaluable what you were able to capture. Gordon Yoshikawa: Well, I had gone from-- Katherine Nagasawa: People are passing away who you know, remember the camp. Gordon Yoshikawa: I had gone from the old tapes to, I had them transferred to DVDs, but then I can' ; t find the DVDs, so it doesn' ; t do too much good, but at least I have the old tapes, so if I have to, I could redo them. Mary Doi: Right and I, so I worked on something with the museum, the Japanese American National Museum where everything that we did was on digital videotape. That' ; s what the videographers recorded. Then we made VHS tapes. I don' ; t know if Kat knows what those were, but VHS tapes. You know, and so even if you could find your VHS tape, you can' ; t play it anymore. You know? Gordon Yoshikawa: I can, because I still have the VHS player. Mary Doi: Well, you' ; re smart. Most people don' ; t. Gordon Yoshikawa: I imagine it still works. So if that is the case then-- Same way with some of the tapes that I would do. I keep the, the video camera so even though they' ; re not around anymore, hopefully if I can re-energize the batteries, then I can still bring it back to life. So... Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah. So, well, so what I did was I actually ask people at the museum to take the digital videotape that we recorded in 1995 or whatever and make it, put it in the cloud. And I' ; m not even really sure what that means, but available to people now who don' ; t have the VHS machine anymore or you know, a camera. So I feel your pain. I know exactly what it' ; s like to have something that you can' ; t play, but it' ; s great information. Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah, but you know, if you still have the VHS, you can find a place that' ; ll transfer it for you. Mary Doi: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Do you have copies of the newsletter that you might be able to share where you did do some of these, talk about the interviews you did? Gordon Yoshikawa: I' ; ll see if I can dig up some. Mary Doi: That' ; d be great. Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah, because I keep better track of my... I do golf newsletters, so every time we, our group goes out and plays golf, I put out a newsletter. And so I' ; ve been better with that. With the JACL ones, they sort of get pitched in a corner, and, and they' ; re out of sequence and I' ; m not sure if they' ; re all there. But, so I' ; ll take a look and see about the interviews. I, I' ; m pretty sure I have the interviews of the three or four men that were in MIS. And then I, I was doing a series on, on the Issei, and I had done some interviews and stories for the newsletter on that. So I' ; ll, I' ; ll see if those are available too. Katherine Nagasawa: That would be amazing. Yeah. And Mary, Gordon did write about his experience attending the signing of the Civil Liberties Act around the time when it happened. So he said he-- Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah, I sent that one to you. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, nice. Thank you. I was trying to look it up but-- I think finally, I just wanted to hear a bit about your own experience speaking your, you know about Japanese American incarceration to the public. You said the two people who normally spoke to the newspapers or the churches or schools passed away not too long ago, and you' ; ve sort of taken that up as your own responsibility now. Can you talk about that? Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah. Over the years, there' ; s always been other people that, that would talk to the schools and organizations about the evacuation experience. And all of a sudden, I looked around and they' ; re not there anymore. So I figured, well, I guess it' ; s my turn to do this. And I think I mentioned that one of the first ones that I did was at a public library. And so I did maybe an hour plus presentation with some slides. And I think that was now on YouTube, so it might be available. When I tried to speak... Well I had, I was invited to speak to sixth grade Japanese language school students. And I didn' ; t know that, if they would be able to... I guess they' ; re, they' ; re... They speak English mostly, so they would be able to understand it. But when I was supposed to give that presentation, there was a death in our, in our family, and I couldn' ; t make it, so I gave it to the president of the chapter who was from Japan, and I gave him the, the text of my talk, and I' ; m sure that he probably rewrote it to Japanese so that he could just speak to the students. So at a later time, I had an opportunity to talk to the sixth grade class, and I thought in order to do this, I would like to speak to them in Japanese, which I wasn' ; t able to at the time, but I thought maybe I' ; ll write it in romaji. So I had my friend translate it to romaji and then I would read that and then try to make it smooth enough that it would sound like I knew what I was saying. So I told the students that I do not speak Japanese, but I wrote this in, in romaji and I will read it. So I read it, and they seem to absorb it pretty well. Later on, there was a, a annual thing at the Japanese language school, and each grade would present something that they had done or learned throughout the year. And the sixth grade group did my presentation with slides, and I guess there were maybe six or eight kids and they all had a short speaking part and they would cover part of what I had said. So I was just blown away that they would do this. And so I had told teacher that I was really impressed with what they were able to do. That wasn' ; t the end of it, they did like woodcarving except on linoleum and they put together some pictures. And one was when Kazuya Sato and I were speaking to the group at the presentation. Someone had taken a picture. They took that and they did a wood, a woodcut carving of that. And then, they had a couple other scenes in there. And one of the scenes was the row of toilets that in camp you had toilets one next to each other with no partition, at least in the men' ; s side. And that was part of the woodcut print too. So I guess that' ; s something that impressed them. And then there was the third part, which I don' ; t remember right now, but they did this woodcut print that was like maybe 12 to 18 inches by three feet. Mary Doi: That' ; s gigantic. Wow. Gordon Yoshikawa: And they presented that to me later, at a later time and I was blown away again because I can' ; t imagine the kids doing that in addition to the presentation that they had done. So it, it just really impressed me that the kids are really smart. So it was a fun thing and it was a nice, nice gift to get was that print. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s amazing. And I know that you, you mentioned to me that it wasn' ; t just young students you' ; ve given this presentation to. That some of your golfing buddies who are in their 80s has, have also heard your story. Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah. I' ; ve given it at a number of different places and my golfing friends had come to one of the presentations and it' ; s a story that they weren' ; t aware of at the time. So I' ; ve given it in Cincinnati. I' ; ve given it in Indianapolis. And, let' ; s see. Well that could be basically it. And I did a short version in Dayton, but whenever the opportunity presents itself then I, I try to do that. I think I still owe one person a presentation. So, I guess it' ; ll still go on for a little bit anyway. Mary Doi: Let me know the next time you do it. I would love to come and hear you. Gordon Yoshikawa: I' ; ll, I' ; ll see if I can find the YouTube one. Mary Doi: Oh, okay. That would be great. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, I' ; ll look that one up. Yeah. Gordon Yoshikawa: It might still be out there. But that' ; s one that I think I had done at a public library and somebody had recorded it. So, we' ; ll see how that goes. (laughs) Katherine Nagasawa: I wanted to wind down with a couple of last reflection questions. Mary, did you want to chime in with some of your bigger picture questions about the Redress Movement' ; s legacy? Gordon Yoshikawa: Say that again? Mary Doi: She' ; s asking if I want to ask any questions. Gordon Yoshikawa: Oh! Mary Doi: So this is a little bit maybe off target, but when you talked about attending the hearings, you said that it, the, maybe the emotional weight didn' ; t sink in, something didn' ; t sink in when you' ; re actually sitting in the room hearing the testimony. And that when you are able to, what I heard was that when you were able to watch the actual videos, you were able to now also as an older person sort of, sort of grasp maybe the, the impact of what is being said. Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah, I think that' ; s true. Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah. Gordon Yoshikawa: Because when you' ; re at the hearing, we' ; re like way at the back of the, back of the room, so the, the sound isn' ; t all that great. Mary Doi: Mmm, okay. Gordon Yoshikawa: So you know what' ; s going on, you know the, the emotions that are going on, but you don' ; t hear words that much. I remember hearing Studs Terkel speak, but I don' ; t remember what he said. I can probably look at the video and, and go over it and hear it again. But I think being there is, is a little bit different on an emotional level. You know what' ; s going on. You know it' ; s a, also a historic thing going on and you know some of the people that are speaking. And so that' ; s, that' ; s an experience to sort of soak up. But with the availability of the video then you can go back and see people in, in real time at that time and, and hear them speak about their, their experience. That' ; s, that' ; s really nice to have, the fact that you weren' ; t really that close to it at the time. It' ; d be different if you were able to sit on the, the table where, where the committee was and you can hear it and you can soak it in that way, but from the back of the room it doesn' ; t have the same impact. So you know things are going on. But with the availability of the video, it' ; s really nice to see old friends speaking and hearing what their experience and their concerns were at the time. And people aren' ; t really angry, but they do show concern that what their parents and what they went through at the time was really devastating. And you' ; re able to see the, the committee people hear this for the first time and start soaking in all these experiences. And I' ; m glad that they were able to do that and then act on, on the presentations and went forth with the redress. Mary Doi: One of the questions I' ; m really interested in, and this is a more recent question, thinking about you know, the Civil Liberties Act is signed in 1988, the apologies go out, the money goes out. But are you, do you feel repaired for the wrong that was done to you and your family? My big question is what does repair look like? And can the government only do so much in, in facilitating repair? And if that' ; s the case, what else needs to happen or is that enough for repair? Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah, going from the end of that, I don' ; t know if that' ; s enough and I don' ; t know what they can do to make things any better because most of the people who has had damage done to them are no longer here. And you don' ; t know what their emotions were and what their feelings were at that time. You know it must' ; ve been devastating for them to be yanked out, lose their livelihood, find out that the government thinks you are the enemy. All these things going on. I don' ; t know that there' ; s, anything that can be done or that should have been done back then. Now it, it' ; s really too late for the people that, that experienced it. But the only thing that you can do is keep the information going so that people will know that this happened, really happened in the United States. I haven' ; t checked on current history books to see what they cover and how much they cover. I' ; m sure that at one point they started to include more and more, but then it may have sort of drifted back down to sort of a blip in, in time and that would be a sad thing. So whenever Pearl Harbor comes up, then internment and American concentration camps should also come up. And a lot of times the, the newspaper people would, would bring that up at that time. But then I think they should, they should be doing a little bit more. I had spoken to a high school book club. And this was I guess during COVID because we were all wearing masks. I had no idea what they looked like. But, but I had asked the, the kids, " ; Had you heard about evacuation?" ; And surprisingly over half had heard about it. And I would not have expected that because I don' ; t know that adults my age know about it. So if they haven' ; t come in contact with somebody that experienced it and talked about it, then they would be oblivious to that hadn' ; t taken place. So, so education is really important. Mary Doi: You know I, I loved your story about the Japanese-speaking kids. Was that a Futabakai school, the, the Japanese language kind of school. And how they not only heard your story but sort of absorbed your story to tell it themselves and to illustrate it even. And to me that' ; s a wonderful story about... It' ; s almost like a story about repair that while you may not be there to carry on the story, maybe these kids who speak Japanese will be one of the narrators of the history. You know? Gordon Yoshikawa: That could be, yeah. Mary Doi: One of the things you probably will hear about at the Rohwer pilgrimage, this is a concept that' ; s new to me, is the idea of intergenerational trauma. So even though you experienced it, I' ; m a little bit younger. And so I was born in the ' ; 50s, I didn' ; t experience it and certainly my grand-- my daughter who' ; s now in her 30s didn' ; t experience it. But for this youngest generation they talk about in-- they talk about intergenerational trauma that they' ; ve sort of inherited from me who inherited it from my parents and maybe my grandparents. So that' ; s a whole new set of ideas that you will probably hear about at the Rohwer pilgrimage, which means that you may also be experienced... You may be offered something called these intergenerational dialogue sessions. And I hope you signed up, I hope your cousin signed up for it because it really does refocus how I started to think about internment and its afterlife. And that you didn' ; t have to be there to actually be affected by it. You know and, and I could say, " ; Well, my parents were there, of course I was affected by it because my parents and grandparents were there." ; But for my daughter' ; s generation, it really, it, it is, it is like, it' ; s, it' ; s the thing that that' ; s the way they understand camp, they understand it through this lens of intergenerational trauma. So maybe you' ; ll hear more about that when we go to Rohwer, you know but I, I think that' ; s interesting how each generation is telling the story in a different perspective, from a different perspective. With a different lens with maybe more, yeah, just a different lens. Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah. I think people that were just around my sister' ; s age, which is maybe another 10, 15 years beyond mine, a lot of the people that age that I spoke with, weren' ; t angry. I think they were upset, but they weren' ; t angry. And they really didn' ; t talk about that in, in those terms. You know they would talk about the evacuation, talk about the ride on the train. And it might' ; ve been uncomfortable. There were soldiers with rifles and bayonets, but it' ; s something they see and say, " ; Oh, there it is." ; And it wouldn' ; t really affect them that adversely at, at that time. And they didn' ; t seem to be that affected by that when I spoke with them. So I don' ; t know whether part of that is more deep down. I' ; m sure that, that they would be angry at, had that taken effect at that time. And that they missed a lot of opportunities that they could have, had basically educationally and all that. But I' ; m really sorry that I haven' ; t, I didn' ; t get my parents to talk about it. And I think that' ; s the case with a lot of, of parents, they' ; re busy bringing up their kids. It' ; s post-evacuation, education is the main goal. And really don' ; t have time to talk about this. And that' ; s a shame that we miss some of that because I, I think the kids that were growing up at the time should have heard what their parents felt and what they went through. So that' ; s my biggest regret. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. That there was so much silence within families, but it does seem like the redress movement made way for so much more openness, at least within subsequent generations. So-- Gordon Yoshikawa: Redress was a good thing because it broke open the silence. And people started talking about not just what camp were you in, but what were your experiences, you know? And it, it got beyond just the surface talk. So, however it came about, it' ; s a good thing that it happened. Katherine Nagasawa: Awesome. Well, I do feel like that might be a good place to end our conversation today. I just had one clarifying question because you talked about your, the older sister who was involved in JACL and who went to the signing of the Civil Liberties Act with you. What was her, what' ; s her full name just so we have it? Gordon Yoshikawa: Oh, her name is Frances Yoshikawa Tojo. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay, gotcha. And Mary, did you have any other last questions before we close out? Mary Doi: I don' ; t think so. And I, if I do, I' ; m going to ask him, I' ; m going to ask you at the Rohwer pilgrimage. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, that' ; s wonderful that you' ; ll be able to meet in person. Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah. This will be my daughter and my, our second time to go. Last time we went it poured, it absolutely poured and you know, bring rain gear. We got out of the bus at Rohwer and because there' ; s this little cemetery there, but Rohwer is actually in a soybean field. So you know, when it' ; s pouring you can' ; t really do much because it' ; s mud. But it was really a good illustration for me because that' ; s where my family was on both sides, they were at Rohwer. And so, you know, you talk about sandstorms in some places and freezing rain in other... Freezing winters, but Rohwer' ; s got mud, you know? Katherine Nagasawa: Very swampy, right? Mary Doi: Yeah. It' ; s swampy. And the town, we' ; ll go to McGehee, which is where there' ; s a delightful little museum and maybe George Takei will be there because it' ; ll be the 10th anniversary. Gordon Yoshikawa: Oh, he might be. Mary Doi: But the museum is also just a delight. It' ; s run by these older white women who take... I mean it' ; s almost like a mission for them to keep this story alive even though it' ; s not their story. And they love it when groups like the pilgrimage groups come through. You know they just... Gordon Yoshikawa: Yeah I went to the pilgrimage when they were expecting to get maybe a couple of hundred people and they got like 2,000. Mary Doi: Wow. Wow. Gordon Yoshikawa: And so that' ; s the time that I had gone, it was the first time there. Mary Doi: Ah, okay. Gordon Yoshikawa: And my late wife was with me, so she got to see Rohwer again. Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah. Gordon Yoshikawa: But at the time I went, the museum did not exist. And the person I guess that was active on that was Wada, Mr. Wada who was, who had been in Rohwer and, and stayed in McGehee or in that area. And MDC used to get reports from George Sakaguchi, who was also a MDC governor at one time, but he was making trips down to McGehee. And I think bringing back reports about restoration of the parts of the cemetery. And so I' ; m hoping that MDC paid for part of that, but I don' ; t know for sure. Mary Doi: Yeah, good to, good to hear that. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Footage may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=YoshikawaGordon20230410.xml YoshikawaGordon20230410.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/browse?tags=Series%3A+Redress
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Yoshikawa, Gordon (4/10/2023)
Description
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Gordon Yoshikawa, a nisei who resettled in Cincinnati, OH after being released from incarceration, discusses his involvement with the Cincinnati chapter of the JACL from the 1960s to the present day, focusing primarily on his memories of the redress movement. He describes how redress created an opportunity for former incarcerees who had remained silent for many year to open up about their experiences during WWII. He recalls his own experience as an audience member at the Chicago CWRIC hearings at NEIU, and reflects on his friends and aquaintances who testified. Notably, he shares details about attending, along with his sister, the presidential signing of the Civil Liberties Act in Washington, DC in 1988. He also describes some of his more recent experiences as a public speaker about Japanese American history.
Date
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2023-04-10
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video
FSF JACS
Series: Redress
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
Subject
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Japanese Americans--History.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the U.S. Department of the
Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations
expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
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Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Doi, Mary
Nagasawa, Katherine
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Ozaki, Rebecca
OHMS Object
https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=OzakiRebecca20230316.xml
Interview Keyword
Yonsei
Japanese American Citizens League
JACL Chicago chapter
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
Northeastern Illinois University
CWRIC Hearings
Community organizing
Kansha project
Intergenerational trauma
Healing
Repair
Mixed-race identity
OHMS Object Text
5.4 3/16/2023 Ozaki, Rebecca (3/16/2023) 1:12:50 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection REDR Redress Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded, transcribed, and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Yonsei Japanese American Citizens League JACL Chicago chapter Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Northeastern Illinois University CWRIC Hearings Community organizing Kansha project Intergenerational trauma Healing Repair Mixed-race identity Ozaki, Rebecca Doi, Mary Nagasawa, Katherine video 1:|19(5)|37(5)|49(6)|64(4)|74(7)|89(3)|100(1)|111(9)|126(11)|137(12)|148(4)|163(16)|175(6)|188(1)|197(7)|210(4)|224(4)|236(12)|246(10)|256(3)|268(14)|282(4)|292(9)|303(5)|316(1)|327(13)|337(13)|348(11)|362(7)|371(7)|381(2)|392(8)|403(4)|415(1)|427(6)|442(10)|453(6)|463(11)|474(3)|486(15)|498(12)|512(5)|523(9)|534(1)|544(5)|566(9)|581(7)|590(12)|600(3)|611(3)|621(13)|632(5)|649(2)|660(6)|670(12)|691(8)|703(1)|713(8)|722(8)|735(9)|745(10)|755(8)|770(5)|781(4)|793(2)|814(11)|824(7)|840(1)|850(14)|866(5)|875(2)|905(3) 0 https://vimeo.com/824899592 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/824899592" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; Rebecca Ozaki, a yonsei born and raised in Chicago, discusses her parents' and grandparents' legacy and the impact of their activism and community involvement on her life. She shares memories of her grandparents and her own experiences learning about their incarceration and their role in the redress movement. She reflects on her grandfather, Sam Ozaki's, testimony at the CWRIC hearings at NEIU andrecalls the power of his voice then and in later years. Connecting her family's legacy to her own training as a social worker, her experiences supporting healing circles for isolated aging adults during the pandemic, and her participation in the Japanese American Citizens League and pan-Asian groups such as OCA and Asian American's Advancing Justice, she shares the many ways in which her family has inspired her to engage in community organizing, elder care, and intergenerational healing efforts. Living in what was her grandparents' house and contemplating the future as a new mother, she expresses gratitude for the work of previous generations and hope for future generations. Mary Doi: Today is March 16th, 2023. This oral history is being recorded at the JACL Chicago office, located at 5415 North Clark Street in Chicago. The interviewers are Mary Doi and Katherine Nagasawa. The interviewee is Rebecca Ozaki. 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 will not use verbal cues and responses. Instead, I' ; ll use facial expressions to communicate my interest in what you' ; re saying, and we do this because it makes for a cleaner transcript. You can decline to answer any question without giving a reason. You can take breaks whenever you need them and you can end the interview at any point. Unders-- Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Great. Mary Doi: Okay, great. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Sounds good. Mary Doi: Please make sure your cell phone is silenced. And the way we' ; re going to do this is Katherine Nagasawa is going to start out the interview and then I' ; ll pick up in the last half of the interview questions. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Okay. Mary Doi: So, I' ; m handing it off to you, Kat. Katherine Nagasawa: Awesome. Thanks, Mary. So we asked you about this when we talked last time, Becky, but I was wondering if you could talk about the role that your grandparents played in getting you involved in the Chicago Japanese American community and also just any of your favorite memories from those times. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): My grandparents and I were really close growing up. They lived like 10 minutes away from us and I spent a lot of time with them. They were both really involved in the Japanese American community. So I remember going to the Nikkei Picnic growing up, going to the JASC Holiday Delight. I even remember going to some community rallies with them for different events, I think? And they were both very involved in community, like I said. So, yeah, I learned a lot from them. I think that they were two people who really listened to me. I felt like as a child, very heard by them and they taught me a lot of things about community, about what it means to I guess show up for community and be in solidarity with other folks and just how to be a kind, decent person, I think. And I really yeah, appreciate that about them, I' ; ll say. Katherine Nagasawa: Are there any favorite memories from the Annual Nikkei Picnic or Holiday Delight that come to mind? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah, from the Annual Nikkei Picnic, I remember going there with my siblings and my family almost every year but we would play all those kids' ; games that they have at the picnic. I remember winning this Sailor Moon toy and I had it for years because it, it was just my favorite thing ever. I think it was from like the three-legged race that me and my brother won. And at the, let' ; s see... at the JASC Holiday Delight, there was always the Japanese American Santa Claus, and we would do arts and crafts. I think I remember my grandma baking cookies for that event too. So yeah, those are just like special memories growing up where I felt very connected to them and to the Japanese American community. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. And I was wondering also when and how did you first learn about Japanese American incarceration? Do you remember how you felt about it at the time? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): I remember... You know I can' ; t remember the very first time I learned about it because I feel like my grandfather just kind of always spoke to us about Japanese American incarceration. He was a Chicago public school teacher and principal, so he often took the opportunity to talk about it in larger spaces. I will say, I remember a Day of Remembrance event at DePaul right after 9/11 happened. And I remember my grandpa standing up, or you know speaking out at the end of it saying that us as a community or Japanese Americans need to stand in solidarity with Muslim, our Muslim and Sikh brothers and sisters, I remember him saying. And just the way my grandpa spoke, you know he really... It' ; s like he was soft-spoken but could also command a room at the same time? And yeah, I' ; ll just never forget him saying that. I don' ; t really know what that meant to me at the time. I think I have these memories of him you know speaking in these moments when the community gathered. But I think throughout my life it has impacted the way that I feel I need to show up for my own community and for other communities. So that, you know, in the long-term, had a big impact on me. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. And sort of, to your point about your grandparents really listening to you, or I think you mentioned last time like you felt like you could ask them anything, it seems like it was maybe more of an ongoing conversation with them than one particular moment where they told you about what happened. But one thing you did say was that your parents said your grandparents didn' ; t necessarily talk as openly about it until you and your siblings were born. Could you talk a bit more about that and do you feel like there was something about becoming grandparents that, that changed their openness to the conversation? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): I think in talking with my dad and my aunt and my uncle, they said that for them growing up, my grandparents, their parents, didn' ; t talk to them about incarceration as much. They really learned things you know after my grandparents became more vocal about it after we were born. So, I mean for myself, I know being a mom definitely has changed me. So, I imagine them being grandparents changed them as well. And there was something, I think, there with them wanting to pass on their story and their legacy. I' ; ll say my grandfather you know was more vocal about his time in the camps. He was in the 442 as well. My grandmother, if I asked her she would talk about it, but I think you know, there was a lot of... like everyone that went through this experience, a lot of trauma that happened to her. Her dad passed away in the camps just weeks before they closed. So, there was a lot. And she was a little bit younger than my grandfather. So there were things that, she didn' ; t you know, openly tell us and it, and that was, it was kind of like peeling back layers over the years. But again, for my dad, my aunt, and my uncle, they didn' ; t really learn things throughout. I remember... They just had like tidbits and pieces you know that I would ask them about after my grandparents passed away. For example, with redress, I asked my you know, uncle and aunt, did they talk to you about this as it was happening? Because I know that they had meetings in their living rooms or my grandfather you know, shared his testimony at the hearings. And my uncle said that they didn' ; t really directly say what was happening to them at the time. It was moreso, my uncle remembers my grandfather practicing his speech like over and over again, which is kind of funny ' ; cause he changed the whole thing when he got to the hearing itself, but those are moments that they remember. So I think we had a really different experience, you know my dad' ; s generation and me and my siblings, when it came to what was shared and how openly it was shared. So, I' ; m appreciative that we got to have that relationship and hear the things that we were able to. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. I was wondering if you could share the story from, I think it was third or fourth grade when you were studying Japanese American incarceration. Could you describe what happened and how, kind of how you felt about that? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): In third or fourth grade, we had, we finally had a series, or you know a paragraph in our history book about Japanese American incarceration. Even though it was a, not necessarily a moment for a kid to be excited, for me it was a moment because I felt you know, my grandparents have talked to me about this, this is my history. And I didn' ; t realize it at the time but I did feel represented in that one paragraph that we had. So my teacher when we were having the discussion asked me you know, to share a little bit about what my grandparents' ; experience has been since they both were in the camps during World War II. And the terminology that my grandparents used was really different than what was in textbooks at the time. So you know my grandfather would say incarceration, he would also say concentration camp as he got older and became more firm in the fact that the government forced us into these camps. And it was called a concentration camp in the U.S. context. So I remember using that term, and I know it' ; s a loaded term, concentration camps, especially you know if you' ; re Jewish, Jewish American. But I do remember my teacher who may have actually been you know, Jewish and Jewish American, she corrected me at the time and she said like, " ; That is not the right term to use." ; Like that' ; s not, kind of like that' ; s not what happened to your family. And I was just really confused by it because I grew up, you know, hearing different things and then telling-- being told that I was like wrong for saying what I said about what happened to my family, I was just confused as a kid. And I think after that it really made me feel like invalidated and like maybe my, I said the wrong thing or like offended someone in my voice, what didn' ; t matter at that time. And I know my teacher' ; s intention was not to do that. She has a different history that as an adult I can reflect on and appreciate, but in that moment I did feel like I said the wrong thing, so I don' ; t really want to share anymore with my classroom or my, my teachers. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. Do you remember if you ever talked to your parents or grandparents about that terminology or the experience in class? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): I don' ; t think I did actually. I think I just honestly have kept it with me for many years and kind of reflected back on that. I don' ; t remember bringing it up to them afterwards. I think it took me a little while to like understand what happened. And I was pretty self-reflective and self-conscious about it for many years. So I can' ; t say that I did bring it up, but I wish I did. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm, I wanted to switch a little bit to talking about some of your early memories of the redress movement. You mentioned to us that your great-grandma gave you and your siblings her redress money. Can you tell that story and just talk about what you knew about redress at the time and how you felt about it? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Sure. I didn' ; t know much to be honest. The tidbits that I got from my grandparents and even from my dad and his siblings post, you know post-redress was that, that they used to hold meetings in their living room, which is cool for me because we live in that house now. So, when I go into that living room, I try to imagine you know the conversations that were had. I know that my grandfather-- or my grandparents were involved in both of the lanes that it took to... Or both of the lanes that folks organized around during redress. So, the CJAR side and the side that you know the Civil Liberties Act was finally passed. So for me, I think that is important to reflect on that they chose to be part of both groups. I think, I know that my grandfather had a lot of relationships in the community and was respected. And when I talked to Bill Yoshino about it, he said that was really important for people to see that both sides were equally as important in what it took to you know win redress in the end. So unfortunately, I don' ; t have too many you know stories or nuggets of that history aside from that. But, I... Yeah I think I am still trying to uncover it by asking you know relatives what they' ; ve, what they' ; ve known from that. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm, and then can you talk--[audio cuts out]-- receiving some of the redress money as well, like when that happened and how it was explained to you? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah. I can' ; t remember how old we were but my great grandma, our Baa-chan, she lived you know, in the house with my grandparents and my dad and my, my aunt and uncle growing up. I think she lived until she was like, 99 years old. Yeah, for a very long time. And after she passed, it was years after she passed, but I think my parents mentioned that she left us money, that she left us money and that you know, we could use it when we were a certain age or something like that. I think when we... I don' ; t even know if I asked because I was young and I was like, " ; That' ; s great, there, you know, thank you Baa-chan." ; I, I didn' ; t really even know the question to ask around it. But I do kind of remember my mom and dad saying, you know this is from, like this is because our family was put into camps. And for me at the time to make those connections, I don' ; t think they explained everything you know, fully to the point of, this is how the money got to you necessarily. But they did say that, that like this is because our family was put into incarceration camps and your grandmother saved this for each of you. So, I don' ; t think, again, at the time the impact of it or what that meant or even my grandparents' ; role in redress resonated as they told us that we were getting you know X amount of dollars. But again, as I got older, you know, I feel the, like the privilege in that and also that my family fought hard to get an apology and also reparations because of what happened. So it' ; s a lot to reflect on that I' ; m realizing as I get older. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm, as you like put all the pieces together. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Right. Katherine Nagasawa: I, I love that detail about how you know, you think about your living room and all the history that happened in it and meetings from NCJAR you know that would' ; ve happened in that space. What does it mean for you to inherit your grandpa' ; s space and know that the place you live in was part of the Midwest Redress Movement history? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): I feel very lucky that we can be in that space. We inherited it under circumstances, you know that we weren' ; t expecting, I guess I' ; ll say, because we wanted to help my family... It was either, you know get rid of the house because it' ; s falling apart or try to save it. So, to me that house represents a lot of things, including the redress movement, my grandparents' ; legacy and the way that they showed up in community. There were so many gatherings in that house that I remember and that predated you know, my life. So our family has been in Rogers Park, in that specific house, for over 60 years now. So to inherit that to me, and also have like my family and my nine-month-old move into that house and be able to, yeah like connect with the Rogers Park community and continue my grandparents' ; legacy, I don' ; t know, as we live out our lives there, it feels really special and definitely a privilege too, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Could you share any artifacts that you might' ; ve stumbled upon in the house kind of going through your grandpa and grandma' ; s materials? Are there any standout things of theirs that you' ; ve found? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yes, they kept so many things in their closets. And... Where do I even start? On my grandmother' ; s closet, as we were cleaning things out, we found old photos from Japan, documents you know, from my Baa-chan' ; s immigration here, photos of folks we don' ; t even know, but it still like means something to me. It' ; s very hard to sort through all of that history. In my grandfather' ; s side of his closet at the time, he, you know we still have the trunk that he took into the war when he was part of the 442. And all of his medals and his backpack were in there. He had this diary that was a five-year journal and every year he would write something and he started it the year that the war started, that. And I remember one entry, I don' ; t know you know, what month or date it was, but it said, " ; The FBI took my father away." ; And that' ; s all it said. It was just like one line for that one year. And two years later, the same day my grandfather wrote like, " ; I am joining the 442 to be with my friends." ; Like these little things that I couldn' ; t even fathom at his age. He was only 17 when the war started. That was something also very special but jarring as I would go through it to see you know, what his and many Japanese Americans lives were like at that time. It' ; s just completely different from what you know, I' ; ve been through or what my, luckily what my child you know, hopefully will go through in his life. Very different. We also have a, like a family crest that has been in our family for, I don' ; t know, generations maybe that my great-great-great-great-grandmother handcrafted. So that hangs in our house too. But yeah there' ; s a lot of, there' ; s a lot of history there that we try to hold onto and try to figure out how to preserve you know, the best that we can so that one day I can show my son these things that mean so much to me. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. That' ; s incredible about the diary and I' ; m wondering, did you discover that sort of when you moved in or was that, did you discover it when your grandpa was still alive and were you able to talk to him about it? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): I discovered that... So it was after my grandfather passed, but after that time I would go... My uncle still lived in that house, so I would go to their house a lot you know and I would hang out with my uncle. And I guess I call it treasure hunting. I would literally just go through all of their closets and look for things, not really looking for anything at the same time, just to see what would come out because I knew they had so many artifacts and like mementos that they never mentioned to me. So, every time I would go to that house, I would just wander around and treasure hunt I guess. So I found it during you know one of those times and I think I found it in my, like the back of my grandpa' ; s closet in his backpack that he brought to the, you know, that he brought to the war. Totally tucked away and he never mentioned it at all to us as we were growing up like many of the things in that house. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. Wow. How did it change your understanding of him and also of Japanese American incarceration to read those firsthand accounts from when he was so young? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): I think that, you know, I' ; ve heard the stories. Again, I felt fortunate that my grandparents would talk to us about it because it was such a traumatic event. I can understand why many people, Japanese Americans did not want to talk about it and wanted to you know, leave it in the past. I think reading what he went through in particular was just like a different level of what, my understanding of what happened. Because he was 17, 18, 19 at the time when he was writing these things in his journal. Like I don' ; t know if he knew that one day his grandchildren would read that right? Or later maybe his great-grandchildren. But yeah, I used the word jarring before, but I think that' ; s how it felt just to... I, I' ; ve gone through that whole journal probably a couple of times. And sometimes I will just pick you know, whatever day today is and look to see what he was doing that day. And it' ; s still very... I don' ; t know, I don' ; t even know what the word is. It' ; s surprising and sad sometimes to see how different our lives were. So, it also makes me feel really appreciative for not what they went through ' ; cause they should not have had to go through that, but how my grandparents you know, passed on that legacy to us in a way that we, I think me and my siblings have learned to value. Again, things like community or standing in solidarity and have really... We' ; ve taken to heart you know, all of these lessons. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm, and I know you said that you know, when it comes to the redress movement, you might not have found as many artifacts yet or your family doesn' ; t maybe have as many... Maybe didn' ; t have as many conversations with your grandparents about that. But are there any other memories that your aunts and uncles or parents have shared with you related to your grandparents' ; involvement in redress? Whether that' ; s you know, the meetings that were held or you mentioned your grandpa practicing his testimony over and over. Can you think of any others that' ; s, that have been shared? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah I, let' ; s see. So my mom spent a lot of time with my grandpa too, and I tried to ask her. He' ; s her father-in-law, but still they spent a lot of time together. So, I tried to ask her if she remembered anything and the memories she had, because my parents are musicians, she said that my dad and my mom went to Washington, D.C. I don' ; t know what the timeline was, but it happened to perform. My dad was a singer and my mom' ; s a concert pianist at a ceremony around redress at some point. And I' ; m not sure you know, what the details were or even if the timelines match, but I know that that was something you know, that was a big deal for them in our family, that my family, you know, the next generation too, got to participate in that way because of what you know, my grandfather in that generation had passed on to us through redress. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. And I even found a poster of your parents' ; names performing at some sort of local event too in Chicago. So, it seems like they might' ; ve been involved kind of as performers in a bunch of the NCJAR-related things which is neat. Did your mom say anything about how she felt personally or how your dad might' ; ve felt about the redress movement as the younger generation? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): My dad, I don' ; t know that he' ; s spoken to me directly about redress per se. I know that he, he was angry, you know obviously about what happened to our family and to his parents and held that anger for a very long time. I think when it came to redress, I just honestly I remember him saying like, " ; We should have gotten more. We should have asked for more." ; And I can' ; t argue with that, I think that his generation too was raised like in the civil rights movement and movements looked really different. So I do remember my dad saying that like it' ; s not enough. And I think he took many actions in his life to demonstrate that and to say what the government did is unacceptable. It' ; ll never be okay even with an apology. That' ; s really the stance he took and he made it, yeah, he would talk to us about that a good amount actually. So I' ; m not sure if he had memories necessarily from redress or you know other insights, but I do know that that overall, is how he felt about what happened and the outcomes. He felt that the government needs to do more. And I think he respected and appreciated all the organizing efforts of the community, absolutely, but he was, he still held a lot of anger towards the U.S. government, which I think, again, as I get older, I really do understand that perspective as well. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. One thing I wanted to ask about is you know, when we think about artifacts from redress, the digitized videos of the testimonies are, are one of those main kind of artifacts we have to understand what happened during the hearings and, and also people' ; s personal stories. And several people have mentioned to us that your grandpa' ; s testimony really stood out to them. When they think about memories from those hearings, like they said it was Sam Ozaki' ; s testimony that they, that stuck with them. And so, I was curious about you know, whether you' ; d watched that testimony and how it made you feel to, to hear what your grandpa said, especially that you know, the fact that he kind of did adapt what he said in the moment too and was a little bit more spontaneous with his message. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): I' ; ve watched it many times, yeah. And sometimes when I miss him I will just pull it up and watch it as well because, yeah his voice is very calming to me and I think to a lot of people. I don' ; t know how to describe the way he can move a room, but it was really powerful. And that testimony definitely demonstrated that. I read the one that he had on paper, which was equally as moving but different than the one that he shared in that room. And yeah I mean for me, it makes me really proud. I was close to him, but it makes me proud to be his granddaughter. I think the way, at the end of the testimony, he kind of demanded these things and said why. I think he made really like poignant points about the demands that they were asking for. And I sometimes watch that speech and try to learn from it about how to, myself, you know, be a better public speaker and all of these things. The things in that testimony that resonate with me though are the moments that are, where he does share more about like their life before because he was like a very respected, like well-spoken person, but also didn' ; t necessarily share vulnerabilities in, in a certain way I guess. So, to hear him share some of the things in that testimony moved me the most. I' ; m trying to remember. Sometimes I get confused of what was on paper and what he said in the room because I' ; ve read and heard both so many times. One thing, I don' ; t know, maybe this was the one that he wrote on paper, but he did write things and probably say things that this was the start of like family separation because families were separated during that time. For me, I' ; m a social worker and that idea in general is why I, I have done a lot of the work that I' ; ve done. He' ; s also talked about like these tiny moments where he remembers their dog Ichi running after the car when they had to leave to go to camp or, again, like his father being taken away. There' ; s a line in one of his testimonies that he writes... Like to see his father, go from a productive person to someone that he, that didn' ; t quite know how to like contribute anymore was something heartbreaking for my grandpa. And I, yeah definitely feel those things the most when it comes to what he shared. Katherine Nagasawa: If you can, I know obviously, it' ; s kind of, the lines are blurred between what was said and what was written, but if you could summarize what you feel the differences were between kind of the prepared testimony and the more spontaneous one. How would you characterize that? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): I think, I think in the written testimony he had a lot of, shared some vulnerable moments. I still think that he did that in the spoken testimony he gave as well, but I felt more of an urgency in the spoken testimony. I don' ; t know if it' ; s because he was saying those things... No, I think it was his voice. Like he obviously adapted that for the moment and knew who he was talking to. He refers to very specific people and says that, " ; I' ; m sorry they couldn' ; t be with us" ; you know, because he wanted to look them in the eye and share his testimony. So, I think there' ; s some urgency in that that is possibly why people felt moved. I think the demands that he shares at the end were probably in both, but in the spoken one, testimony, felt very compelling that he was able to look you know, these folks in the eye and say what you did was wrong. I forgot what the quote is at the end, but he says like, America needs to make this right. And yeah so hearing that' ; s, that has stayed with me as well. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you know if he or his kids ever talked about his decision to change the testimony the day of? Like do you remember him talking about what compelled him to do that or if any of your parents or aunts and uncles ever discussed that, that decision? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): I don' ; t know the details of that, unfortunately. I do think It' ; s interesting that my uncle said that he heard my grandfather practicing you know, leading up to the date over and over and over again, the same speech. And then that he decided to change it in the moment, must have, he must have been moved by being in that space. I can only imagine I wasn' ; t there obviously, but by being in that space with other Japanese Americans that experienced the same thing, I can imagine maybe he was moved after hearing the other folks speak right before him about their experience as well. And he took that opportunity you know, to make sure yeah, that his words held weight and that they really stayed with the commission that was listening. So I wish I knew that story more in depth but that' ; s only what I can imagine of, of how he delivered that. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it makes me so curious to see the written version. I wonder if it' ; s at the JACL or if you happen to have a, a copy, I' ; d be really curious to read the differences between kind of more of the personal vulnerable you know, moments versus maybe the argument he was trying to make in the, in the recorded one. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah I, Bill Yoshino sent it to me years ago, so I can share that with you all. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay. That would be, that would be amazing. I think one of the last questions from my end is just, you mentioned this earlier, the DePaul event just right after 9/11 and how you remember your grandpa standing up and sort of speaking and urging Japanese Americans to stand in solidarity with the Muslim community. I also remember you said that that was one of the first moments when you started connecting the story of Japanese American incarceration with more broad themes of racial violence or racial injustice. So, can you talk to me about kind of how you made that connection from-- and maybe the role that your grandpa played in helping you see and frame our experience that way? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): He said that we need to stand with our Muslim, Sikh-- Muslim and Sikh brothers and sisters. That is just like a line that is burned into my memory. And again, when he spoke, people listened. I didn' ; t know what that meant to me at the time. But I think it' ; s a memory that not only I have, but I think other folks who are my age, they' ; ve mentioned it to me, which I think is really interesting. I go back to that when I, I guess just like as I' ; ve grown up to try to figure out what you know, my own path is in life. I have been involved in community in a lot of ways too, and I think, or I know that that' ; s because of them. They really taught us that that is the most important thing to be part of your community, you know, to care for your family, and to yeah just stand up for what you think is right in you know, whatever ways that looks. So I go back to that moment and that quote as the time where you know, in moments that are tough for me, where it' ; s really hard to make a decision or I feel burnt out, or I don' ; t have, yeah just the energy and I don' ; t want to take a stand. I think about what my grandfather said and that... I mean even now, yeah like it' ; s a privilege to not take a stand, I think, and to say that we' ; re not going to do anything or to make that choice for myself. You know and sometimes I do make that choice because I' ; m tired or because you know I' ; ve been in this work for a little while. But that quote and him saying it, like his voice in my head just constantly rings with you know, how can I be better or how can I make sure that I' ; m showing up for other folks too. Because I know that my community you know and the Japanese American community has shown up for me in many ways too, so through my life-- Again, I' ; m a social worker, but I' ; m more community based. I' ; ve also been a community organizer working with elders, doing things like healing circles during the pandemic. And I think the way that he has cared for others has really rubbed off on me and I think my siblings as well. So yeah I' ; m glad I mean that I have a moment that has resonated with me and has helped kind of guide me through my life. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. Mary, I' ; ll let you pick it up from here, kind of talking about maybe Becky' ; s more current roles you know in racial justice movements and whatnot. Mary Doi: Okay, thanks Kat. One thing, as I' ; m listening to you, I realize that a way that you have been privileged is that you have the intimate knowledge of your grandfather, whether it comes through a diary, or whether it comes through just the tone he used in the words that he said at the testimony. And that to me, that' ; s another gift that he gave to you. You know and, and I think maybe people seek that when they go to Manzanar or Rohwer, that they seek this kind of emotional connection, which short of having a diary or hearing your grandfather' ; s voice at a hearing, is so hard to get, it' ; s so hard to claim. You know it is so hard to understand what did they feel like, not just the facts of, not just the chronology of how they got here, but what the experience meant in their larger life. So I really, I thank you for saying those kinds of things ' ; cause making me think of him. And you' ; re right, I don' ; t know how to describe your grandfather' ; s voice. It was deep, it was sonorous, it was not, it was-- It was angry without being loudly angry. You know and, and I' ; m one of the fans of, of Sam Ozaki in the community. And I just wonder, I know that you have uncles, another uncle in Chicago, and cousins in the neighborhood or in the area. Do you know if they were equally involved in redress as your dad? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Oh, let' ; s see. I know that my-- So my grandfather had siblings who were equally as amazing, I hear. We were younger, so you know, I knew them from family parties, but we didn' ; t spend as much time with them. They had large families as well. So I know that they played different roles in the Chicago American Japanese, you know Japanese American community, but I' ; m not quite sure what it looked like during redress for his siblings at the time. I wish I did though. Yeah. Mary Doi: Yeah, okay. Well I guess I' ; m interested in moving into the kinds of, the other kinds of experiences that you' ; ve had with people that make you involved in issues of racial violence you know, because of what happened to Japanese Americans. Can you think of other kinds of ways that you connected the dots and, and show us what solidarity means? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Sure. I became a social worker because of something that my aunt, my grandfather' ; s sister said to us when we were on a road trip to California. She lives in California, Auntie June, we call her. She and my grandpa were there and it was one of the rare times that they were together. And she told me, you know I was asking, " ; What do you know about, you know or-- Can you share memories from childhood about you know, grandpa?" ; And she said, it was really sad actually, because she said once incarceration happened and they were sent to camps, they barely saw each other because everyone was like separated in a different way. You know, one sibling went to college outside of the camps. They were different ages too. My grandfather decided to enlist and go-- He was in the 442. And she, I' ; m not sure if she stayed in the camps, I think she also was able to leave to pursue education. But she said that they don' ; t have memories together because after that time they all went to different cities. So, she was in California and he went to Chicago. And the idea of, that was the first time the idea of the camps forcing family separation, whether it was, you know... Well they were intentional, the camps were intentional, but I mean whether that product was intentional or not. That' ; s the first time that idea even came to me when she said, " ; I didn' ; t really know him because, because we were separated at the time. And from that point, didn' ; t live together." ; So for me, I became a social worker, I think, to kind of explore that and the idea of what does intergenerational trauma look like because especially from my grandmother' ; s story where she lost her father you know, weeks before the camps closed, I' ; ve just wanted to understand what that looked like and more so what does intergenerational healing look like when things like racial violence, forced separation and all of these things are forced upon an entire community. So that' ; s why I went to pursue social work. But what came from that is that I ended up becoming a community organizer for a few years, working with elders, really with the goal of making sure that people could age in place in their homes with dignity because we helped care for my grandparents as they aged, and they were so you know, close and important to me, and I knew how important it was for them to be in their homes too. So I think that the lessons of incarceration are many fold and I' ; ve taken you know, many different things from that. But the pieces around like healing and what does it mean to be able to keep families together, especially in this time when there' ; s so many policies that are you know, reenacting what happened to Japanese Americans in this day and age, it' ; s just really sad and ridiculous. Those are the things that I' ; m trying to combat and also trying to help folks heal from, I think, is really what I' ; ve taken from, from this terrible experience my grandparents went through. Mary Doi: I know that other Yonseis like you-- Ty Yamamoto: Sorry can we pause for just one moment? Mary Doi: Okay. I hear a humming every once in a while. Like " ; mmm, mmm, mmm" ; . Ty Yamamoto: Do you know where you' ; re hearing it from? Mary Doi: No. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): It could be my, I think my phone hummed for a second. Let me make s-- I don' ; t know how to turn off the vibration. I' ; ll just put it over there. Ty Yamamoto: Yeah it' ; s, it' ; s coming from the microphone. Ty Yamamoto: Yeah, you can go ahead. Mary Doi: Okay. We were talking a little bit about intergenerational trauma and healing circles. I' ; m still wrapping my head around the concept of intergenerational trauma and healing circles. So you gave an example when we had a phone call about how you' ; re working with I guess the Jane Addams Senior Caucus to do healing circles for seniors during the pandemic. Can you explain a little bit about that? I want to hear what a healing circle... What their goals are and how you, how you conduct one, and then how you know if you' ; re successful. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Oh, okay. Let me know if it' ; s okay, Ty? Ty Yamamoto: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we' ; re good. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): So during the pandemic, I was a community organizer with elders and we lost a lot of people, especially at the start of the pandemic when COVID-19 first hit. And it was hard to know what to do because we couldn' ; t gather right? Folks, these are mostly seniors living in Chicago public housing and folks felt very isolated. So the first thing that folks wanted was to be able to celebrate the life of Frank Hill, who was someone you know, that we all really cared about and loved. And he passed unexpectedly when COVID began. So, we held a virtual memorial for Frank and invited you know, the leaders and the members of the organization and also Frank' ; s family members if they wanted to come. We shared stories about him. This is all on Zoom. And we you know, tried to collect photos of Frank through his life and, and showed those as well. That memorial, because folks couldn' ; t gather in person like we would have in any other scenario, I think really was impactful or healing for, for our members. So, what came from that is we started healing circles that the members themselves led. So I was just there to help like organize and guide them through that. And healing circles you know, are an indigenous practice where, again, in any other scenario, you would be in person. Often they would happen like around a, a fire, things like that. So, we adopted-- adapted them for our members and the members were the ones who were leading these circles and facilitating them. I think the goal with these was to like decrease isolation for folks and help them you know through that feel connected and feel like they have a space that they could go to, to talk about the hardships or trauma that they were facing during the pandemic. That, that was pretty much simply how they were born. So we would hold one every month and invite community members who are mostly elders, but then eventually like more and more folks came to join, and then more and more folks were the ones to organize them, so it was you know passed on. I' ; m hoping they still exist. You know, even after I left the organization, I still keep in touch with folks too. But that to me was really important and special because I think you know, in community organizing, for that purpose, we had a lot of things that we wanted to achieve. Obviously, passing policies at the state level. We also worked with organizations on the national level around care and like family policies. Again, making sure elders or people could age with dignity in their homes. But that, the healing circles in particular, I think helped people feel like a different level of care. They helped people feel connected in a way where our movements, like our campaigns or phone banking or, or having rallies, didn' ; t necessarily? And I think they really built a community through that. So in thinking about Japanese American incarceration and intergenerational healing, to me, I think the most valuable thing in our community is that we' ; re intergenerational and that we have these stories that are passed along you know between the generations and have learned... Like I' ; ve learned so much, obviously, from my grandparents and other folks in the community. So to me, healing circles are a space to share that and also to be open about like the harm that was caused during incarceration and the ways that it has impacted us you know, generations down the line. I think obviously, as a social worker, for me, it' ; s really important, and just like a community organizer, for folks to feel like they have a space to talk about that because I think for a long time, you know mental health was just something that folks could not talk about or it' ; s been taboo. I think that now that that narrative is changing a bit and I would like to see our community be able to engage in conversations that are probably very uncomfortable and really hard to have. But in the end, I think the goal would be that they are healing for folks to be able to just say the ways that incarceration has impacted us and our families because you know, I, I think the model minority myth has like, has been placed upon the Japanese American community, but there are folks struggling in many ways. And to me, that is really important to talk about. Mary Doi: Thanks, Becky. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah. Mary Doi: I' ; m also interested if you' ; ve participated in any movements around redress and reparations for other communities. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Mmm, mm-hmm. I... Let' ; s see... I think, so the beginning of COVID... Let' ; s see... Yeah, so much has happened. Just yeah, the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, so many, so many other people. I' ; d say I haven' ; t actively participated in a way that I would like to. I' ; ve been part of, you know I' ; ve attended like meetings. I know Evanston just passed reparations for African Americans as well. So I' ; ve been in some conversations but I wouldn' ; t say that I' ; ve taken any like lead roles in those spaces. I' ; ve really just tried to learn as much as I could to understand the reasons why we were able to receive reparations but like Black folks and African Americans have not been able to. I think it' ; s interesting the way that the language was written in our-- you know the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 to say, to basically say that this is only for Japanese Americans and we' ; re not setting a precedent for African Americans. So I think to me, I' ; m still trying to learn how to show up in that space and for reparations for African Americans yeah, in a way that, I don' ; t know where I could feel like I' ; m supporting. Yeah, I don' ; t have a great answer but-- Mm-hmm. Mary Doi: Do you feel that there are Sansei who also have that sort of stance about showing up for others? When you think about your aunts and uncles or other Sansei that you know, is this, is this something that' ; s much more generational and it' ; s a Yonsei effort, or you know, what' ; s your opinion. Or even of your grandparents' ; generation, do you feel that showing up in support and solidarity is something that you see in older generations? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Mm-hmm, yeah. Well I worked, since I worked with elders in Chicago, who would be like the Nisei generation, technically. I mean, I think yes, I, I think it depends on the person, but I' ; ve also, especially during COVID times and with everything happening in movement spaces, like all the protests that have happened over the years too, I do think that... I know that the Yonsei generation and even younger than me really do try I think to be part of other community spaces and show up. I mean I do think my grandparents like made those relationships as well and tried to do that. I think it' ; s hard to say... I know my dad, my aunt and my uncle cared about that as well but I' ; m not sure... I don' ; t know what it looked like for them necessarily. So I think that it' ; s-- Yeah, I don' ; t know, because I don' ; t want to categorize a whole generation. You know what I mean? Mary Doi: That' ; s completely fair. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Sure, sure, sure. Mary Doi: I think you' ; ve given us an indication of how your grandpa' ; s you know work and actions and words drew you to social work and the kinds of things you do. But I' ; m also interested in other experiences you may have had. I know you were in the first cohort of Kansha. I know that you probably are a JACL Chicago member because you work for this organization. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yes. Mary Doi: So can you talk a little bit about those kinds of experiences? And then I' ; m really interested in the question of how does repair happen? What does it look like for the Japanese American community? So let' ; s talk about your experiences first and then move into how does repair happen, what does it look like? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Okay. I participated in the Kansha Project, the very first Kansha Project in 2012. And you know, prior to that, I was involved in the Japanese community, but more so just by, you know through my grandparents like attending events that they would take us to. I didn' ; t, I can' ; t necessarily say that I had my own connection to my generation before the Kansha Project because we didn' ; t have like first cousins who are Japanese American. We don' ; t have any it' ; s, just me and my siblings. So, Kansha was the first time I was really in a room with other like Yonsei or, or folks in my generation who were Japanese American. And it was really powerful. I think I built relationships from the Kansha Project. You know, we traveled to Little Tokyo, learned about incarceration, but really meaningfully also went to Manzanar incarceration site. And that' ; s just an experience I can' ; t... We do it every year but I can' ; t describe like the connection that I feel I have to the folks that I went on the trip with. It' ; s like, it' ; s been over 10 years you know, for us and I still feel like I can talk to one of them and it' ; ll feel the same. Like I, I think the Kansha Project for me forged really strong connections with folks that are still you know, in the community. And if not, like we still keep in touch or I keep in touch with a lot of them. So that was really meaningful for me to be able to start building my community. And from there I was involved in the Kansha Alumni Leadership Board, which is a group of alumni who plan the Kansha Project each year. And this year we brought that back for the ALB to happen and for them to plan the trip too. I think it' ; s been really full circle for me to come back as a JACL Chicago staff member as well, after all these years. I, I did serve on the board for a few years. I' ; ve been involved with like the OCA/JACL summit. I worked for other community Asian American organizations like Advancing Justice and OCA. But to come back to JACL for me just feels yeah very full circle. That I' ; m kind of living out my grandparents' ; legacy by you know working with our community in this way. And to me it was important to you know, go through all those programs with JACL Chicago, build my community, like take a step back for a little bit and then come back as I now have a baby. For Kai especially, to be raised in this community, that really is the most important thing to me and why I decided to you know, join the staff at JACL too. Mary Doi: Well using that as a springboard, your, your past experiences and the new ownership that I think you feel being part of the community on your own terms, not as Sam Ozaki' ; s granddaughter. I' ; m still interested in, do you think repair for, for the incarceration experience has happened? What does it look like? Where should it move? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Mm-hmm, I think that redress was a huge feat and a very important one. I' ; m really, as an organizer myself, completely impressed by the steps and the movement that had to happen for folks of that generation to pass that, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 for our community. I think a lot of people needed that apology, formal apology from the government. You know, $20,000 is something, I agree with my father it' ; s not... It' ; s hard to monetize but I think my grandfather also said you know, money is the American way and that' ; s what the government cares about, so we need to put a number to something. I have heard other versions of what redress or reparations could have looked like, which did include kind of like a mental health lens of folks getting like social services and things like that too. And that is the piece for me, that I think has been missing. I think there' ; s organizations in our community that have done an amazing job with filling in those gaps. But I do think that repair can still happen in like an emotional, like psychosocial lens of folks just feeling like they can talk about the experience and learn from it. And also, again, talk about the hard uncomfortable things that I don' ; t think everyone has gotten the space to talk about yet. And I do see a lot of energy from folks not just in my generation but beyond to create space for that at this time. And you know, healing means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Healing circles are not the answer for everybody but I think like opening that door to give people the opportunity to just say like their reality of what happened and the harm that it has caused is a really important start for our community. So that' ; s kind of the direction that I' ; m hoping to help foster you know, in my time, or as you said, not just as like Sam and Harue Ozaki' ; s granddaughter but like for what I would like to achieve in my own name as, as well and for my son. Yeah. Mary Doi: Yeah. I love how you said that the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was really necessary. That again, I, I agree with that. My mother really, the apology was really necessary for my mother. But I' ; m wondering if certain institutions like the government can take repair only so far, and that there are other levels of harm that were caused that have to have other ways of addressing. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Right. Mary Doi: Do you, can you think of other, other ways that you' ; ve seen this being addressed? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah. I think the strategies... You know at the beginning of the war when folks were being put into the camps, all the way to redress and beyond that even within the community, I know that there are differences in what that looked like and maybe some repair that needs to happen there between individuals but also like community organizations. And I think like we' ; ve been on the road to do that and that it' ; s really important because to me as, even though I' ; ve you know kind of been raised in the community, as someone who has taken a step back and is coming back in, I think it' ; s just clear to me that we all have the same goal, you know that we are all fighting for the same thing for our community and beyond that. So, I think there' ; s repair that could happen between, you know whether it' ; s national or local levels, just like between organizations and things that could you know, be left in the past. But I do say that as someone who like recognizes that those things were hard for folks and I don' ; t want to dismiss that either, I just would love to be part of finding out what it could look like to repair relationships in that way. Mary Doi: So if you took a, maybe more, maybe made it more abstract than just organizational discord and you think about your own self, have you, do you feel that you have repaired from your grandparents' ; experience, do you feel that you' ; re still in the process of being healed? And if so, what needs to be healed still? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah I am. I don' ; t know if there' ; s an end goal to healing, I think, is one piece that I am realizing as we' ; re talking. I have seen ways that the trauma showed up for my grandparents and I' ; ve seen ways that it has showed up for definitely my father and his siblings. Different, you know, it has looked different. And I definitely also see the ways that for me and my siblings, the impact of the harm that was caused from incarceration has trickled down to us too. So I think-- Yeah. Mary Doi: If you had to summarize the different generational responses, is there you know, a brief sentence or two that you could give? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): In terms of like the ways that it has looked, or? Mary Doi: Yes, yes. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Sure. Let me think. Mary Doi: If you want to come back to that at the end, you know, you can mull that over a little bit. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Sure. Yeah. Mary Doi: I' ; m going to interject, as a, not as an interviewer, but as a person. You know, I see that repair still happens through efforts like Duncan Williams' ; Ireicho, the naming of everybody. That this is a, another way to repair. To put individuals in the camps, not just 120,000. But to put you know, Kazuyuki Doi into that name, list of names. So I see that that is an artistic way. You know, I' ; m sure that there are many other ways, even, even reclaiming aspects of Japanese culture, but making them Japanese American. And I think of taiko as an example of that. You know it has roots in Japan, but JA taiko is very different than even contemporary taiko in Japan. You know, but I watched this really interesting little NHK piece on a museum that was destroyed during the great earthquake tsunami in Japan in 2011 in the Tohoku Region. And one of the things that the only curator who' ; s still left has said was that as he' ; s seeing his city being re, rebuilt, that the infrastructure has come back and now people seem maybe able to face the emotional harm that was done by seeing their city devastated, losing family, losing friends. And he said that one way he thinks that emotional repair can happen is through cultural assets. And I' ; m thinking that assets are not just things but they' ; re also relationships like you' ; ve talked about repairing community relationship at the organizational level. But then I' ; m thinking that heck, Ho Etsu Taiko is much about repair because it can claim your own history, your own culture back you know, as having the fishing net that was destroyed in the Tohoku earthquake. So, it' ; s really opened my mind about what repair looks like, how many different realms repair can happen in? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah. And that it' ; s different for everyone too. Yeah. Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah I think, you know, what Kat asked me about the artifacts in my home, to me that is for me a way of healing just to be able to hold on to something tangible from beyond my life you know and yeah be able to share that with other people, that is repair. I think for a while, I was doing organizing around language justice too. And I can' ; t speak another language so people are like, " ; Why do you care about this?" ; But to me it is what you' ; re saying it is, the fact that the Japanese language was taken from my family. And as Kai is old-- or you know grows up, I really feel that absence of you know, he could have had this piece of his culture, but it was literally taken from us. So, I want him to be able to learn that, like to go to Tampopo Kai, JASC' ; s you know, program or for my mom and aunt to speak to him in Tagalog. We' ; re also Filipino. So yeah, I agree. I think it could look different in tangible ways and more abstract ways and relationships as well. Mary Doi: Right and that, that' ; s a new way of thinking for me. So, as a Sansei who is like, " ; What the heck is intergenerational trauma? What does repair look like?" ; I' ; m hopefully making it clear in my own head to me. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah, I love that. Mary Doi: Thank you so much for all of this. Do you have any final thoughts or reflections? Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Let' ; s see. I am... You know, we talk about Kansha a lot, but I am really grateful for past generations and all the work that it took. I know how hard organizing is. So, to pass something like redress or the Civil Liberties Act of this magnitude, I have so much respect for that, it' ; s unfathomable, honestly, and especially you know in today' ; s age, I think. There' ; s still a lot of lessons to learn from the act itself, but also the strategy and the amount of community relationships and organizing and just thought behind being able to pass something like that. I... I don' ; t know, I have high hopes for this country and for us to be able to continue to pass policies that are positively life-changing for folks around things that we' ; ve talked about, like racial injustice or family separation. To me, it does feel very personal too because I have a child now and everything feels different. To be able to pass on these lessons and like the legacy that my grandparents and past generations, it' ; s all like, has been passed down into my son Kai. It' ; s kind of amazing to see. So I, yeah, I am hopeful for the future and what it looks like and all the things we' ; ve learned from that. Mary Doi: Great. Thank you so much, Becky. This was wonderful. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah, thank you all. Mary Doi: Any, any more comments, Kat? Katherine Nagasawa: No, just a lot of appreciation, Becky. And just wanted to say that I had photocopied a bunch of documents to share with you kind of related to your grandpa' ; s application for testimony and some flyers and stuff. And I, I meant to bring them in person when we were going to do the interview in February, but I can either scan them and email them or if you wanted to send me your mailing address I could mail them too. Mary Doi: Oh cool okay. Katherine Nagasawa: But yeah. And then if-- Mary Doi: That' ; s awesome. Katherine Nagasawa: ...you wouldn' ; t mind forwarding the written testimony that Bill sent you, that would be also really interesting to compare the two, the two versions. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah. Thanks, Kat. Great. Katherine Nagasawa: But thank you so much. Mary Doi: And I found something that you may not know, but Studs Terkel interviewed your grandfather in that-- Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah, I have the book. Mary Doi: ..." ; Hope Dies Last" ; . Yeah Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): They spelled his last name wrong, very disappointing, but I do have that. Mary Doi: Yeah, okay. I' ; m glad you have it because it' ; s like, oh, I remember that Studs Terkel interviewed somebody. I' ; m glad it was your grandfather. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): Yeah. It was a good one. But I' ; m like, oh yeah, they spelled his name. O-S-A-K-I. Like so close. But yeah, thank you so much. Mary Doi: Yeah, well, thank you. Rebecca Ozaki (Becky): I was-- Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Footage may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=OzakiRebecca20230316.xml OzakiRebecca20230316.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/browse?tags=Series%3A+Redress
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Ozaki, Rebecca (3/16/2023)
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Rebecca Ozaki, a yonsei born and raised in Chicago, discusses her parents' and grandparents' legacy and the impact of their activism and community involvement on her life. She shares memories of her grandparents and her own experiences learning about their incarceration and their role in the redress movement. She reflects on her grandfather, Sam Ozaki's, testimony at the CWRIC hearings at NEIU andrecalls the power of his voice then and in later years. Connecting her family's legacy to her own training as a social worker, her experiences supporting healing circles for isolated aging adults during the pandemic, and her participation in the Japanese American Citizens League and pan-Asian groups such as OCA and Asian American's Advancing Justice, she shares the many ways in which her family has inspired her to engage in community organizing, elder care, and intergenerational healing efforts. Living in what was her grandparents' house and contemplating the future as a new mother, she expresses gratitude for the work of previous generations and hope for future generations.
Date
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2023-03-16
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video
FSF JACS
Series: Redress
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81ac01c60d46e0ecda2ac03640dc6930
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Title
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
Subject
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Japanese Americans--History.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the U.S. Department of the
Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations
expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended, the U.S. Department of the Interior
prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability or age in its
federally funded assisted projects. If you believe you have been discriminated against in any
program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please
write to:
Office of Equal Opportunity
National Park Service
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
Creator
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Publisher
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
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Doi, Mary
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Lin, Cori Nakamura
OHMS Object
https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LinCori20221215.xml
Interview Keyword
Yonsei
Activism
Nikkei Uprising
Tsuru for Solidarity
Social justice
Repair
Healing
Intergenerational trauma
Forced assimilation
OHMS Object Text
5.4 12/15/2022 Lin, Cori Nakamura (12/15/2022) 1:19:54 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection REDR Redress Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded, transcribed, and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Yonsei Activism Nikkei Uprising Tsuru for Solidarity Social justice Repair Healing Intergenerational trauma Forced assimilation Lin, Cori Nakamura Doi, Mary video 1:|11(9)|22(13)|35(11)|35(12)|61(6)|73(10)|97(12)|128(12)|146(11)|162(11)|174(4)|187(15)|201(7)|214(6)|230(12)|242(4)|257(10)|271(5)|281(11)|296(7)|312(5)|340(5)|360(2)|372(4)|387(5)|398(2)|410(3)|422(12)|434(12)|448(16)|460(15)|472(5)|487(12)|498(8)|508(5)|520(1)|531(7)|531(8)|554(1)|567(7)|587(9)|606(12)|629(5)|639(14)|650(15)|668(6)|680(5)|680(6)|702(7)|714(7)|732(8)|745(9)|759(11)|773(10)|784(7)|798(13)|809(11)|823(3)|836(9)|848(5)|862(2)|873(1)|894(8)|921(10)|947(4)|973(1)|1006(13)|1033(13)|1044(1)|1054(11)|1066(1)|1075(11)|1090(10)|1102(3)|1114(1)|1128(13)|1140(1)|1151(6)|1171(13) 0 https://vimeo.com/824867762 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/824867762" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; Cori Nakamura Lin, a yonsei born and raised in Chicago, discusses her evolving knowledge and understanding of Japanese American incarceration and redress history. She describes how her work on JASC's Uprooted and Reckoning projects deepened her awareness, particularly with regard to the diversity of opinions and approaches to redress within the community. She describes her artistic process and the significance of the creative choices she made for the two projects. A founding member of Nikkei Uprising, she also discusses the group's activism and connections between Japanese American experiences and present-day migrant family detention/separation and mass incarceration. On the topic of community healing and repair, she expresses a belief in additional opportunities for repair and the importance of reshaping the meaning of Japanese American identity. Mary Doi: Okay. Hi. Today is December 14th. This oral history is being recorded at the Japanese American Citizens League Chicago office, located at 5415 North Clark Street in Chicago. The interviewer is Mary Doi. The interviewee is Cori Nakamura Lin. 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. This makes for a cleaner transcript. Here' ; s some, little bit of direction. You can decline to answer any question without giving a reason, you can take breaks whenever you need them, and you can end the interview at any point. Please make sure your cell phone is silenced now. Okay, thanks. All right. Well, got through that. So let' ; s begin. I' ; m just going to talk a little bit about what this grant is. This is a JACS grant, the Japanese American Confinement Sites grant administered by the National Park Service. It' ; s funded to-- The project is a, a larger project that' ; s going to include a fictional narrative film and a K through 12 curriculum that tells the redress history through an innovative healing and justice framework. And these oral histories are going to be used to inform the narrative film, so you know-- And, and they will be reposited at the JASC Legacy Center. So that' ; s a little bit of background about the scope of the project. I was lucky to talk to you yesterday and really get a headstart on this, on this interview. We went over things like your age, occupation, your family' ; s history with camp, you know how you got involved, when you got involved in the community, and when you learned about incarceration and resettlement. Then we moved into discussion of redress, and you talked a little bit about that, but I for-- I didn' ; t have an opportunity to ask you about your reaction. When you heard that there was a redress movement, did you have any reaction or any thoughts about that? Cori Nakamura Lin: So I was thinking a little bit of our conversation that Mary and I had yesterday because there was another question that was similar to this, which was asking about my reaction to learning about incarceration overall. And in my response to that question, I had at the time been like I had known at a certain point but it didn' ; t really hit me until later of what it really meant, and I think my response to this one is similar in that I had grown up knowing that there was something, there was Redress that happened. I grew up kind of like knowing that my family had talked about reparations and we had like a few items of art pieces, Japanese art pieces, and a big wooden chest in my home that my family called our like reparations chest and our like reparations screen. And that was kind of like, I knew that reparations had happened, but I didn' ; t understand the full impact of what both reparations meant as like a deep community harm or what that meant for my family to have received that until much later. So even as a child, I think I knew that Japanese-- that we had gone to camp and reparations happened, but it probably wasn' ; t even until like my twenties that it was really starting to sink in and contextualize within the context of like American history. And then beyond, like even within that, the Japanese American Chicago community being a distinct and unique thing and understanding the impact that resettlement had within the Japanese Chicago community I think was later in my twenties. And I think that because of like that very long drawn out, knowing what happened and then understanding the significance of that later, I feel like I didn' ; t have like an immediate reaction. Like I can' ; t tell you kind of like, I was happy or I was sad, but what I have now is kind of this like really slowly like built up understanding of like, I had all this surface level understanding of things that I felt like were impacting me, but now tying each of those, like giving them each a little root that links down into the traumas that happen in our community and what trauma healing looked like, like that, now I feel like I was like, oh, now I have an actual understanding of what happened to our community. So in some ways, like my general reaction is like sometimes I feel stupid. Like I do often times feel like dumb for not knowing these things that feel really important to my life or that it took me a really long time to, to learn about them. I, like I had the internet, I had access to all this information, but feeling like it took a really long time for that to build up in my understanding and comprehension of what the Redress full movement was, like both of its impact and like each of the components and historical pieces and organizations that were a part of that. But I' ; m trying to kind of address that feeling of ignorance by understanding that a lot of this knowledge has been held from us. Like in Illinois, before the TEAACH Act, like it wasn' ; t taught in schools. I was also homeschooled, so that' ; s not really an excuse. But so my, my mom you know, as a Sansei didn' ; t feel at that time that it was really important to share this story. And so I feel like those are all things that were factors from, yeah, assimilation and like her feeling of her own story that now we, we share and talk about it as important. So yeah, long story short, but like I, it really felt like it was a slow buildup of understanding that I feel sad about, but I' ; m also trying to just like acknowledge that that' ; s kind of the way that things go sometimes. Mary Doi: You know I realized I, I made an error here that I should actually touch upon some of these other earlier time periods. Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm. Mary Doi: And, and you don' ; t have to give verbatim descriptions-- Cori Nakamura Lin: Okay. Mary Doi: --but I know that you got involved in the community say, via your church, that you went to, CCP, Christ Church Presbyterian-- Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm, yeah. Mary Doi: --and you went there because? Cori Nakamura Lin: Of that my-- So I started, my first involvement in Japanese American community in Chicago was that I grew up going to a historically Japanese church called Church of Christ Presbyterian in North Park area. And my grandparents went there, my mom went there, my parents met at that church. My dad was not Japanese, but they met at this, yeah, Asian church that they started going to I think in like, maybe the eighties, seventies or eighties? And at that time were a lot of like social groups were kind of connected to the church, sports, Japanese sports groups. So that was kind of like the center of my family' ; s connection and involvement with the Japanese American community in Chicago, and that particular group, at least from my awareness, was not very politically involved and were not... A lot of the folks there had not been significantly involved in the redress movement. Mary Doi: So you, I believe you said that you went there from roughly first grade through fifth grade? Cori Nakamura Lin: To that church? Mary Doi: Yeah. Cori Nakamura Lin: No, I actually grew up going there my whole life. Mary Doi: Oh, your whole life, okay. Cori Nakamura Lin: Or, sorry, my whole childhood life until I left. Until I left. So, I, from basically birth until I was 18, I went to that church. Mhmm. Mary Doi: Okay. All right. Got it. And if you' ; re-- You' ; re about the same age as my daughter. Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm. Mary Doi: So you were born way after the redress movement. Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm, mhmm. Mary Doi: So it' ; s not something that you remember your parents doing, but it' ; s, it' ; s history to you. Cori Nakamura Lin: Yes, it is. Mary Doi: So then we talked about how and when did you learn about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, so can we review that a little bit? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah, yeah. So I guess I spoke about this before, but like I had grown up knowing that my grandfather, who was the only one of my grandparents who was incarcerated, my Grandpa Tom, was, that he was in camp. That was something that like my family kind of like colloquially talked about of like that time and then the time after. Like, we were in California and then we were in camp and then we were in Chicago, and that was kind of how... what I knew. Like I think it was probably in high school when I was like, oh, " ; Camp is something that was connected to the war" ; and that was not something that we had a choice in. And it wasn' ; t until maybe like my twenties that I was like, oh, this is actually something that is deeply impactful for all of the Japanese American community who were here during that time of incarceration, regardless if they were incarcerated or not. And then also like being like, oh, all of this feeling that I have around my Japaneseness is connected to the way that my grandfather was incarcerated and his feelings about America because of that incarceration and what happened after that. So it was like the same thing where it' ; s like I always grew up knowing that it happened, but my understanding and my deepening of what it truly meant and how it impacted me happened slowly over my teens and twenties. Mary Doi: So can you go into a little bit more detail about that, that growing awareness? Cori Nakamura Lin: Mmm mhmm, yeah! So I never did Kansha, but my little sister Kristi did participate in the JACL Kansha program, and I remember like that she did this a little bit before I moved back to Chicago. So like I think we had all kind of like understood now, like at this point, maybe like in the mid-2010s, like what the significance of incarceration was, kind of how assimilation had happened and why we grew up in the suburbs of Illinois... I mean, the suburbs of Chicago rather than in like, in a closer Japanese American community. But I remember learning like a few facts like while my little sister was going through Kansha. Things like you know, before... Sorry, I' ; m like losing my train of thought if I' ; m talking about resettlement or if I' ; m talking... Or is it like Resettlement, or Redress, or incarceration. But don' ; t worry, to talk about the impact of incarceration, that when folks were leaving, I remember learning, maybe not through Kristi, but through a workshop that someone did about mass incarceration and the, the links between mass incarceration and Japanese American incarceration, that when we left camp we had to sign like you know, these papers that said that we would do all of these things including like try to speak Japanese as little as possible and also like try to make the Hakujin like neighbors feel comfortable by not clustering together. So like all of these like coded languages that I saw in my head as like things that like people like my grandfather felt like were the right things to do, not just things that they were being made to do, but also like the right ways to do things, and that kind of like linked back to the way that I was raised where I felt like I was, it was very prioritized to become an American and to not speak Japanese. Which are things that I have a lot of grief about now in this life, but am now understanding that that grief comes from this kind of forced assimilation that happened upon, during World War II like anti-Japanese sentiment rather than the way that I grew up, a contextually disconnected from this history in the suburbs. I was just like, we just made this choice to be here and this is something that, that' ; s happened. But, so now I feel very comforted kind of linking the things that I feel like are the losses that I' ; ve experienced in my family to the losses that like lots of other people have. And maybe they don' ; t exactly look the same, but it' ; s something that we can kind of link to a common cause, which is the U.S. military. Mary Doi: So Cori, could you tell me a little bit more again about your experience being an intern working with refugee girls and how that impacted your understanding of your family' ; s history? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. Yeah. So when I was in college, I interned with a Chicago organization that works with girls who had recently immigrated to the United States from like a refugee context. And so it was like a youth program, so we' ; re teaching about curriculum, and doing like a mini U.S. history segment during the summer. I remember the teacher who I was working with really wanted to do a segment about Japanese American incarceration. And I was like, " ; Oh, yeah, like my grandfather was like there during that time. Like he' ; s actually in Chicago, like he could give a little video where he could share to the like, the young people specifically about his experience." ; And the teacher was really excited and she was like thrilled and she was like you know like, kept talking about how it was like such a big deal to be able to hear from like a survivor of incarceration, and I think that was the first time that I had like heard or like conceived of my grandfather as being like a survivor of incarceration and like understanding like how big of a deal that was and to be able to then see my grandfather, we just did it via like Zoom or Skype maybe at the time, but he shared like his experience and was able to like say it directly and the young people could ask like a few questions. I remember being like, understanding our story as being something significant and especially seeing that kind of linked to how these other young people were like you know have had all of these like very intense and recent war experiences themselves. But to just like see that being held as important things that kind of not necessarily are linked but are shared stories of experience in the United States that are significant, that felt really important to me, I think. Mary Doi: So can you talk a little bit more about how it felt important, kind of the dimensions or the ranges of emotion about learning, about the " ; Aha" ; moment that you had? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. I mean I think it' ; s like the, when I think about why does it feel different to have suddenly seen my grandfather as a survivor of incarceration is I think that the way, and this is something that I was sharing with Mary yesterday, is my grandpa was the youngest boy of his family and so he' ; s he will acknowledge this a little bit sometimes, but the more to other incarceree stories I hear from, it really feels significant that my grandfather had a lot of positive memories from his experiences of camp. Like he' ; ll talk about being on a baseball team, he' ; ll talk about being in Boy Scouts, he' ; ll talk about being able to be with all of his friends for the first time in like a camp, a truly camp-like setting for him. And a lot of the pressure and stress I think of subsisting and surviving for their family were put on his older sisters and his mother. And so for me, growing up without a lot of those other stories, I think as a child I had the idea that camp was this thing that just happened, much as like my grandfather lived in California, and then he lived at camp and then he lived in Chicago, whereas I think understanding that we do live with the impacts of incarceration, like I' ; ve grown up with the impacts of incarceration. And so, I feel like learning more about like what really happened beyond just from my grandfather' ; s perspective and seeing how other people were like, oh, that was a bad thing that was you know, monumentally and like fabric shifting for the Japanese Americans, it just felt maybe a little bit of relief. I think these questions about feelings are a little bit hard for me because in the moment I don' ; t think I even recognized that I was having a feeling at that time. Like it' ; s really me upon looking back and being like, wow, things have really changed in the last 10 years or in the last like five years, and I feel like grateful that I know and have experienced these things now. But like a lot of the changes of the way that I think and feel about incarceration have happened really, really small and really slow and my, sometimes my emotional reaction is like years after the fact that I learned that is like causing that reaction. Mhmm. Mary Doi: Yeah, I think that you know, while it may have a domino effect on your understanding of what this really meant, that that' ; s probably not unusual to not get it right away. Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm, I definitely didn' ; t get it right away. Like a lot of these things with my family, I didn' ; t, I didn' ; t get it. Mary Doi: Yeah. Thank you so much for talking about that. So when, as you were learning and understanding more about your family' ; s experience, how did this affect your identification, or how you self-identified, what you thought about yourself? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. So like, I' ; ve shared in different oral history pieces or at different points, but I' ; m mixed Taiwanese and Japanese American, and so I really grew up in the suburbs of Chicago disconnected to at least like strong incarceration context and history with the idea of, or really struggling with me being an Asian American just like period. And so it really wasn' ; t until in my teens and twenties that I was like really like grappling with the effects of incarceration and with the effects of the Japanese assimilation journey in the Midwest as a whole, which is not exactly the same as our incarceration trauma, but is like deeply connected to it. And that' ; s when I feel like I was able to start asking these questions that had been sitting with me for a long time about like, why am I this way with other Japanese folks? And being able to see in other Japanese Americans like the ways that assimilation or isolation or mixedness has affected them and kind of putting that in the context of Japanese imperialism that forces us to think that Japaneseness is one way and the U.S. militarization of you know Asians and white supremacy. Like asking those questions with people that I trusted with these big frameworks around it, that' ; s what finally helped me be like, oh, this is why it was so hard to feel Japanese is because the ways that I think Japan and the U.S. have set up to be Japanese aren' ; t the way that I am Japanese American or the way that my identities have kind of like culminated together. And so being able to talk to other people who didn' ; t fit into those boxes precisely were like, oh, yes, the box is fucked up. If I don' ; t, I don' ; t know if I could share this is where it, it is, but yeah, that, that I think was like the really big shift was like the, being able to do that within the last five years in this container. Mary Doi: That' ; s, that' ; s very illuminating. So we' ; re moving on now to the Resettlement era. So you mentioned that your dad, your grandfather, sorry, came from Amache to Chicago. Can you talk a little bit more about the resettlement era and your family' ; s history there? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. Yeah. So my, like I said, my grandfather was the youngest, and so we had I think a couple of uncles who did enlist and were in the, in 442. I think it was something that like his brothers or sisters had, were able to leave camp early because of school and then they settled in Chicago and were able to find some housing there. And I think it was not at the same exact time, but then my grandfather enlisted, he spent some time in the Navy, and then wanted to go, I think he ended up somewhere in the West and wanted to go to New York to go to school. He had his... what is it called, the... Katherine Nagasawa: The GI Bill? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yes. He had his GI Bill money and was wanting to go to photography school. He had been in the Navy as a photographer. And so then he was like taking the bus, didn' ; t have any money, got to Chicago, ran out of money there, like just kept going to like-- He heard on the street that some folks from camp used to like hang out at this bar, so he like went to that bar and then he ran into some folks that he like knew from camp. And they were like, " ; Oh, we' ; re all staying at this boarding house together." ; And he was like, " ; Oh my God." ; And they were like, " ; Okay, well--" ; The, the family who ran the boarding house met him and like, were like, " ; Okay, we' ; ll let you stay here." ; So then he ended up staying at that boarding house until he found a job I think through the JASC, and then he ended up staying here in Chicago and he never left. Well, he eventually moved back to the Bay after he retired. But that is how my grandfather came to Chicago is he basically tried to get to New York and then he got stuck. But yeah, he, he told me he slept in like a bus terminal for a little while and he like kept his bags in like a bus lobby. And he like basically waited around in Chicago until he found folks from camp and then they took care of him. Mary Doi: Wow. That' ; s a good story about social networking. Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. Mhmm. Katherine Nagasawa: Did he ever tell you the name of the boarding house he stayed at? Cori Nakamura Lin: No, but I' ; m sure he knows it. Like he still talks about the people. Like I asked him the other day a question about something and he was like, " ; Oh, it was like with this man and this man and this man, and we all stayed at the boarding house together." ; I was like, " ; Okay!" ; (Laughs) Mary Doi: Do you think you could ask him? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. Yeah. Mary Doi: Okay, and then you can tell us. Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm, yeah. Mary Doi: Yeah. And ask him the name of the bar that he went to. Cori Nakamura Lin: Okay, I' ; ll see, I' ; ll see if he knows both of those. Mary Doi: Yeah. Yeah. Cori Nakamura Lin: Wait, wait let me write it down. Mary Doi: Let' ; s see, what else did I ask you? I believe that you worked on a project with Katherine Nagasawa for the Japanese American Service Committee where you looked at Reckoning. What, what becomes a Reckoning digital exhibit. Can you tell me a little bit more about how you got hired and what that job entailed? And I' ; ll ask Kat if she has additional questions. Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. Okay. Let me think, how I got hired and then what did the project entail. So, I mean, I feel very lucky to have been brought onto the project. I was living in Minneapolis at the time that Kat first reached out to me. That, Kat had met, I believe, my older sister, Jami, at a, I believe maybe a JACL event or some sort of Japanese American creative community event and like, was able to get my information. And we met and talked and just, it seemed like it was a really good like, interests, creative styles right away. And so Kat did decide to bring me on to the project, and that was one of the first things that we worked on together before then doing the, we did the resettlement and reparations projects together. So, I believe at the beginning of when we first met, I was in Minneapolis, but by the time that I joined the project I had already moved to Chicago. And so working on that project was really fun. I look back a bit, like the first meetings that we were doing were just very like creative meetings before the pandemic, and then during the pandemic working with a lot of the interview and research material that Kat had done. And you know, Kat is like one of my favorite people to work with. She' ; s like such a talented producer, but I think also artistic director. So it was, it felt very strongly like a partnership of that I got to work very closely with the materials and even times like share feedback on wording that I felt like were the direction of Kat was leading the story. And then Kat was very involved in my illustrations as well as I was drafting up images. We also storyboarded and created kind of like a visual tone for both of the different projects together. Kat had so much feedback and like I, it was like very collaborative talking about images and pictures and facial expressions all along the way. Mary Doi: So did you come in knowing these histories? Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm. So that is a, a good question, and I felt differently about the resettlement versus the like fight for redress projects. Like I felt much more that I knew the resettlement story. Like it felt like the resettlement story in many ways was my... Different versions of what my family experienced. Kat like very carefully selected three different family experiences who had kind of like different reactions or emotional journeys or experiences with incarceration that she braided together. So they felt different but like compendium... Companion pieces? To what I' ; ve experienced. But the redress and the fight for redress felt very different. Like I knew that redress had happened and I knew that we had benefited from it and I knew that it was like a long journey that we had to like, in my head, members from our community had to like share their deepest stories and deepest traumas in front of the United States in order for us to get reparations, but that was kind of the extent of what I knew about it. So I think the things that I really gained was an understanding of the different branches of the fight, the legal, the research, the, the ones that were more, yeah like, judicial, and also like the different mentalities that folks had around it. That, I think it was really important for me to learn how in opposition more radical folks were to the idea of like yeah, asking for small reparations at one point, because I feel like that those are kind of conversations that I have now within Japanese American organizers is like, what is a concession versus what is real change, and to be able to really dig into the steps that folks made along the way and the ways that some things worked and some didn' ; t. But in some things, like you know the more people who are opposed to folks giving testimony, like that ended up being a really impactful thing. So I felt like I learned a lot of details and like applicable richness that I had no idea before the project. Mary Doi: So this is something that you, that Kat was your teacher in some respect, but in order to develop the images and maybe the narrative, you, you two collaborated on how it was going to be told? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yes. And so I think that what would happen is that Kat usually had all of the writing and research done, and in a lot of ways, this is how I work with writers, poets, or illustrators, is that they have, and Kat is really great at this, is having an idea of the arc of where the story is going to go and key points that she is trying to highlight. And so that' ; s usually where she would come with, I would come usually with, I, I wouldn' ; t say vibes, visual imagery like shapes, colors, tones, text that I think would like move the images in the same direction, and then together we would come up with something that we think could carry the visuals through. So for the first story of resettlement, we talked a lot about like what is like a key visual image that we could use and we landed on kintsugi, the idea of like visually it being very nice to have nice bold colors that we could then weave together with gold, and from a visual standpoint, me being like, yes, that' ; s like a very beautiful image, but then also culturally embedding the idea of like from brokenness, building something that is different and new and sometimes more precious. We thought that that really aligned with the, the idea of resettlement and the Chicago community. And then for the redress project, similarly, I think we went back and forth and shared a lot of ideas and then came up with the idea of your sense of story as a glowing orb inside of yourself. And so that story starting out as like a little burning flame inside of like the Issei and the Nisei and then being shone brightly out during the, the redress hearings and then that orb kind of being shared and igniting in others. Those are the ways that I think that Kat and I would go back and forth between images, story, and then creating a visual storytelling tool. Katherine Nagasawa: I just wanted to chime in with a question. Cori, why do you feel like it was stronger to land on more of an abstract concept like for visuals, and then also how did you build in animation and movement into the images and why did you decide on that? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. So I, I always love abstract symbols because I feel like as a storytelling tool in the ways that I want to tell story, I feel like they' ; re more impactful. Like I think that there' ; s something about the way that our brains can attach to symbols way more than they can to like concrete things, at least in the context of something that I think spans so much time, so many characters, so many people, and like even the way that like something as simple as a story can transform in myself like over the past five years. Like I think that it' ; s a really, really complex thing that we' ; re trying to make passable to people. We' ; re trying to like, take this like giant thing, which is our intergenerational trauma and how we' ; re dealing with it, and we' ; re trying to like make it something that we can pass around and like share with people and like be a little tool. And so in that way, I feel like an abstract symbol is very strong. The more simple it is, the more people can kind of like twist it in themselves, make it apply to them, and also... Yet change it and let it grow. I oftentimes think of for things like resettlement and redress, we' ; re taught, we' ; re telling stories through four, almost five generations sometimes, and I would like these stories to go for five generations in the future. And so if we' ; re going to do that, we need to really be pulling, I think, the spirit of the stories in a lot of ways and finding like great good ways to get like the, the details and the context and like the important information, but then also like have like easy things that we could like just share and pass on. So I think that that' ; s why I like having the depth of research in combination with illustrations that hold abstract symbols, ' ; cause I think they help us do both at the same time. And then similarly, we did add some animation to the redress project and I think that was like in one way something fun that Kat and I thought would be fun to do together, but I think adding a little bit of movement and just like I think, reactions, like that' ; s what a lot of the animations are, kind of showing people experiencing surprise or like having like a little bit of a tearful moment, and I think those things... I think about students and how we could share those. Like, I think it, it creates a little bit of a... Yeah, like a little piece that maybe can help people remember. Or, I don' ; t know, I' ; m a child of gifs and memes and stuff, so like having a, a little animated figure I think is just a good storytelling tool. Mary Doi: Kat, do you have anything else to ask? Katherine Nagasawa: No. Feel free to move into the next. Mary Doi: Okay. So let' ; s get back to the, to the last phase of this long arc of history, the redress movement. Can you tell me what you knew about it going in, say before you started to work with Kat on Reckoning and then what you came to learn and your reaction to what you were learning? Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm, yeah. I think before the Reckoning project, I had known very little about the redress movement. Like I knew that reparations happened and I knew that we had to, at some point someone fought for them, but I didn' ; t really know who did it and how. I think... Well, okay, and I, I knew that, that the hearings happened. In my head, I also didn' ; t know to what extent they happened in Chicago versus in New York or California. And so, I think the things that I had learned were some of the things that I shared, like I think about learning about the, the three different groups who were kind of heading the movement together, understanding how the JACL and JASC in Chicago were supporting or involved in those things at the time was kind of helping me weave and link my Chicago Japanese American involvement to kind of this like national experience of, yeah, I understand folks' ; opposition to the JACL more after learning about the redress movement. What else was I learning and feeling? I, I think I had, I remember feeling... I guess a lot of like appreciation and like the release of grief. Like I think that' ; s something that I, I knew before. Something that I knew before was that before the redress hearings, Issei and JA folks didn' ; t really talk about our camp experiences that much and that the sharing of them had been like a really big deal for folks to publicly and like with each other share our grief. And so I think that like, looking at the photos that Kat shared with me, seeing like a few, like hearing some folks talk about that time, and also like looking at folks being emotional, and also, yeah seeing photos of Chicago Japanese folks in seventies, eighties clothes, like I feel like all of those things together just like released a lot of grief in me that I have around stuff that is maybe not just incarceration related, but it' ; s like I feel like the JA community even now still endures a lot and we don' ; t really talk about the stuff that' ; s hard. And so that felt like an echo to me to see that. Like those are things I, I still think we should talk about-- that we, we should be doing more sharing emotion publicly. And then, what else was I learn-- Oh, yes. Learning a lot about the conflict between the groups and different mentalities, both of like a strategy standpoint and then also from a like, a personal standpoint. Like who are we appealing to when we' ; re asking for these things is a question that I have benefited from. Like I, I' ; ve benefited from JAs living in a context where America has acknowledged what they did to us was bad. That' ; s been my whole life experience. But to put myself in the place of someone where it was like, before that happened, would I even want that? Is that something that I need for resolution? " ; Is apology the thing that I need?" ; is, I think just like a really good question for me as an activist and as someone who is currently organizing, yeah, against whatever the government is doing in, in different contexts right now? Like I do believe that we should have reparations, but it' ; s also... Asking questions beyond what does it mean to get this apology? And those are things that I think I ask now. My grandfather has received his reparations, I' ; ve grown up after that fact where I am asking some maybe questions about like what do I, what do we as a people need from the United States of America? And yeah, I think to be able to ask those questions from this point here before reparations happened is just an interesting loop, time loop. Kat, I' ; m making a lot of hand motions, if that helps. Mary Doi: So you' ; ve mentioned the apology, is that all that reparations was? Cori Nakamura Lin: So, I think... Mary asked me this question yesterday, which was like, what was the most impactful part of redress? I shared that, I think for my family, when I talk to my grandfather about it, it seems like for him the apology and the national acknowledgement that incarceration was wrong, Japanese American incarceration was wrong was the most impactful to him. And I think he says that from a standpoint as someone who enlisted right after the war, someone who was, you know worked very hard but was able to find a lot of financial and business success for himself in Chicago. And so at the point when I think we received the reparations, he was a successful businessman. And so the finances, the money that they received felt important, it felt like an apology, it felt like a physical thing that we were given after so many-- everything was taken away. But now in his old age, the thing that he remembers is the apology. And that' ; s something that I see echoed a little bit in other folks in Japanese community that I talk to where it' ; s like, the money' ; s important, but the fact that we were publicly acknowledged as not having done anything wrong, that this was like a bad thing that happened to us and we overcame, that is the thing that seems to have really done like a conscious shaping thing for the Japanese American community that I also see as like... When I see non-indigenous or non-Black folks struggle with why we should give reparations or have any sort of things like, like Affirmative Action kind of things for folks who suffered a lot. It seems to come from a place of them really not understanding the harm, the harms that were done to folks and it seems like there' ; s this like, this victimhood that when you' ; re in the dominant culture it' ; s easy to apply upon people. And I feel like the thing that Japanese Americans reparations did, is it helped for us in a very small way flip that idea for both the public consciousness and our own that we were not, that we... Bad things were done to us and we didn' ; t deserve that, and that' ; s what I want for other people as well. Mary Doi: Great. So you' ; ve mentioned that you have things in your house that you call like the redress screens, the reparation screens, and the reparation chest. Do you think it came, do you think your family bought those with the money that they received or can you explain why you call them that? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yes. So I grew up, we have a beautiful ornate screen that has like some cranes on it, probably made out of shells or something. It' ; s like one of, in my head, when I grew up, one of like the Japanese-y things or pieces of furniture that we had. We grew up calling them, that screen as well as a chest that my mom has, a couple of chests, as our reparation furniture. My mom is a sansei, and so I think in the... Okay, tell me the dates, in the seventies, eighties, when they received the, the, the reparation money? Katherine Nagasawa: Nineties. Cori Nakamura Lin: Nineties, I' ; m sorry. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s okay. Cori Nakamura Lin: I' ; m really, really bad with dates. That wouldn' ; t make sense at all, what I said earlier. But in the nineties when they received the money, my mom got a little portion from her, from her grandmother and then got a larger portion from her father to, that he distributed for her and her siblings. And so using that money, she bought this, these yeah, the screen and then the chests. And I think for our family at the time, it was like we were a new family, she had like you know, recently bought a home, and so was, you know building her home with these things, but then I think for us, it' ; s also, yeah just like a, a memory piece of that those things are always kind of with us. But that, we don' ; t really talk about them like their reparations pieces. Like we don' ; t say like, " ; Remember the history of incarceration with this screen," ; it' ; s more of just like, " ; Oh yeah, that' ; s our Japanese thing that we got with our reparations money." ; Mhmm. Mary Doi: So in any sense, were these sacred objects? Like could you open the chest? Cori Nakamura Lin: No, they were like everyday use objects. Like they were really just like pieces of furniture in our house. And like yeah, we didn' ; t treat them with sacred story or anything, they just looked more Asian than some of the other things that I grew up in my suburban household. Mary Doi: So do you think-- Katherine Nagasawa: Sorry, I was just going to say, the first illustration of reckoning is them opening up the chest, you know, the kids. Cori Nakamura Lin: Yes, yes. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s amazing. I love that you had the chest as an Easter egg from your own childhood. Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm, yeah, and, and also too, that it' ; s like... The house that I drew those children in, like they' ; re wearing like Cubs gear and it' ; s like there' ; s like maybe like a little, like a bamboo screen, this like hanging thing, but like everything else in their home is like very American, or like their clothes and everything. And that' ; s like... That was, yeah, me putting pieces of story into the, the pieces that we did for the oral history. Mary Doi: So pieces of your family' ; s story or your-- Cori Nakamura Lin: Yes. Or something like you know, my family was not a Cubs fan, right? So, but in my head I' ; m like, the people that I grew up with who were mixed Japanese American were you know, baseball fans. Like some were Sox fans too. But you know, those were the things that we cared and talked about so that' ; s how I wanted to show their parents' ; generation. Mary Doi: That' ; s great. Well, now this question might make more sense. I asked you before how did you react to hearing about redress and I believe that you would say learning about, more about internment and resettlement, these reactions don' ; t happen immediately but they, they grow and they contextualize. So how did you react to learning about redress? Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm. Well, since I think the details, or at least like the full... The more full context I' ; ve received recently, and so that one I can share like, how did I feel about it? It' ; s a complicated feeling. I keep referring to, like-- One of the, the things that I, has come out of working on this project creatively is something that I keep referring to as like the river of time, working within the river of time. And like, that was like one of the biggest concepts, or like I don' ; t know, like, energy access things that I got through working on this project with Kat was feeling very, very closely connected between the things that has happened in the last three generations and what I' ; m currently working on now. And so the feeling that, that I got was like being embedded, like to be like woven into something, and to become a part of something that' ; s like so much bigger than yourself. It' ; s like a little bit of like satisfaction. It' ; s a little bit of dread because of how big the fight is. It' ; s a little bit of like relief because it' ; s kind of like, okay, no matter what I do, it will just be a small part of this big thing. And it' ; s also like powerful because you' ; re like, oh my God, there' ; s so few people who are a part of this fight that maybe the fights that we' ; re working on now will also be researched and like you know, will have some sort of small impact on the future. And it' ; s a little bit of excitement because it' ; s like, wow, if so much happened back then that felt like it spiraled into these huge things that I feel like I' ; m working on now. Like who knows what can spiral in the future from the, the fights that we' ; re currently working on for anti-incarceration and abolition or for Japanese American just joy and culture building. So that' ; s, it' ; s all very exciting to me. Mary Doi: Good. Is there anything else that you wanted to ask, Kat? Cori Nakamura Lin: About the-- Mary Doi: Oh, I mean Kat, is there anything else that you wanted to ask? Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. I was just curious, you know, I know you were involved in the formation of Nikkei Uprising and just wanted to know more about what sparked the formation of the group and what are some of the group' ; s goals? Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm. Yeah, so I' ; m a part of this group also with Ty, who is filming, in Nikkei Uprising, which is a small group of Japanese Americans organizing for abolition here in Chicago. And like it did start in the past three-ish years during... I would say like the general like post-Trump pushback. The real formation of like how it came together was that during family separation at the border during Trump administration, a lot of folks, Japanese Americans, were gathering together across the country talking about how you know we wanted to link our story and stand up with these families who had been separated as families who had been separated due to incarceration. And so a group of folks in Chicago wanted to go to a big march in D.C. that was being planned by Tsuru for Solidarity nationally. So we got together, started talking about that, started getting together our incarceration survivors in Chicago to go. We' ; re doing education about Japanese incarceration and family separation. And then the pandemic hit, and then the uprising happens for George Floyd' ; s murder, and we kind of started shifting. The same folks who had gotten together for that group all were very galvan-- galvanized and cared deeply about the issues that were happening and so decided to shift into a new orientation. At that time, instead of going to D.C. and talking about family separation at the border, we ended up standing in front of Cook County jail during the pandemic and talking about how it was like one of the biggest sites of like pandemic death in the nation. And that kind of shifted what we are, us into what we are now, which is a group of abolitionist organizers working on cultural work and supporting other movements in Chicago towards ending prisons, police, and, and borders. But we' ; re focusing mostly on abolition and anti-incarceration in our campaigns against Cook County jail and ending money bail, and then also doing a lot of cultural work together to discuss who we are as Japanese Americans. And I think that, that kind of, like the cultural work thing is kind of like asking your question of like why did we come to be a separate group rather than either working with any of the groups that we had before, and I think that when we were sitting, folks who had become, who were really inspired and motivated by the events that we' ; ve grown up seeing or experienced during the Black Lives Matter movement, kind of connecting things like immigration, environmental issues, also... like yeah, the relationship between Japan and the U.S., there were all of these things that we were kind of sitting in and there was no good place to kind of hold action or places to take action. And so now as Nikkei Uprising, we can do things like advocate in support of the comfort women survivors of Korea at the Japanese Embassy. And so we will like advocate for the, the folks who had been survived and/or killed by the Japanese military and that feels like something that feels connected to the work that we' ; re doing. For me, it feels deeply connected to my grandfather' ; s experience of incarceration. It feels connected to my experiences as an Asian American in the United States. And so it' ; s really exciting to be able to do things that feel wide but inside of our bodies are actually held really close together. And to work with and unpack with other people who are experiencing similar, but usually really different things has been, yeah, really life-changing for me. Mary Doi: So I have two questions about this. Is Nikkei Uprising an intergenerational group? Cori Nakamura Lin: So I don' ; t think we would necessarily call ourselves that, but we do like try to pride ourselves on having folks of many generations. I mean, sometimes our generations, we don' ; t look like we' ; re all across like 30 years, but on average, I think we have like a 20-year age gap, and then like more for some of our members who are older or younger. But I think we would love to become more intergenerational. Mhmm. Mary Doi: Then is Nikkei Uprising a Chicago only thing or do you form coalitions across the country maybe with other Japanese American communities that have this kind of a movement going on? Cori Nakamura Lin: So I think that we stay connected to many different organizations nationally. We, Nikkei Uprising is indeed just a Chicago group. We do meet virtually, but we tend to do action and focus everything with folks who are in the same geographical area. Through the Tsuru for Solidarity Network we have connections to other different groups. We' ; ve partnered with a group in New York, New York Day of Remembrance Committee, to do a Nikkei Abolition Study Group that we did that was national, and so like folks from all over come to those events but the two groups that led them were both based in Chicago and then New York. And then last week, yeah, we also have done some partnerships with Nikkei Resistors in California. So yeah, we try to stay connected, but we' ; re also just sometimes a really small group, so we' ; re just trying to hold it together. Katherine Nagasawa: I have another like follow-up question. So you said that kind of the thing that initially sparked Nikkei Uprising was connecting migrant family separation and detention with the JA story. For you, was that the first time you really saw JA incarceration within a broader landscape of like different types of racial violence happening to communities or do you feel like you made those connections earlier, and if so, what did it for you, or what made those, what bridged the issues? Cori Nakamura Lin: There' ; s literally a workshop that JJ Ueunten and Anne Watanabe held at the JASC very early on from when I moved to Chicago that was called Japanese American Incarceration, Mass Incarceration. It' ; s a workshop that they' ; ve done several times that kind of like links together all the different ways that like our incarceration is very similar to mass incarceration, but psychologically how the ways that we talk about Black and brown folks is similar to the ways that folks talked about Japanese Americans. And so that was like, that workshop series was definitely one of the first ways. And I don' ; t remember when that happened, but that was, I think, a primer that many folks in our community had been to that I think supported them that when the call came saying, hey, we want to go to D.C., many folks were ready. Mhmm. Katherine Nagasawa: Gotcha. That' ; s so interesting that that was kind of what helped initially connect the dots and then it kind of crescendoed into Nikkei Uprising during the pandemic years. I' ; m like curious, does Nikkei Uprising kind of fit within... Or, I guess, is one of the goals of Nikkei Uprising connected to Black reparations movements, or have, have you kind of interacted with Black reparations movements today in any way, either as an individual or with Nikkei Uprising? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. So right now we don' ; t currently have any like national reparations legislature or like goals towards that in Nikkei Uprising goals. I think we' ; re, we' ; re pretty loose right now. We have, let' ; s just do the things that are really clear to us that are right in front of us, which right now is in Illinois the campaign to end money bond, which will release lots of folks from pretrial incarceration. So that felt like a close thing that would release folks from jail. I think like in the past we' ; ve supported the HR-40 calls that Tsuru for Solidarity has put out. Like I think all of us are very supportive, it just hasn' ; t fallen into like our main body of work yet. I' ; m sure that as the campaign and the like, whatever board that they make with the HR-40 Commission like we' ; ll hopefully stay involved. Like I see those things as being very, very linked. Another fight for reparations we have been involved in is the fight for reparations from Japan to Korean comfort women. That' ; s like a very clear and deliberate ask. Another one where they' ; re asking both for money as well as an acknowledgement from the Japanese government and is like a place for just like public cultural knowledge to be passed on, like statues and curriculum in schools and stuff. And that campaign is something that we have supported every year for the past few years that we' ; ve existed. Katherine Nagasawa: And I guess like as a Japanese American why does it feel important for you to support or participate in racial healing or reparations movements for other communities? Cori Nakamura Lin: Mhmm. I guess like something that I' ; ll share is... So seemingly, or I guess on the surface, the fight for reparations for Korean, and you know, not just Korean, but comfort women of, of many backgrounds, but for the comfort women and then for Japanese Americans feel a little bit different. Like they' ; re against different governments. They' ; re against like different things that happened. But like for me, I' ; m like, oh, like if I was in you know like this place at this time, like I would have, my body would' ; ve been treated in this way, and that' ; s not fair. Then in a similar way, like if I was in a different place at a different time, like I mean, I don' ; t know if I would' ; ve been like taken as like a comfort woman, but I feel as a woman, as an Asian woman who' ; s been sexualized, I feel very spiritually linked to what has happened to folks due to the Japanese military. And like, it feels yeah, it feels spiritual for me to be kind of like, wow, it made such a big difference for us for the government to acknowledge that what happened to us was an atrocity. Like it feels so powerful to be able to be like, yeah, like I have a little bit of a connection to this government, like to the Japanese government, like they care about what Japanese Americans say, and for me to be able to shout along with these people, mostly old women now, who I think deserve that relief, like that feels a little bit healing. Mhmm. Mary Doi: Well, I have a couple more questions. You know, you' ; re an illustrator and so what do you think the role of artists, whether it' ; s an illustrator, a musician, a dancer, is as storytellers? Cori Nakamura Lin: Mmmm... So, I think that there' ; s a little bit of a like, I have a response, which is like what do I think that like illustration and like visuals and stuff have with, with storytelling, and then there' ; s like a wider question, which is what do artists have to do with storytelling? And I think like, I' ; ll share something that I forgot to mention earlier, which was that, so okay, when I was illustrating the resettlement, the Uprooted resettlement project with Kat, another thing that we did for visual tools was to layer in different Japanese cultural artifacts into the art. And so we used, I like looked up a lot of different traditional Japanese weaving patterns and so each of the different people that I illustrated have a different color set, they have a different like weaving pattern, that is, they have a different flower and like a different sort of like art piece that, that I do illustrate into it, and then I Photoshop them so that the, the patterns look like origami paper. And so like that was like something that felt like a multilayered thing. And people don' ; t really see that as they' ; re looking it in. But I think when you' ; re looking at the illustrations, there feels like there' ; s a lot of richness and there' ; s a lot of like layer and I feel like that' ; s something that culture does. Like, I think a lot about what does it mean to be, to have a culture, to be a culture as like a mixed person in the diaspora? And a lot of times the things that build culture are our expressions, the way that we express ourselves and the, the way that we' ; re interacting with land to express ourselves. So like just to say, like I don' ; t think that I would want to be anything, a culture, a story, or like participate in anything unless it, it feels like rich and full and like I would want to live my life there. I think that the more that we can weave in music and art and poetry, it makes it feel more like we actually live there more than something that we' ; re just showing up to. I say that to be like, as a movement, like, like do I want to be a place where people just show up and then like yell about the things that are bad in their community and then leave and sign a petition and then leave? Like that' ; s not what I want. So when I think about storytelling and visuals, I think it' ; s such a fun and opportunity to bring in a lot of images of things that bring richness and life and like remind people of home that might not like be visible in a photo or like might not be able to be articulated with words. I think that sometimes... And also, it just makes things more fun. Like there' ; s a lot of ways, like the things that we' ; re conveying are like really sad and... or really hard or like are really exciting, but just like yeah, take a lot of energy. And so to also be able to have things be beautiful and fun and nice to look at I think adds a lot and makes it, hopefully it' ; ll make the stories carry further. Mary Doi: So I believe you mentioned that, that you like this way that you' ; re, that you think about now being an illustrator. Have you had additional opportunities after Reckoning to work this way? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. Yeah. I was talking about before one of the things that I really like I feel like blossomed into, I don' ; t know, that I felt really able to like unfurl myself into during this process was the amount of working closely with a community cultural story, one that is embedded across history, and working so closely with Kat as like an artist and producer. And that is something that I do want to do more and I have had a couple of projects since then that I think kind of emphasize the same kind of skills and process that I began with the Uprooted and Reckoning projects. Like I worked with, there' ; s an education organization called Yuri based in California, and they did a curriculum piece for, I believe it was like the Asian American Heritages Month, but on PBS Chicago, and I was able to illustrate their header image for them. So using archival images from different Asian American communities over time, doing similar visual research of like trying to find folks like from those times, yeah, usually with articles and stories written by people from those communities, and then illustrating them together and then using that as promo material. So that was definitely something that was similar and that I hope to do more of. Mary Doi: Great. Can I ask for a break right now? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yes, I was going to say the same. Mary Doi: Okay. Let' ; s break for about five minutes. Is that okay, Kat? Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, totally. I just have one question at the end. Mary Doi: Okay. I' ; ve got to go to the bathroom. Cori Nakamura Lin: Oh, okay. Ty Yamamoto: Sounds good. Cori Nakamura Lin: Okay, cool. Okay. My call' ; s coming closer to 1:00 now, so that is okay. Okay... I am like, I don' ; t know. I don' ; t know why art is important. Ty Yamamoto: It' ; s a very good question. Sometimes I don' ; t know why it' ; s important, but I also don' ; t think I could do anything else. Cori Nakamura Lin: That' ; s what, that' ; s kind of how I feel. I was like... There' ; s sometimes where you' ; re just kind of like, oh, this is what I do every day, so this is just what life is. Ty Yamamoto: Right. Cori Nakamura Lin: And then I was like, oh no, but actually this is a special thing that not everyone gets to do all the time. Uh-huh. Ty Yamamoto: I feel similarly. Have you ever had a, quote-unquote, normal job or like a standard office job or anything? Cori Nakamura Lin: I have, yeah. I did like, yeah nonprofit shit during Minneapolis. But I, I would say, like so I did AmeriCorps for two years-- Ty Yamamoto: Oh, yeah that' ; s right. Cori Nakamura Lin: And then I did, and so that was like an office job but that was like me like pretending I did office stuff, and then for then I think about like four or five years I did halftime nonprofit and then I did halftime animation studio, and then I did halftime nonprofit, halftime freelance. Ty Yamamoto: Okay. Cori Nakamura Lin: And then, and then now I' ; ve been freelance with like contracts, big contracts inside. Mm-hmm. Ty Yamamoto: That' ; s good. Cori Nakamura Lin: But I do fear, it' ; s like one of my greatest fears that I have to go back to an office job. Ty Yamamoto: Yeah. Sorry, Kat, did you say something? Katherine Nagasawa: Oh no. I was just saying like I feel like this past year has been so new for me to go contract that I feel like I need to talk to other people who are in that situation. Just because I, I don' ; t feel like I know many people who are doing this you know? So it just feels hard to relate, you know? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. No, it' ; s like, you' ; re like, I am my own boss and I hate me. (laughs) Ty Yamamoto: Exactly. We should have an open like Nikkei freelancers circle sometime and just all talk about things. Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah, it could be us and Alec. Ty Yamamoto: Honestly. Oh my God. Yeah, that' ; s so funny. Yeah, it' ; s funny for me ' ; cause I' ; ve had maybe... I' ; ll keep it short, I' ; ve had like one job that was somewhat office-y and normal, but like pretty much since I graduated college, and even during college and before college, I was always working like contract or like really bizarre jobs that don' ; t require sitting at a desk most of the day and don' ; t have normal hours. Mary Doi: Wow, so-- Katherine Nagasawa: You' ; ve had such an interesting range of jobs, Ty. Talking last fall, you' ; re like, " ; Oh yeah, I worked at this." ; Like, didn' ; t you work at the, what' ; s that bar that' ; s across in Lakeview, Shuba' ; s? Ty Yamamoto: Yep, I used to work at Shuba' ; s. Cori Nakamura Lin: Oh my God. Mary Doi: As a videographer? Ty Yamamoto: No, I used to do, I used to, well, I did a lot of things for Shuba' ; s, but I was a security guard at Shuba' ; s at one point. Cori Nakamura Lin: That' ; s so funny. Ty Yamamoto: And I was also on their promo team, among many other things that I' ; ve done in the music industry. Mary Doi: Okay. So we have one last gigantic topic, and, and we' ; re going to talk now about what does repair look like, how does repair happen? How does repair look for the Japanese American community, what' ; s left to do? And then I' ; m going to ask if you have any final thoughts. But while we' ; re... This, we can just do in conversation, do you have any photos or documents or ephemera? Cori Nakamura Lin: About Redress? Mary Doi: Yeah, that you would be willing to have us photograph or copy? Cori Nakamura Lin: Ooo. Okay. I guess I don' ; t have any, I could take a picture of the screen? Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah take a picture of the screen and the chest. Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah, uh-huh. Mary Doi: I love the fact that you have names for these. Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. I was like, I could do those. Yeah, I am sure my, I' ; m sure my grandfather has stuff. Mary Doi: We probably have the apology letter, so we don' ; t need your grandfather' ; s apology letter, but you know, especially if people had testified, did they have a draft? Cori Nakamura Lin: Got it. Okay. Yeah. No, he, I don' ; t think, I don' ; t think he' ; s testified. Mary Doi: Okay. Katherine Nagasawa: Or Cori, if you have any like hand-drawn sketches from early. Cori Nakamura Lin: Oh, I have a ton. I have all the sketches. Katherine Nagasawa: I literally saved all my notes from our, from like all the meetings we' ; ve had. And especially for Uprooted, I have some of those early sketches you did for like the Color Ways-- Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: ...visual motifs and stuff. But those may be interesting artifacts. Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. Okay. I, I definitely have all the sketches from Redress and Reckoning. Mary Doi: Yeah, I think people think of them as, oh, that' ; s just leftovers, that' ; s ephemera. Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. Mary Doi: Who' ; s, who' ; s going to want this? Cori Nakamura Lin: Oh, I' ; m team artifact. Everything is an artifact. Mary Doi: All right. All right, so... So we talked a little bit about the role of creatives so I think we' ; re ready to go on again. Are, are we on? Okay. The last big subject that I' ; d like to talk about is repair. You know, redress and reparations imply that there' ; s repair. So how does repair happen and what does it look like for the Japanese American community, if you believe it' ; s happened or is happening? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yeah. Mm-hmm, no, I think this is a, this is a really interesting question that I have been thinking about but don' ; t really know the answer to right now. So okay, how does repair happen? I think like, as I' ; m thinking about it, especially as I' ; m like getting emotional thinking about the, the comfort women stuff, it' ; s like, oh, I really feel like the acknowledgement, like it has to be on multiple sides. Like especially when it' ; s from an institution or a government like I think that there needs to be like really clear ownership and responsibility-holding that doesn' ; t feel like it' ; s been done on the side of, like I mean, the Japanese government in terms of comfort women, " ; comfort women" ; as an euphemism, but in the United States I think has only happened for the Japanese American community. I feel like there' ; s so much other repair that could be, like repair that needed to be done for folks like Black Americans, indigenous folks, like yeah, so many folks who has like, live in areas where there' ; s a giant, I don' ; t know, like toxic waste site. Like you know, there' ; s like all these things that have been done to people and like the United States does a very bad job of acknowledging when it has made mistakes ' ; cause that' ; s like not really our vibe. So I think that like I see, I see possibilities. I see other countries who have taken greater ownership for like large atrocities that they have done. I have not seen them hold global power and do that at the same time. So I guess like that these are like my like political thoughts of like do I think it' ; s ever going to happen? Not without great force. I don' ; t think that they will ever desire to do the things. Like I don' ; t think that the government or our nation as a whole will want to make the kind of reparations that are needed for us to fully heal. And I think I' ; m thinking about it as, like yeah, that' ; s me as like an American. Like that' ; s me as like my... the things that I would need to be like fully happy and successful would require not just Japanese Americans to have been acknowledged, it would require that like I don' ; t live in a place where we pretend that like oh, our land isn' ; t stolen. Like I don' ; t want to live here and do that. So, I guess like I do have like a very wide vision of what I would need repair to look like, what has to do with like the United States maybe not becoming a nation anymore or like you know rerouting into the sense of what do we really want to be in community with each other, how do we redefine our relationship to the land? Like those are all really deep questions that I don' ; t see us getting to anytime soon and I think that repair for the Japanese American community, is also a little bit... I think there' ; s a little bit more repair that we could, could be doing. This is from my personal experience as a you know, yonsei in Chicago who has a very specific experience, but I see that my community has healed financially in a lot of ways. I think we' ; re doing economically very well as a whole, as well as I think emotionally a lot of the folks that I think I grew up with, the families that I grew up with in the church community, don' ; t see themselves as being particularly traumatized from, from any sort of experience. And so I would say that for the most part, it feels like there has been a lot of repair that has happened for the Japanese community. And I think that something that we' ; re having discussions about in Nikkei Uprising is like what does it look for Japanese Americans to seek repair beyond incarceration and our incarceration trauma, which means that we have to kind of open up these questions of like what does it mean to be a racialized person in between these ideas of Imperial Japan and the United States of America as a white place? And I think there' ; s a lot of things that have to do with Japanese supremacy that I' ; m also, that I think we... I' ; m personally trying to heal from and I feel like our community has a lot of growth and healing to do from there as well. Mm-hmm. Mary Doi: So these are some of the things you have what, that' ; s left to do for Japanese American repair? Cori Nakamura Lin: Yes, yeah. So I think that for, to, to go back to the question of what do I think we would need to repair is I, I feel like there' ; s a lot of brokenness in our community or a lot of small divisions in our community where we' ; re, it feels easy to slice people off as we try to hold on to the core of what it means to be Japanese American, and that could be divisions between Shin-Nikkei or Yonsei, or Japanese nationals or not, or folks who are transplants or not transplants, or folks who behave in traditional Japanese ways or folks who don' ; t behave in traditional Japanese ways. And I see that as like in my head as that' ; s dominant JA community. It feels very shaky. It feels very tense. It feels like there' ; s a lot of generational divides as things move and there' ; s a lot of value divides as things are shifting. So I feel like those things could be like the problems of any community. I also see them as being linked to, to these kind of like big traumas that we have where we kind of have, or a lot of us feel like we' ; re from a place of attack, we have to hold and preserve this one thing that we have. And that' ; s not where I want our community to operate from. Like I want us to be able to feel more open and willing to accept other people, to shift our values, to be something different. To occupy Japaneseness in a different way, to function in a different way, to not feel like there' ; s one way to be Japanese. And I see those things a lot of the times being linked to both like our traumas from incarceration and being small in the Midwest, but then greaterly from this kind of like rock and a hard place that Imperial Japan puts us in of feeling like we have to be this great superior one thing while also putting us in a place in the United States where it' ; s like we' ; re, we' ; re never going to be those things. So I think that that' ; s the repair of like kind of understanding of like what do I even want to be? Do I want to be American? Do I want to be Japanese? Or am I something, do I want to build a Japaneseness or Japanese Americanness that is neither of those other things? And that' ; s what I think repair for me has looked like. And I, in conversation, maybe it sounds a little different, but I' ; ve been having conversations with folks as well that that is where the repair is heading towards. It' ; s reshaping what it means to be Japanese American as a whole. Mary Doi: Do you think that the fact that our group is one of the few that have attained reparations, redress and reparations from the government, does it obligate us to empathically support other groups that are seeking it? Cori Nakamura Lin: I don' ; t think it obligates us to. I think it gives us a great opportunity to and I feel personally like I want to. Like that' ; s, it' ; s, I don' ; t know, I' ; m trying to deal with like what is responsibility versus like what is just like using the resources that you have, like stewarding them in the best way, and I was like, wow, we have a lot of clout. Like it would be great for me and my family to use that clout to, to do to another group that I think should get the same things that we' ; ve received. I don' ; t think it has to be a moral obligation. I feel like in a world where people have their needs met, it would feel more enticing. Like that would be, it would be a desire that we would have rather than an obligation. Mary Doi: Do you have any final thoughts? Cori Nakamura Lin: I don' ; t know. I guess like the question at the end of like what is left to do for repair, like I, I' ; m coming, I am thinking about it one more time. And I guess like, the thing that I' ; m still thinking about is like, what are we repairing from I guess? It' ; s like, I feel like I' ; ve grown up in... Like I feel really grateful to be doing this interview and to have my oral history be a part of this thing. Like I feel like my family' ; s arc has like led me to a place that feels like both very pinnacle in history, like I can do artwork about this, and it' ; s like so much work has happened up until this point so it feels like a lot to reflect upon. And I also feel like, oh yes, I don' ; t, I guess I don' ; t even know where I was going with that thought. Just that like yeah, I do, I feel appreciative to be here and I guess I do feel like responsible for thinking about like as this arc of incarceration reflection ends, like I don' ; t think this is the ending right? But like this is a big arc of JA stuff is like we' ; ve been thinking, we were incarcerated, we fought for reparations, and now we' ; ve been thinking about incarceration for a long time. And I guess what I feel like is what' ; s left to do is I think for where I' ; m sitting it feels like we' ; re pushing in this moment to start a new arc. I think that' ; s kind of what I' ; m thinking about. It' ; s like, I' ; m not, I don' ; t want to forget redress and reparations, I want to fold it into this next arc of what I feel like JA movement could be, but with wider questions. It' ; s like incarceration folding it into these wider things of what does it mean to combat Imperial Japaneseness? And that' ; s where I think I would like our next healing arc to begin. Mary Doi: Great. Kat, do you have any follow-ups? Katherine Nagasawa: No. Actually, you just answered my question. I was just going to ask like what is next or kind of, yeah what comes next as you' ; re reflecting on repair. So that was beautiful. Yeah, thank you, Cori. Cori Nakamura Lin: Thanks. Mary Doi: Yeah. Cori Nakamura Lin: I mean, all of you. I feel like you three specifically have, I' ; ve had so many conversations with you all that like really informed all of this, so thank you. Mary Doi: Yeah, thank you again. It' ; s, as I' ; ve said to you before, I love oral histories or, or qualitative interviews because you get to have these conversations that under normal circumstances you would never have. You know, so thank you so much from me and from the project. Cori Nakamura Lin: Yay. Thank you. Mary Doi: All right. I think that' ; s it. Cori Nakamura Lin: Yay. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Footage may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LinCori20221215.xml LinCori20221215.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/browse?tags=Series%3A+Redress
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Oral History Interview: <a href="https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/show/18" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lin, Cori (5/19/2021)</a> <br />Oral History Interview: <a href="http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/show/5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nakamura, Tom (3/16/2021)</a>
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Lin, Cori Nakamura (12/15/2022)
Description
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Cori Nakamura Lin, a yonsei born and raised in Chicago, discusses her evolving knowledge and understanding of Japanese American incarceration and redress history. She describes how her work on JASC's Uprooted and Reckoning projects deepened her awareness, particularly with regard to the diversity of opinions and approaches to redress within the community. She describes her artistic process and the significance of the creative choices she made for the two projects. A founding member of Nikkei Uprising, she also discusses the group's activism and connections between Japanese American experiences and present-day migrant family detention/separation and mass incarceration. On the topic of community healing and repair, she expresses a belief in additional opportunities for repair and the importance of reshaping the meaning of Japanese American identity.
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2022-12-15
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video
FSF JACS
Series: Redress
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
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This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Doi, Mary
Interviewee
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Kamidoi, Mary
OHMS Object
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Interview Keyword
Nisei
Rohwer
Japanese American Citizens League
JACL Detroit chapter
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
Northeastern Illinois University
CWRIC Hearings
Vincent Chin murder
Racism
Discrimination
Fear
Ford Motor Company
OHMS Object Text
5.4 3/31/2023 Kamidoi, Mary (3/31/2023) 1:55:03 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection REDR Redress Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded, transcribed, and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Nisei Rohwer Japanese American Citizens League JACL Detroit chapter Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Northeastern Illinois University CWRIC Hearings Vincent Chin murder Racism Discrimination Fear Ford Motor Company Kamidoi, Mary Doi, Mary video 1:|15(9)|36(10)|57(10)|75(5)|93(12)|116(6)|138(5)|166(12)|203(1)|221(6)|232(14)|245(7)|270(15)|291(9)|306(4)|321(13)|339(14)|356(1)|372(2)|388(1)|410(10)|428(10)|443(1)|453(15)|467(6)|481(17)|497(5)|508(5)|523(10)|546(16)|563(13)|577(6)|591(17)|603(9)|615(10)|635(4)|657(4)|670(7)|682(3)|694(5)|712(4)|723(9)|735(6)|745(15)|769(3)|809(8)|847(10)|861(8)|871(11)|883(14)|894(13)|906(3)|917(10)|929(15)|945(2)|958(8)|972(12)|989(7)|1003(6)|1014(14)|1026(1)|1051(14)|1065(3)|1076(12)|1090(7)|1101(8)|1112(6)|1125(1)|1140(4)|1149(8)|1160(11)|1177(6)|1189(7)|1205(8)|1221(14)|1231(7)|1242(11)|1255(5)|1266(9)|1280(5)|1292(2)|1305(12)|1320(9)|1331(3)|1346(17)|1359(2)|1379(4)|1390(17)|1411(14)|1424(2)|1443(16)|1462(2)|1480(2)|1505(6)|1518(3)|1532(3)|1548(6)|1579(7)|1592(8)|1605(2)|1617(10)|1630(3)|1650(8)|1664(1)|1676(15)|1689(10)|1710(9)|1723(12)|1736(2)|1750(11)|1768(7)|1781(7)|1794(14)|1816(10) 0 https://vimeo.com/824906189 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/824906189" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; Mary Kamidoi, a nisei who resettled in Missouri and then Flint, MI after being released from incarceration, discusses her involvement with the Detroit chapter of the JACL from the 1950s to the present. A longtime employee of Ford Motor Company, she recounts numerous experiences of racism, discrimination, and anti-Japanese sentiment in Detroit, largely fueled by auto industry workers' loyalties to American car manufacturers in competition with Japanese manufacturers. She describes the response to the murder of Vincent Chin and the complex social and professional pressures that existed for Japanese Americans and Asian Americans at the time. She also provides details about the redress effort in Detroit and her experience attending the CWRIC hearings in Chicago. An outspoken person from early childhood, she describes many instances of fighting against injustice throughout her life. She shares clear memories of her mother's preparations for incarceration and reflects on the patterns of dispersal and assimilation that prevailed in Detroit during the resettlement era, acknowledging the consequences of this for younger generations who lack strong cultural ties. 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 you 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 I' ; 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 forms 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 redress. 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 know, 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. So 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 would 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 public, 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, I' ; 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 lash 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 said, " ; 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 it. 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 order 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 they 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 government 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 lists 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 Mrs. 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. His 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 one. 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 Chicago, 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 tell 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 fighting 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 Wayne 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. And 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 happened. 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 want 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 try 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 people 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 I 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. You 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." ; But 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 that." ; 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 what 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 it 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 accept 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. The 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 like 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 if 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 thought 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 to 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 job, 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 know 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 said, " ; 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 down 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 transmission." ; 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 bother 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. And 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 evicted 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 45 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 out 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 know 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, they 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 they' ; 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 had 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 people 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 would 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 the 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 to 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 discrimination 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 name 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 gave 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 all 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 enough 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 to 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 mean 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 first 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 that." ; 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, but 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 sister 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 know, 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 dad 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 dining 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 out 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 you 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 need 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 when 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, you' ; 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 did. 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 come 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 came 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 students." ; 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 discrimination. 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 give 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 his 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 think 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 going 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 to 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 threaten 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 taken 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, moved 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 sit 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 she 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 Charlie' ; 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 to 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 we 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 get 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 you 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 they 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. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Footage may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=KamidoiMary20230331.xml KamidoiMary20230331.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/browse?tags=Series%3A+Redress
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Title
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Kamidoi, Mary (3/31/2023)
Description
An account of the resource
Mary Kamidoi, a nisei who resettled in Missouri and then Flint, MI after being released from incarceration, discusses her involvement with the Detroit chapter of the JACL from the 1950s to the present. A longtime employee of Ford Motor Company, she recounts numerous experiences of racism, discrimination, and anti-Japanese sentiment in Detroit, largely fueled by auto industry workers' loyalties to American car manufacturers in competition with Japanese manufacturers. She describes the response to the murder of Vincent Chin and the complex social and professional pressures that existed for Japanese Americans and Asian Americans at the time. She also provides details about the redress effort in Detroit and her experience attending the CWRIC hearings in Chicago. An outspoken person from early childhood, she describes many instances of fighting against injustice throughout her life. She shares clear memories of her mother's preparations for incarceration and reflects on the patterns of dispersal and assimilation that prevailed in Detroit during the resettlement era, acknowledging the consequences of this for younger generations who lack strong cultural ties.
Date
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2023-03-31
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video
FSF JACS
Series: Redress
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18e6bc35e025c3e8f91f95eabd21431e
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
Subject
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Japanese Americans--History.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the U.S. Department of the
Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations
expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended, the U.S. Department of the Interior
prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability or age in its
federally funded assisted projects. If you believe you have been discriminated against in any
program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please
write to:
Office of Equal Opportunity
National Park Service
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
Creator
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Publisher
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
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Doi, Mary
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Adachi, Christina
Adachi, Patti
OHMS Object
https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=AdachiPattiAndTina20230214.xml
Interview Keyword
Sansei
Japanese American Citizens League
JACL Chicago chapter
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
Northeastern Illinois University
CWRIC Hearings
Activism
South Side
Hyde Park
OHMS Object Text
5.4 2/14/2023 Adachi, Patti and Christina (2/14/2023) 1:10:31 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection REDR Redress Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded, transcribed, and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Sansei Japanese American Citizens League JACL Chicago chapter Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Northeastern Illinois University CWRIC Hearings Activism South Side Hyde Park Adachi, Christina Adachi, Patti Doi, Mary video 1:|7(6)|37(8)|49(6)|65(1)|80(3)|96(7)|120(15)|135(1)|156(10)|169(12)|181(2)|193(5)|211(16)|230(13)|246(14)|274(16)|309(1)|320(14)|334(11)|350(14)|368(10)|390(11)|412(7)|428(4)|439(4)|457(10)|467(9)|480(11)|497(3)|512(7)|528(9)|541(8)|551(6)|561(11)|576(8)|599(16)|615(4)|632(13)|646(2)|666(2)|678(5)|696(4)|713(1)|722(17)|742(15)|768(6)|791(2)|810(15)|832(10)|875(10)|889(7)|902(14)|913(9)|922(13)|956(8)|981(10)|1000(5)|1025(9)|1038(1)|1058(5)|1079(4)|1117(6)|1140(5)|1185(15)|1234(5)|1268(14)|1302(8)|1329(13)|1352(3)|1371(6) 0 https://vimeo.com/824891617 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/824891617" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; Sisters Patti and Tina Adachi, born and raised in Hyde Park, discuss their experiences as sansei growing up on Chicago's South Side. They describe involvement with the Civil Rights Movement, Women's Movement, and anti-war demonstrations as precursors to their participation in Japanese American redress efforts. They recall being motivated by their outrage after learning about their family's treatment during WWII, engaging with Asian American activism, and joining the Japanese American Citizens League's redress efforts. Having both served in multiple roles at JACL's Chicago chapter, they describe experiences such as editing the newsletter (Patti) and attending the Chicago CWRIC hearings at NEIU (Tina). In reflecting on the significance of redress and reparations, they recount the impact of the apology from the U.S. government on their family and the larger community and express the belief that more work remains to be done with regard to race and identity beyond the Japanese American community. Mary Doi: Thank you. 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. You can decline to answer any question without giving a reason, you can take breaks whenever you need them, and you can end the interview at any point. Got it? Please make sure your phone is silenced. Patti Adachi: Yeah. Mine is on airplane. Mary Doi: Okay, great. Thanks. So, all right, well, let' ; s begin. Christina Adachi (Tina): All right, you know what? I' ; m going to turn my notifications off. Patti Adachi: Oh, watch your mic. Oh, where' ; s your phone? Mary Doi: Is it in your purse? Patti Adachi: Yes, sorry. Mary Doi: Okay. Purse. Patti Adachi: We' ; re paused right now. Mary Doi: Okay so this interview is really about the Redress movement, but I' ; m going to ask a little bit of background information before we get into that. And so I' ; m going to start out with your knowledge about internment. When did you first learn about the Japanese American incarceration and what was your reaction? Christina Adachi (Tina): Well, I, I think the first time I ever heard about it was actually through a news program hosted by Walter Cronkite, the CBS news anchor. And I realized I hadn' ; t ever heard about it from our parents and in fact, I had heard about camp experiences, especially from my mother. Growing up, she would often recount things that happened in camp and I always thought she meant summer camp because that was the only kind of camp I was familiar with. And then when I went to college, which would' ; ve been in 1966, I wrote a paper for a political science class and I wrote it about the internment. And I remember I was at the Washington University Library and I just went around and I just grabbed every, every book, every photograph, every piece of information that I could about the internment. And I sat down at one of the tables in the library and I surrounded by this mound of books and I started going through them and I was just so shocked, horrified, traumatized. I remember sitting there in the library and just weeping at what I was, what I was reading and just trying to process that this had really happened and that it had happened to my parents and their families. Patti Adachi: Yeah and our grandparents. Yeah, well, sometimes with a bunch of Nisei friends they' ; d go, " ; Oh, remember, remember in camp and the food and the lines of the showers?" ; And they' ; d go, " ; ha ha ha" ; and they' ; d laugh. Christina Adachi (Tina): Yeah. Patti Adachi: So yeah, that was it. They' ; d just laugh and remember the bad food and, but it was, it was like like summer camp. They never really sat down and talked to us about it. We didn' ; t really talk about you know, prejudice growing up and... Christina Adachi (Tina): They were definitely Nisei who had ended up in Chicago, both originally from Los Angeles and had just made the decision as so many others had to just look forward, make the best of where they were and not dwell on the past and-- for any number of reasons, and did in fact create successful and happy life for themselves in Chicago. So now that I think about it, the stories that they told about camp didn' ; t really make any sense ' ; cause they were clearly not, they weren' ; t kids at a summer camp, they were adults, but I just never, it still never occurred to me that it could be anything other than like a summer camp. Mary Doi: After you learned more of the facts when you were a student at Wash U, did you go back and talk to your parents about it? Christina Adachi (Tina): I don' ; t remember. Our, I probably... I might have tried to open up a conversation but neither of my parents was interested really in talking about it and they, if they gave any answers, they were very brief and they just said things like, " ; Well, you know, that was a long time ago and we don' ; t really want to remember that." ; And, and so I was probably not encouraged to continue the conversation. Patti Adachi: Well, let' ; s see. So maybe about 1962, my best friend Loretta, her father who had been in the Korean War and I remember coming home and I was in eighth grade and I said, " ; So Dad, did you fight in the w-- were you a soldier?" ; And he said, " ; Yeah, they asked me if I wanted to fight and I said hell no." ; Christina Adachi (Tina): That was the first thing I ever, first time I ever remember my dad expressing any anger over what had happened but we did find out that he had said no. Patti Adachi: Well, he was in grad school. He was at UC Berkeley in graduate school. Yeah, and he' ; s yanked, yanked out of grad school and his parents owned a, a grocery store in Boyle Heights where he grew up, you know, bank accounts are frozen, everything' ; s lost. I mean they' ; d lose land, businesses. Christina Adachi (Tina): When I think about how much they had accomplished in Los Angeles because you know, he was born in Los Angeles, Boyle Heights and of course, both his parents were immigrants and he had managed to graduate from UCLA and then, get into grad school at UC Berkeley. Patti Adachi: Yeah, yeah. Christina Adachi (Tina): And our mom was younger and she was in junior college, but she was a college student. And so then, the internment completely upended their lives and neither one of them ended up being able to go back to school and complete their education. Mary Doi: Right, I often wonder if that' ; s why education was so important that my mom, my mom stressed it for us. Patti Adachi: Oh yes. Mary Doi: You know, get as much as you can get, I' ; ll figure out how to pay for it. Christina Adachi (Tina): Oh, yeah. We were definitely one of those families where we never talked about are you going to college. It was always, where are you going to college. There was never any question the expectation was we would go to college. Mary Doi: That sounds very familiar. Well now, I' ; m going to jump into the JACL because this is really what we' ; re most interested in and I' ; m really interested in when did you join the JACL, and I guess I' ; ll go with Tina first. Why did you join it, are you still a member, were your parents members? Did you know anybody in the JACL before you joined? So, can you tell me a little bit about your history with the organization? Christina Adachi (Tina): It was really the Redress movement. When I heard or read about the commission and the effort for Redress and the role that JACL was playing, that they kind of came onto my radar. Because we lived in Hyde Park, so our life was mostly there. We weren' ; t really part of, we didn' ; t belong to any of the temples, we didn' ; t really have a lot of contact with the Japanese American community other than the Enterprisers Club, that investment club. Once a year there would be a golf tournament and we would go to the dinner and the Christmas party was always at our house, but we, our roots really were in Hyde Park. So JACL, I think my parents might have been members, I think they were members of the JACL Credit Union, but I really didn' ; t pay that much attention to the organization. I sort of didn' ; t think it was for someone my age or someone like me but then when I found out about the Redress and the JACL' ; s role. That' ; s when I really started paying attention and that' ; s when I first contacted them and I started going to meetings and I ended up joining the board and I ended up becoming the president of the Chicago chapter. But it was absolutely the Redress which got me involved in JACL. Mary Doi: Do you remember how you learned about the Redress movement? Christina Adachi (Tina): I don' ; t know whether it was a story that I saw in the newspaper or something on the news. I don' ; t remember any individual telling me about it because I don' ; t remember knowing anyone in the JACL. Mary Doi: Right, I was mentioning to Ty how when you' ; re a Southsider, we were really in our own little bubble-- Patti Adachi: Mm-hmm, yeah. Mary Doi: --and coming North was almost like going to a foreign country for us. Christina Adachi (Tina): We were politically active because we were Hyde Parkers. So I was like the Vice President of Young Democrats for Johnson in 1962. We were involved in civil rights, I actually saw Martin Luther King speak in person. So we were, we were political, but that didn' ; t include JACL or, or Asian American activism, which kind of didn' ; t really exist here in Chicago up until a certain time. Mary Doi: And how about for you, Patti? Patti Adachi: Oh, well, so I, I lived in Japan for two years teaching English in Tokyo. And then when I came back in 1980, Tina, I think it was like Fall of ' ; 80, she took me to an annual meeting, the JACL annual meeting in 1980. So it was Fall, it' ; s usually in Fall. And then I, maybe there was another event, I can' ; t remember. But in any case, not long after that, I mean I still didn' ; t really know anyone in JACL. I was getting a ride from a meeting... Oh I, then I moved to the North side in the late Fall of 1980, I moved to the North side because I couldn' ; t find anything affordable in Hyde Park and I got to know someone, Glenn Ikeda, who helped me find an apartment. But from some JACL meeting, I was still pretty new. John Tani was the president then and he was driving me home and he was driving Chiye home and Chiye said to John, " ; John, I don' ; t think I can do the newsletter this month. I' ; m so busy." ; and I said, " ; I' ; ll, I' ; ll do it," ; and they said " ; All right" ; , so then I became the editor! And I think you know because they knew Tina, they figured, well you know, I mean maybe they would' ; ve even if they hadn' ; t known me, ' ; cause it' ; s a volunteer organization. You know, it' ; s unpaid, you' ; re just doing it because you want to. And so they said all right and then I, so I edited the newsletter, I was looking, from 1981 until 1995. Then I said, " ; I think I, does someone else want to edit? I think I' ; m sort of run out of energy." ; Yeah, so that' ; s how I, and then I had to join the-- because they said, " ; Well, you should join the board, because now you' ; re the editor" ; . " ; Okay." ; And then eventually, it was actually I became president. They said, " ; Well, you know, everyone else on the board has already been president. You know you have your year turn. It' ; s your turn." ; And so it was like, " ; It' ; s your turn." ; I said " ; Oookay." ; And it was 1988, so it was a big year, right? So I became president. Luckily, I didn' ; t have to give a speech at the, the big, the big inaugural, which I would have because it was such a huge year because the Civil Rights Act had passed. Somebody from national, somebody much, very well known came, you know came and gave the speech. I was actually practicing my speech and saying, " ; I can do it, I can do it" ; . And then, this... I said, " ; I don' ; t have to speak in public. This is great." ; So that' ; s, so yeah, that' ; s how I became involved and I loved being the editor. I met so many people. You know, it was that whole era of the Redress, working on getting witnesses. Mary Doi: So you mentioned Chiye. Are there other people who come to mind that you got to work with? Patti Adachi: Oh, Tsune, I got to work with Noriko Takada, Shig Wakamatsu, he was always in the office and I was always there typing on, you know we had those IBM Selectric typewriter, so I' ; m typing up the copy and Shig was always in there. And sometimes, he' ; d take me out to dinner and it was kind of fun. It was like, he was kind of like a surrogate father and we' ; d talk politics and I was kind of like he thought of me as a daughter and he was, he was wonderful. I loved Shig. Smoky Sakurada became, was always you know, there. Mary Doi: You also mentioned, I think when we were talking, Alice Esaki. Yeah. Patti Adachi: Alice Esaki, yes. ' ; Cause she, so she was always there every afternoon after working at Senn High School and that' ; s how I got a job then. I got my next job through Alice writing curriculum for refugee high school kids at Senn. Christina Adachi (Tina): And there was also this new group of Sansei, like us like John Tani, Dennis Honda, others who were beginning to come into the organization. And then it was really a combination of Nisei and Sansei. Patti Adachi: Yeah, a lot of Sansei on the board. Maybe even more than-- Christina Adachi (Tina): Yeah, it was really a transitional period. Mary Doi: Right I guess what both Ron and Bill have said was that the board was very amenable to having Sansei not only join the board but be leaders on the board. So kind of echoing what you said, Tina-- or Patti about taking your turn to be the president-- Patti Adachi: Yes, it was your turn. Right. Mary Doi: ...Which is, yeah. Which is a really nice image that they' ; re not being gatekeepers. So that' ; s good. So you think you, Tina, you think you might' ; ve heard about Redress on some news program-- Christina Adachi (Tina): Right, or a newspaper article. Something about, something about the Redress effort and maybe about the commission, creation of the commission. And that' ; s, that just really sparked my interest. And, because when I first heard about the internment you know, and I had that moment in the library where I was weeping, what could I do about it? There wasn' ; t anything I could do about it. So then when this happened, it was finally an opportunity to act, to do something and of course, to do something for our parents. Mary Doi: That' ; s interesting. Do you think your parents knew about the Redress movement? Christina Adachi (Tina): I think they were aware of it because mom read the paper faithfully every single day and they both watched the evening news so-- Patti Adachi: Oh and they got, well grandma always got the Rafu Shimpo. That was a big paper right, from Los Angeles. Mary Doi: Right. Patti Adachi: And there was the English section, so yeah, they must have covered a lot. Christina Adachi (Tina): I' ; m not sure they were members of JACL. Patti Adachi: No. Christina Adachi (Tina): As I said, they might' ; ve been members of the credit union and they might' ; ve known some people in JACL, but especially as you said, living in Hyde Park, they were not active with the JACL. So, I think they might' ; ve found out about it the same way we did and then, when we got involved, that certainly increased their interest and their involvement. Like my mother came to the hearings, which kind of surprised me. Mary Doi: How about your brothers, were they at all interested? Christina Adachi (Tina): No. They' ; re both considerably younger, enough years younger and pretty much completely apolitical. Patti Adachi: At the time, right. Christina Adachi (Tina): They were just interested in sports. Yeah, and in fact, they had more of a connection in a way to the Japanese community on the North side because they played in the basketball league and they were in the Boy Scout troops-- Patti Adachi: The BTC. Christina Adachi (Tina): Right, right, even though we didn' ; t belong to the temple but-- Patti Adachi: No, I think mom and dad were members of the Temple, BTC. Christina Adachi (Tina): You do? Patti Adachi: Yeah, they used to get the newsletter. Christina Adachi (Tina): But they were members of the church also. Patti Adachi: Well, yeah, that was just social reasons and then, BTC was their connection. Christina Adachi (Tina): Okay, okay yeah. Becasuse we went to, we went to a Protestant church in Hyde Park. Patti Adachi: Yeah, Hyde Park Baptist Church. Christina Adachi (Tina): Yeah. Mary Doi: Uh-huh, okay. I remember that Boy Scout troop, I remember that Tom Teraji would bring my brother up to the, for the meetings, you know? So I think our brothers, my brothers and your brothers were probably in that all together as the Hyde Parkers going up to the North side. Patti Adachi: Yeah, right, yeah. Mary Doi: That' ; s really interesting though to hear that they, that your parents may have been members of the credit union, but they may have learned about Redress independently of you, but also, from you, they are learning more about it. You' ; ve touched about, on this a little bit before, Tina, that you were involved in other social justice issues before you got involved with the JACL Redress movement. And you mentioned being there with, to hear Martin Luther King. Can you tell me about other kinds of social justice activities that you were involved in? Christina Adachi (Tina): Well, just growing up in Hyde Park, we were acti-- we were aware of and supporters of anti-war and Civil Rights and the Women' ; s movement. And then, in the 70s, I moved to Pittsburgh with my then husband, also, originally a Hyde Parker. And we were members of the Socialist Workers Party and I ran for U.S. Senate. I ran as the Social Workers party candidate for U.S. Senate, even though I wasn' ; t old enough to be a senator in, I think, it was either 1972 or 1974. So I was, and I just went on lots of, there' ; s actually a, for some reason, there' ; s a front page picture in the New York Times, which a friend of mine sent to me a few years ago and it was me speaking at an abortion rights rally in Pittsburgh during my Pittsburgh years. I have no idea who took the picture, how it ended up on the front page of the New York Times, but it was some story about abortion rights. And so I was sort of always politically active, but it was only later with my joining JACL and becoming part of the Redress movement that I became active in, I would say, Asian American activism. I remember going to Vincent Chin demonstrations. And then, I was one of the founders of... Patti Adachi: Well, there was Mina-sama no-- Christina Adachi (Tina): Right, Angel Island, Asian American Theater Company and with Linda Yu, I was one of the founders of the Chicago chapter of the Asian American Journalist Association. So then my activism also really did expand into Asian community and their issues and organizations. Mary Doi: Great. Tina do you think or-- Patti, do you think you had any previous involvement in social issues before joining the JACL? Patti Adachi: Oh, in Madison. Anti-war demonstrations, Madison was a hotbed of anti-war activism. Yes, so there were a lot of demonstrations and student strikes. Yeah, it was, that was what I participated in. Mary Doi: So I think in the late 1970s, JACL and especially, Chicago and Bill Curtis got involved in getting a pardon for Iva Toguri. Do you remember that? Patti Adachi: Mm-hmm, yes. Mary Doi: I think she was pardoned in 1977. Were you involved with that at all, do you know? Patti Adachi: No, we weren' ; t involved. Christina Adachi (Tina): I remember, I remember it, but I don' ; t remember having any active role in that. Mary Doi: Okay. Well, I think you' ; ve told me about some of the Niseis and the Sanseis involved. I know that Patti had also mentioned Janice Honda, Joy Yamasaki, Jim Fujimoto, and then, the other people that both of you had mentioned. And you remember, Patti, somebody you said, a Sansei guy who helped with the strategy development for the Redress movement. Can you tell me what you remember and who you kind of, what you remember about him? Patti Adachi: Yes, yes, I can' ; t remember his name, but I remember that he said we' ; ve got to make this as American as apple pie. It' ; s not about a certain group, like the Japanese Americans being discriminated, it is about a violation of constitutional rights. Yeah, and then that' ; s, you know you, you focus on that and you get all kinds of, the ACLU and lots of groups, Jewish groups getting inv-- you know getting support from them about a violation of your rights as a citizen. Mary Doi: I, I love that phrase. " ; Make it as American as apple pie" ; . Patti Adachi: Make it as American as apple pie, to get it passed through Congress, yeah. And I know maybe-- Mary Doi: Right, right. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you think that was... Oh sorry, I was wondering, was that Mike Ushijima? Patti Adachi: No, I don' ; t think it was Mike Ushijima. I' ; m, I' ; d have to see. I have an image of this guy, at one of the celeb-- maybe it was the inaugural that year and we' ; re dancing. And Chiye asked him. He was, I mean he was a brilliant strategist, but I remember she asked him to, say, " ; Hey, why don' ; t want to dance with me?" ; And he was terrible. And, but yeah, and I don' ; t know who he was. So I, if maybe if I saw a picture, I' ; d remember. I can' ; t remember his name, somebody would remember. Chiye would remember, maybe Bill will remember. Yeah but that. Mary Doi: So was that a, a catchphrase that really resonated in the chapter? Patti Adachi: Well, I just remember, I just, I remember you know, hearing that and being told that that is how we' ; re focusing now. We' ; re going to shape it, that' ; s the way, the narrative, it' ; s, it' ; s a constitutional rights issue. Mary Doi: Was that going to be a narrative not just in Chicago but for the national? Patti Adachi: Oh national, yeah, yeah. Mary Doi: Okay, great. Patti Adachi: So he was not local. He wasn' ; t from Chicago, I' ; m pretty sure. I don' ; t remember him at all. Mary Doi: Oh, oh okay. Christina Adachi (Tina): But hearing that and then, going on the Reckoning website, I had kind of forgotten about the divisions within the Redress movement. And so then I was reminded of NCJAR is that-- and William Hohri and the other group. That' ; s not surprising or uncommon. Political movements always have divisions and disagreements and support different strategies but it seems like the JACL strategy was the winning strategy and was the most informed as far as real politics, here' ; s what you have to do, here' ; s, this situation. Most people have never even heard of the internment and there were still a lot of internment deniers. I mean I' ; ve had many people in my life say to me, " ; That never happened. That could never happen here." ; And so you know you' ; re, that really, we were starting from ground zero in a lot of ways, including among members of Congress to get this bill passed and reparations and the apology and all of that. I think that that was a, a realistic and an accurate reading of the political landscape. Mary Doi: Right, one of the ways I think about it is that the JACL' ; s efforts was really the legislative effort that William Hohri' ; s NCJAR National Coalition for Japanese American Redress is the judicial route. Patti Adachi: It was about suing the government. Mary Doi: Yes. Class action lawsuit where they had I think 19 plaintiffs and they had a list of 20 infringements of civil rights. So they' ; re different approaches with the same goal is, is how I look at it and then, NCRR was the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations, which was a really a grassroots organization mainly based in L.A. I was in San Francisco during Redress and so I remember that in San Francisco, but I was told by my daughter, " ; It' ; s mainly in L.A. thing," ; and I' ; ve talked to the leaders and they, they said, " ; No, we didn' ; t have a branch in Chicago," ; so, you know, we got skipped over. But we did have definitely a JACL movement here and an NCJAR movement here. So I think that' ; s pretty remarkable that two of these big, big movements are based in Chicago and we were lucky to have Bill. We were so lucky to have a Midwest regional rep or district rep on staff. So how would you say the roles that Niseis and Sanseis took differ or were they pretty much similar? If you had to make a broad statement about Niseis did this and Sanseis did that, what would you say? Patti Adachi: Focusing on Redress? Mary Doi: Yeah. Patti Adachi: I don' ; t know how different the approaches were. You had some pretty radical Niseis, well, like William Hohri and you had like the No-No boys who also may not... You know, they probably didn' ; t have like JACL. Right? JACL joined, were often seen as collaborators, right? They tried, they were cooperating with the government, I mean you know they have their own defense, which is valid but I think some people like the No-No boys took a whole different approach. Mary Doi: Right, right. Christina Adachi (Tina): But here in Chicago, I feel like there was a really a very friendly and, and sort of mutually appreciative relationship between Nisei and Sansei who joined together for this effort and who ended up, for example, all becoming like Patti and me, members of JACL and members of the board. We were coming from different perspectives because the Nisei obviously had almost all been through the experience themselves, whereas, we hadn' ; t but I feel there was a real sense of this is something that we can do for our parents and our grandparents. This is something we can do for our families. Finally, there' ; s something we can do. And many of us also did have a lot of political activism experience as, as we' ; ve gone over, which I don' ; t think probably the majority of Nisei, many of them obviously became part of this because of their personal experiences but, but a lot of the Sansei were familiar with political organizing and activism because of the age that we were and the times in which we came to adulthood. Mary Doi: You know, I read your Mom' ; s obituary and I love the fact that she was an election judge in the fifth ward. I thought, " ; Yay, yay Mrs. Adachi." ; So it seems like, you know in her own way, she was politically active in the way that a Nisei woman probably felt comfortable doing but also very committed doing. Christina Adachi (Tina): Well, we also thinking about it, my parents kind of made a statement by deciding to stay in Hyde Park because so many, I remember so many other Nisei families that we knew growing up, growing up had either moved North, moved to the suburbs or moved back to the West Coast. And my parents and I never really discussed this with them, I think they, they liked Hyde Park and they felt comfortable there, although they were not part of the University of Chicago and most of my friends, their parents were University of Chicago faculty. But they did choose and they didn' ; t really have to... We didn' ; t have any family here other than our immediate family other than the family who lived together in our house, our two grandmothers, our grandfather, our parents and us. We didn' ; t have any other family. All the family would have been back on the West Coast but they chose to stay in Chicago and in Hyde Park, which is well known as a liberal, very politically active community neighborhood, unique part of Chicago, they, they did choose to stay there and that' ; s where they stayed pretty much all their lives. Mary Doi: Yeah, it was a special place. I' ; ll, I' ; ll agree. Christina Adachi (Tina): Mm-hmm, yeah. Mary Doi: So you talked, Patti, you' ; ve talked about being the editor of the newsletter for forever and you' ; ve both talked about being president, taking your turn being the president. What other kinds of things would you say that you, what other kinds of roles did you play in the Chicago JACL Redress effort? Are there specific things you could name? Patti Adachi: No, I just think I helped, well, exhibits with you know boards that were there during for the... Well, whatever big events, we had annual meetings. I can' ; t remember you know a lot of it I just can' ; t remember. But I know I was at all of these, a lot of meetings and I, and I just did the newsletter, so I did a lot of articles about Redress and there was special Redress issues and, and I helped with exhibits, with photos. But that' ; s really all I remember. Mary Doi: You know, I' ; ve looked at the list of people who testified and unfortunately, I didn' ; t bring it with me but I saw Miyo Hayashi' ; s name on that as one of the people who testified and you know, a Hyde Parker through and through. Were there any other Hyde Parkers that you can remember who testified? And, and unfortunately, I don' ; t have the list to show you. Patti Adachi: Well, wait, was Mike Yasutake Northside or was he Hyde Park? Mary Doi: Well, when I knew him, he lived in Evanston. But I knew him at the end of his life, so I don' ; t know if he was ever in Hyde Park, okay but nobody else. And was there any buzz about Redress in Hyde Park, do you know? Christina Adachi (Tina): I guess by then, I was also living on the North Side. Yeah, we were both living on the North Side so, and I don' ; t recall anyone, any other Hyde Parkers that I could identify as being active in Redress. Mary Doi: Okay. Well, that' ; s good. And that' ; s exactly what you said, that you didn' ; t think of any other, couldn' ; t think of any other Hyde Parkers involved in Redress or even very much involved in the JACL. Now I want to move on to the hearings themselves. So these are the hearings that took place in September 1981 at the Northeastern Illinois University. So first of all, I' ; d like to know, Tina, were you somebody who attended the hearings? Christina Adachi (Tina): Yes. Mary Doi: Can you paint the picture for me what it' ; s like to be in that room? Christina Adachi (Tina): For me, I think my, the, what, what made the strongest impression was the individuals who chose to talk about their experiences and I, it seemed clear that they were really opening up for the first time. And it was so, it was painful, it was traumatic, but it was also so cathartic and just seemed like just an incredible release of emotions, pain, sorrow, shame that they were hesitant to feel and let loose and express previously for any number of reasons. And the hearings really gave them the opportunity to do that and it was just so, it just made it an incredible impression on me that it was just so raw, it really was, to, to see these people who were just not, didn' ; t hold positions in any organizations, weren' ; t representing anyone in particular, just sharing for the first time their individual personal most painful experiences. And it was so important that they did that but it also felt like the benefit was also really for them to be able to finally do that. Mary Doi: So, I' ; ve often wondered, this event has, has such gravitas, this is a commission appointed by the government. And so, I often think that who you testify to is as important as what you say. And if you' ; re ever going to, if you' ; re ever going to bare your soul, you do it when you' ; ve got this government commission in front of you, that' ; s listening, these nine sets of ears that are listening. Does that resonate with you? Christina Adachi (Tina): Well, I did feel the, the weight of it and just the importance, the significance that this was actually happening and at such a high level. And then just coincidentally, Arthur Goldberg was the uncle of one of my best friends, so I had actually, I think, I had met him before. I knew who he was, maybe before this commission but I, I, but certainly, the significance and the importance and the recognition that it meant just to have this commission put together and, and having these hearings, I, I was certainly very aware of that and that was just really meant a lot. Mary Doi: You' ; ve talked a little bit about your reaction, but you also mentioned that you think your mom attended. Do you remember anything about her reactions? Christina Adachi (Tina): I think that, I was kind of surprised that she came both days and she stayed the whole time because as I' ; ve said, she wasn' ; t really politically active but I think it was just... Patti Adachi: Do you remember her crying? Christina Adachi (Tina): I don' ; t remember her crying. I don' ; t remember her actually even talking about it. I just remember just the fact that she was there for both days, it obviously was important to her and it really meant something to her and she just sort of took it all in but I don' ; t remember having any particular conversation with her after that. Patti Adachi: Yeah, right, yeah, it was hard to kind of deal with controversial things with my mother. She preferred not to because even years later around the 90s or something I said, so-- I was interviewing her for something... And I said, " ; Tell me about, you know camp." ; She goes, " ; Oh, we had fun." ; That was it. Mary Doi: Well, did you talk to Patti about it? Tina, did you talk to Patti about being there? ' ; Cause I, as I recall, you didn' ; t think you were there? Patti Adachi: No, I don' ; t think I was there. I' ; m not sure why I wasn' ; t there. This was early 80s, right? Christina Adachi (Tina): Yeah. Patti Adachi: I was still living-- Mary Doi: ' ; 81. Patti Adachi: I was, ' ; 81, right. No, I was on the North side. I don' ; t know why I wasn' ; t there. Oh, maybe I' ; d had Emi. No, no, not yet. I don' ; t know why I wasn' ; t there. Christina Adachi (Tina): I think we probably had conversations about it because I would' ; ve wanted to tell you about it, but I don' ; t remember a particular conversation. Mary Doi: You know as I' ; ve been reading old notes and hearing other interviews, it seems as if there were, Chiye was really key in recruiting and helping to rehearse people to give their testimony. Were either of you involved in that kind of, that part of the Redress movement in Chi-- for Chicago? Christina Adachi (Tina): No. Patti Adachi: No. I know Chiye was an accountant, she-- And she also owned a couple buildings and she was like a landlady. But I remember every month, she' ; d go to the American Friends Service Committee office and do their books for free because she said, " ; Because they were the ones that helped resettle us," ; yeah so she always volunteered to do bookkeeping for them. Mary Doi: You know, there were some of these Nisei women that I so admire, so Chiye is one of them. And I don' ; t know if you knew Kiyo Yoshimura? Patti Adachi: Yeah. Mary Doi: She was another one, it' ; s like, " ; These are just dynamite women. I really liked them." ; Christina Adachi (Tina): Our mother was just really totally a glass half full person. She was just always very optimistic, very positive, so her response, " ; Oh, we had fun," ; was very much in keeping with her character. And I have to say, I finally for the first time got to take a pilgrimage to Amache just this last summer with my daughter Aurora. And in addition to the, the sadness and you know the horror of standing in this 9x12 room or whatever it was where my mother and her family and then our relatives next door lived and just how completely traumatic and grotesque it must have been, I was also so impressed like at the Amache Museum with all the social activities that they created in camp. There was that bulletin board filled with almost like prom invitations and casino nights and dances and bonfires and potluck dinners. And, and they just completely just sort of decided, well while they were there they were going to absolutely, absolutely make the best of it. The incredible art that they created-- Patti Adachi: Yes, they had vegetable gardens, they grew Japanese vegetables. Christina Adachi (Tina): Oh, right the agricultural success that they had. So clearly, while it was such a hardship and so horrible, I could understand when my mother said we had fun because you did have this, you got to see your friends every single day. For young people, they were robbed of a lot but they also were all together all the time. And they really, you know they went ice skating, they had sports teams, they had boy scouts and they really did create a sort of alternative social universe. Mary Doi: That' ; s a great description. Alternative social universe. Do you think your dad also had this more rosy view of being in camp? I mean he mentions that you know he, he was not you know, not a soldier, but-- Patti Adachi: No, I think he was angrier, but he didn' ; t talk about it growing up. You know, we didn' ; t hear about it. Mary Doi: How are we doing on time? Ty Yamamoto: We' ; re doing okay. Mary Doi: Okay. Christina Adachi (Tina): He was also five or six years older than my mother and it might' ; ve been harder for him to adjust than it was for her. And as we said, he was a grad student at the time at UC Berkeley and I think it was really hard for him. I mean don' ; t know what it, how much hard work it, it took for him to, to have acheieved, achieved that, you know to graduate from UCLA, then get accepted as a, and, and be in a grad program at Berkeley and then that all totally ended. Plus then, he had the responsibility in Chicago of he was the primary breadwinner and he had to start from scratch working as a laborer in factories and then, opened a dry cleaners but it was certainly not the professional future that he had imagined. Patti Adachi: Right he was either, he was either going to become a doctor or he was going to major in like entomology, you know insects right? I remember him saying that and was like " ; Eww" ; . He said, " ; Well, you know, you' ; re in California, it' ; s agricultural. That' ; s a field." ; Yeah and so you know, his parents had been, they' ; d gotten through the depression through the 30s, sent him to college and then they had a grocery store. They were totally self-sufficient, they took, they were supporting themselves and him. And then, then they come to Chicago and he had to support them and his mother-in-law, my you know, my mother' ; s mother. Mary Doi: Right so his, his life was hugely disrupted. Christina Adachi (Tina): It was, yeah. I don' ; t know whether we could in general say it was harder for men than for women but my mother was also just very social and I could just see in camp, she had friends, she made friends, she had fun. And for my father, not sure that there was that kind of social network. And as, as I said, he was older and then after camp, finding himself in Chicago and starting from scratch and feeling the responsibility of supporting a family, four children plus two, two grandmothers and a grandfather, that all kind of rested on his shoulders. Patti Adachi: Yeah, yeah. Mary Doi: Wow. Wow. That' ; s, that' ; s amazing. We' ; ve talked a little bit about the hearings. I' ; m really curious about that conference that happened before the hearings that Saturday, Monday conference. And Tina, I know you were a speaker. Can you talk to me about that, about how you got chosen, maybe what you said, what it was like to be a speaker at this conference, you know, how many people came? Who sponsored it? I can' ; t figure that out. Christina Adachi (Tina): I don' ; t know the answer to that question. Mary Doi: Okay. Christina Adachi (Tina): I don' ; t know whether it was just an offshoot from the JACL' ; s preparation for the hearings or not. So yeah, I don' ; t know who organized that. But I assume because I was introduced and I referred to myself as a member of the media and at the time, there were very few Asian American journalists. It was years later that we founded the Chicago chapter of the Asian American Journalist' ; s Association. But back then, it was Linda Yu and a writer for the Tribune and not too many others, Gene Honda and I think I was one of the few Japanese, of Japanese ancestry. So I would be, of the media members, I would be a logical choice. And I don' ; t remember whether, I don' ; t think at that time, I was an officer in JACL, I don' ; t think I was representing JACL. So, who chose me? I don' ; t know. And as I said, I think it was because I had some visibility as a, as a journalist and I was very comfortable giving a speech. I was very comfortable with public speaking because I had a radio show on WLS, I hosted a number of cable shows, I was a columnist for a newspaper, so that was not a problem for me. Not that I wasn' ; t a little bit nervous because speaking on a subject that, that was new to me, but I remember I was happy to do it and I was just really, I liked being included and being part of the group. Mary Doi: I think what' ; s so impressive is not just that you spoke but who else spoke with you. Do you know, I think Min Yasui was on the roster, Roger Daniels was also somebody who spoke and then, the next day retired Justice Goldberg you know. Christina Adachi (Tina): Right, I probably didn' ; t appreciate at the time the company I was keeping, I just knew that they picked me and I said yes. Mary Doi: Do you remember if your folks came to, to the conference? Christina Adachi (Tina): I think mom might' ; ve come because she usually, she usually showed up whenever I was doing anything, giving a speech or hosting-- Patti Adachi: Yeah, and she had more time. Dad was still working. Christina Adachi (Tina): Yeah, yeah so I don' ; t think that Dad came but I have a feeling that mom might' ; ve been there. Mary Doi: Okay. And Patti, you thought that you probably didn' ; t go, is that right? Patti Adachi: I don' ; t think I was there. I don' ; t remember being there. Mary Doi: Was it anything you would' ; ve talked to Tina about? Patti Adachi: Yeah, I mean that footage, that' ; s the first time I feel like I saw that, when you were speaking on that panel. But that' ; s odd ' ; cause I was editing the newsletter. Christina Adachi (Tina): Why weren' ; t you there? Patti Adachi: I don' ; t know. (laughs) What was I doing? Mary Doi: Well it' ; s interesting how, you know I, I wouldn' ; t expect to have really sharp recall either. You' ; re going back like 40 years-- Christina Adachi (Tina): Over 40 years. Mary Doi: How do I remember, how do I remember? We talked a little bit about NCJAR and NCRR. Did you support both of those efforts as well as the JACL or do you feel like you didn' ; t really know enough about them? Christina Adachi (Tina): I certainly was not an active supporter of either one of them. My, my efforts were really pretty much confined to JACL. Patti Adachi: But in general, any effort, wanting some kind of redress, some kind of reparations and acknowledgement and an apology, yeah we would' ; ve supported. Yeah, I don' ; t-- Mary Doi: But maybe not taken part in? Patti Adachi: No, ' ; cause I, we were just mainly involved in JACL. And I do remember reading Paul Igasaki and one of his president' ; s messages in the newsletter and he said you know, there are these different efforts but NCJAR' ; s, you know, there' ; s the statute of limitations. I just don' ; t think they' ; d succeed. Yeah, it' ; s a good, you know, we support the whole goal and the reason, you know the reason behind them but I don' ; t think they would be successful. Mary Doi: I' ; m going to have to look at those old newsletters which are in the really moldy basement. Patti Adachi: Oh, yeah. Sometime, I want to see too. Katherine Nagasawa: I love the newsletters. I have a couple of photocopies, Patti, and I, I love the Japanese designs included. There' ; s like all these like different swirls and waves and I don' ; t know where you got them from. Patti Adachi: Oh, you know, I, I did those myself but I got the idea from the New Yorker magazine, ' ; cause they always had pen and ink drawings filling little spaces. So I did those with things I had around from, probably from Tokyo. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh my gosh, they' ; re amazing. They' ; re like, I' ; ll show you some of them. I can photocopy some and send them to you but there' ; s one with a ship and there' ; s water and the ship has like a, kind of like a Japanese flag on it and some really-- Patti Adachi: I can' ; t remember that. Maybe that, I don' ; t know if that' ; s mine. It sounds more like-- Mary Doi: Just say thank you. (laughs) Patti Adachi: Yeah, but no, yeah, I did pen drawings and I got the idea from the New Yorker magazine. So I, yeah, I drew those and I' ; d stick them in and I started adding poems. I don' ; t know if everybody thought that... You know I had poems in there like Dwight Okita' ; s and Janice Mirikitani' ; s and Lawson Inada, and I don' ; t-- You know sometimes, the newsletters were bigger and they cost more to print and I' ; m not, nobody-- Japanese, they don' ; t say to your face, " ; Why, what are you doing?" ; You know they might say it behind your back. And Bill Yoshino would say, " ; Yeah, you know people they monku behind your back but they' ; re not going to tell you" ; . Like, " ; This is not the place to have these poems or these little drawings. They' ; re nice, but no." ; Nobody said that to me. Christina Adachi (Tina): But they couldn' ; t fire her because she was a volunteer. Patti Adachi: No they wouldn' ; t. Well, yeah, they weren' ; t going to fire me. Christina Adachi (Tina): But she was a great editor I mean, because she' ; s always been an amazing artist, so she created all this artwork and she' ; s also an excellent writer, so they were very lucky to have you being willing to edit that newspaper for as many years as you did. Patti Adachi: Yes. Well, it was so rewarding. I got to know so many Nisei and so many Sansei I would never have known. Christina Adachi (Tina): But you know our involvement was not completely altruistic. We really had a lot of fun and it was just so gratifying to meet all these people and to get to work with them and spend time with them, Nisei and Sansei and we ended up going to some of the JACL national conventions, L.A. and Seattle and San Francisco. We went to some of the Midwest regional conventions. I remember getting in a car and driving to Iowa or Ohio or Wisconsin but it was really a great social experience, you know, and then there was this sense of our all being together in this joint effort. But, remember when we had a, when we had a JACL convention in Chicago and people came from around the country and we went to, we spent a night at the Limelight, we took all the young people dancing at the Limelight and so... It was, it was really, it really was a lot of-- Patti Adachi: Oh yeah it was very rewarding, personally rewarding. Christina Adachi (Tina): It was, it really was. And we had experiences that we would otherwise never, never have had. Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah. I' ; m going to-- Ty Yamamoto: Sorry, I' ; m going to pause really quick. Just one moment. Mary Doi: Okay, so we' ; re at the hour? Ty Yamamoto: Almost at the hour. Mary Doi: Okay. I was just going to jump in. Ty Yamamoto: Can we do 12 minutes left, is that possible? That' ; s about how much audio I have left. Mary Doi: Oh, and can you go to the phone or not? Ty Yamamoto: I c-- Let' ; s see. If you give me five minutes, I can get us more time. Is that possible? Mary Doi: Oh, I' ; m going to ask two questions and hopefully, we can get through them. Ty Yamamoto: Okay. Okay, if you can give me five minutes, I can swap this out and get us some more time on the-- Mary Doi: Well, let' ; s just see how far we get. Ty Yamamoto: Okay, give me one moment. Yeah, we have 12 minutes on the recorder. And it is-- Mary Doi: Okay. So tell me when it' ; s six minutes. One of the foci of these oral histories is to really focus on the Midwest efforts for Redress and contrast that with the rest of the country. Is there anything that comes to mind to you that makes the Midwest Region' ; s efforts different from any other region' ; s efforts? Patti Adachi: I don' ; t know what, anything about you know like the West Coast or like New York. Christina Adachi (Tina): The only thing I can remember is just the sheer size of the JA community in Chicago. You know the whole history of that, I forget what the number is, thousands of people, who came directly out of the camps to Chicago for various reasons, employment and, and all of that. So I think that we did have a sense that Chicago was a major player in this effort and, and we were, we were a part of that and that was important because we were such a large population center and really did have to take a leading role. Mary Doi: Okay. Well, I' ; m going to jump to questions, the last question, which I' ; m really interested in. I' ; m really interested, so this is called the Redress and Reparations Movement, which to me implies that there' ; s some kind of repair that happens. Do you think repair happened out of this movement and what does repair look like for the Japanese American community? What' ; s left to do? Patti Adachi: I think for my parents yeah there was, it, it was, it did repair a lot. It helped a lot for the acknowledgement and you know, the money was kind of token, but not really. I mean it was... Yeah, the money did mean, make a difference. I remember the whole debate, you know, it' ; s not about money, but they said, " ; No, you have to, you can' ; t just get an apology. That' ; s cheap. It has to cost something, because that' ; s how Americans, you know that' ; s Americans... it' ; s got to cost them actual dollars, so you' ; ve got to have a substantial amount." ; But there was a woman, a Nisei woman who was a teacher' ; s aid at Senn High School and she told me some of the land her parents owned before they lost it, it was part of Knotts Berry Farm. That' ; s like, I don' ; t know, millions of dollars. It' ; s, it' ; s huge. It' ; s very valuable land. So you know you lose land like that, prime land and... But it did, I think it, it made them feel good that there was the apology and some acknowledgement and some effort. Christina Adachi (Tina): Yeah, I think it was hugely significant both on an individual basis for people to be able to relive and finally, in, in many instances confront what the experience was and just kind of work through it and just release those emotions for the first time. And then I think for the JA community, it was just so important that this become part of history, that the commission was created, the bill was passed, the apology, the, the checks, I, I mean I just think we can' ; t underestimate what a difference that has made. That' ; s part of American history and so, it was really important that, that those steps were taken. I think there' ; s still a lot to do, not necessarily confined to the Japanese community, but as we know in recent years, there' ; s been so many instances of anti-Asian hate and violence and just clearly as a country we have such a long way to go as far as confronting the questions of race and identity and immigrants and all of that, so there' ; s a long path ahead of us. But I, I certainly feel that what happened with the Redress movement was just, just of huge importance and significance and I' ; m just so grateful that there were people to start this effort and see it all the way through and complete it and I think we' ; re all the benefits of that. We' ; re, we' ; ve all received the benefits of that. Mary Doi: I think especially that there were still some Isseis alive to get the checks as well as our Nisei parents. Patti Adachi: Yeah. Mary Doi: Let' ; s see. Christina Adachi (Tina): So grandma was still alive to get her check right? Patti Adachi: Grandma was still alive, but Oji-san and Ba-chan were not. Christina Adachi (Tina): Two of our grandparents were deceased by that time. Mary Doi: Kat? Katherine Nagasawa: Hey. Mary Doi: Hi. Katherine Nagasawa: Sorry, I think somehow the call might' ; ve dropped. Mary Doi: Right. We' ; re kind of winding up, we just talked a little bit about how does repair happen, what does it look like, what' ; s left to do. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, I definitely heard all that, it was just a couple seconds ago that it, it dropped. Mary Doi: Okay. Do you remember what your parents did with that $20,000? Christina Adachi (Tina): I don' ; t and when I think about it, that was a lot of money and it' ; s certainly a lot of money to them. I remember my dad made $10,000 a year, which I thought was like a huge amount of money, but there were three people in our household, my two parents and one of my grandmothers who was still alive, so that would' ; ve been $60,000 coming into our household and I don' ; t know whether they put it into a college fund or what did they do with it? Patti Adachi: I think they might' ; ve put some of it into CDs, is that certificate, what, whatever-- Mary Doi: Certificate of deposit. Patti Adachi: And, and, in case we needed-- I think dad said, you know, " ; This is for you know, any of the kids in case they need our help." ; ' ; Cause I know there were some of those. And I did use some when I had my hips resurfaced in India, part of them, mom said, " ; Yeah Dad, you know Dad, your, your father said this is for the kids if they need anything." ; Christina Adachi (Tina): Because up until then, I don' ; t think that they could have saved much money. ' ; Cause there, you know there were nine of us living in our house. Patti Adachi: I don' ; t know what grandma did with hers. Christina Adachi (Tina): I don' ; t know. Patti Adachi: She might have put it in the bank. Katherine Nagasawa: One thing I wanted to ask about Patti is I was looking in a 1981 issue of the JACL-er and you wrote an editorial about the formation of your Japanese American and Asian American identity but you also mentioned that your grandma used to say when the government sends the check, when the money comes from the government, I' ; m going to buy you anything you want. Patti Adachi: Right, yes, and-- Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you mind, do you mind telling that story? It seems like she passed away right before she would' ; ve-- Patti Adachi: That was, she died in 1964, that, my grandmother, my father' ; s mother. But yeah we were very close and, and you know ' ; cause they had the business and they must' ; ve had a house and she would send letters you know, and they, my father would send letters to try to get some compensation from the government. And I think that was what a lot of Issei did. And I think, I think I have a copy of a letter where she said, " ; Well, we can give you this much." ; It was just a paltry amount. You know but yeah she would, she' ; d say, " ; Yeah, when the money comes, I' ; m going to get you things," ; and then, then it did come and we never heard anything. It' ; s not like, " ; Yay, now we are going to buy--" ; They were so disappointed. They must' ; ve been so disappointed at what the government gave them you know, for their, their store, their home. Mary Doi: Yeah, pennies on the dollar. Patti Adachi: Yeah, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. And then I did also want to just like read this other line that stood out to me, you talked about how you identified as white when you were younger because a lot of your friends were white. Patti Adachi: Oh yes, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: But then, through being involved in Redress, through your trip and time in Japan, you wrote, " ; I now identify as Asian, as a minority, as third world. I think the Redress campaign has reactivated my anger." ; Patti Adachi: Yes, yes. Katherine Nagasawa: Can you talk about how being involved in the Redress movement sort of shaped your sense of identity? Patti Adachi: Well, being in Japan was a big part of it. All of a sudden, I realized, I feel so comfortable here. I don' ; t feel like I' ; m representing my race, you know wherever I, in, in... Even in Hyde Park, you know, I still was almost the only, only Asian sometimes in a group. So I realized how comfortable I felt, I realized how Japanese I was in many ways because we grew up with two grandmothers and a great uncle. You know so they really taught a lot of how we should act. They were the ones who said, you know, " ; You don' ; t do this in public, you don' ; t shame your family." ; " ; People," ; grandma used to say, my mother' ; s mother, " ; People will laugh." ; So yeah, but then, I real-- yeah I became very angry when I read all about you know the, just the whole history of racism against Asians and, and I did, I became very political. I used to not be at all and, yeah and I felt more comfortable with myself because we grew up reading Seventeen Magazine and everyone, you know everyone was white that we saw on TV and the movies and magazines and most of our friends. So yeah, it was huge and then, getting involved with JACL, I could sit at these meetings and just feel really comfortable with people. And you know you just understood each other. Katherine Nagasawa: Gotcha. Mary Doi: How about your daughters, do you think, how do they identify? Patti Adachi: Yeah, what do you, what, well-- Christina Adachi (Tina): Well, Aurora definitely identifies as, as Asian American or Japanese American or Hapa. And I think she would always, is very glad that part of her last name is Japanese because she has a hyphenated last name, Adachi-Winter. So yes, and she' ; s always been really interested in our family and our family history. And I was so glad that she wanted to make the pilgrimage with me to Amache over the summer. Mary Doi: So was that just a private pilgrimage, just the two of you or were you on a bigger group? Christina Adachi (Tina): No, it was a, it was an annual pilgrimage, which finally was able to be live after having been virtual for two or three years. Patti Adachi: ' ; Cause Minoru Tonai is my mother' ; s first cousin and he' ; s, he' ; s huge in the Japanese American community in like Southern California. He was president of the Japanese American Culture and Community Center. He was part of, he, he' ; s a really well-known person. So yeah, the whole Tonai family, which was my mother' ; s side, and they' ; re yeah, they' ; re very active in the museum. Christina Adachi (Tina): This is an annual pilgrimage which finally went live and Min Tonai is now like 95 or something like that. So Patti and I kept saying, if we want to see Min again, we cannot just wait many more years. We really need to make an effort and so then, we met in Amache and many of our relatives from Southern California and San Francisco, including Min and his family met us there. Mary Doi: Is Rosalyn Tonai... Patti Adachi: Rosalyn is also-- Christina Adachi (Tina): Yes! Mary Doi: Oh, I know Rosalyn. Christina Adachi (Tina): Yes, Rosalyn Tonai. Absolutely. Mary Doi: So Kat, you know her too? The museum National Japanese American Historical Society-- Christina Adachi (Tina): --in San Francisco. Mary Doi: --she' ; s at the Presidio or... Let' ; s see, she' ; s-- Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, I see. Wow. Mary Doi: Yeah, she' ; s a great person. Really great person. Christina Adachi (Tina): Yeah so she' ; s one of Min Tonai' ; s daughters. Mary Doi: Oh, okay, got it. That makes sense. Christina Adachi (Tina): Yeah so we all were together. Patti Adachi: No, Grace and Ichiro' ; s daughter. Christina Adachi (Tina): Oh, I' ; m sorry. Patti Adachi: Ichiro and Minoru-- Christina Adachi (Tina): Oh, that' ; s right, that' ; s right, she' ; s Min' ; s niece. Patti Adachi: And Minoru-- So my grandmother and Min Tonai, and Ichiro' ; s father, are brother and sister and so, Rosalyn is their, is Ichiro' ; s... So, so my mom was first, is first cousins with Minoru and, and Rosalyn? Rosalyn. Yeah, they' ; re first cousins. Mary Doi: Okay, okay. Now, the name Tonai means something to me. Patti Adachi: Yeah, and they grew up together. Real close. Mary Doi: Yeah, I think we' ; re very much at the end but is there anything else you' ; d like to say? Patti Adachi: No. Christina Adachi (Tina): I don' ; t think so. I mean I think we were both, well, it really was Redress that got us into JACL and that just became a really important part of our lives. It really created a sense of community and a, an effort and working for a cause. So we were happy to be part of it and to contribute but I certainly feel like we got as much from it as anything that we, anything that we might have contributed. So it was really-- Patti Adachi: Well, you got involved because of Redress, I got involved because of you. I used to, Tina, whatever she did, I would do it. If she said, " ; Let' ; s do this" ; , I said " ; Okay" ; . Mary Doi: You' ; re the little sister. Christina Adachi (Tina): Yeah. Patti Adachi: Yes, I do whatever my big sister suggested. Mary Doi: Well, this has been absolutely wonderful as an interview and as a conversation. I feel like I' ; m meeting you again. Patti Adachi: Yeah, yeah. Christina Adachi (Tina): We used to babysit for Mary. At least I did I used to babysit for Mary. Patti Adachi: I did too. I remember babysitting. Mary Doi: But I don' ; t remember this. So you, you were nice enough, Patti, you were nice enough to say, " ; Oh, I was probably babysitting your brothers." ; Patti Adachi: Well, really your brothers. I mean you yeah, you were not that much younger, but you know, your brothers... Christina Adachi (Tina): How old are you? Mary Doi: I' ; ll be 70 this year, so I was born in ' ; 53. Christina Adachi (Tina): Okay, ' ; cause I was born in ' ; 49, so I' ; m four years-- Patti Adachi: And I' ; m ' ; 50. Christina Adachi (Tina): Right so you know, if I was 14 when I was babysitting for you, you were only 10. Mary Doi: 10, yeah. Christina Adachi (Tina): Yeah, so you still needed a babysitter. (laughs) Mary Doi: Well, thanks again. Patti Adachi: You' ; re welcome. Katherine Nagasawa: I have quick question. Mary Doi: Yeah, okay. Katherine Nagasawa: Even if, if you guys aren' ; t recording, I just have a couple of questions about specific people that we' ; re still looking to track down. Do you mind if we could just stay on the phone and I can ask a couple of questions? Patti Adachi: Yeah, no, sure sure. Yeah, who? Katherine Nagasawa: Okay. ' ; Cause I, Mary, I don' ; t know if you shared with them the, the photo of the Redress Committee with all the contact info and the names but you mentioned Janice Honda as being one of the other Sansei. Do you know if she' ; s around? Patti Adachi: Well she should still be-- Doesn' ; t she, she lives on Balmoral. She lives in a three flat that she inherited. Yeah. Mary Doi: Is her name still Honda-- Patti Adachi: Janice Honda, yeah, I' ; m pretty sure. And yeah, you should be able to reach her. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you know who would still be in touch with her? Or like-- Patti Adachi: Well, Bill would know how to contact her. Bill Yoshino. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay, cool. And then how about Kurt Clark? Does that ring a bell? Patti Adachi: I don' ; t know who he is, no. Christina Adachi (Tina): No. Katherine Nagasawa: David Isono? Mary Doi: I know David Isono from the Heiwa board. He' ; s very quiet. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, I remember you said okay, I, I remember you did kind of say that. Mary Doi: And he' ; s a CPA. Katherine Nagasawa: And how about Frank Sakamoto? Patti Adachi: Is he still alive? I don' ; t know. Katherine Nagasawa: Was he a Sansei or was he a Nisei. Patti Adachi: He' ; s a Nisei. He was a Nisei. Katherine Nagasawa: A Nisei, okay. Mary Doi: Who are his kids? Do you know who his kids are? No? Patti Adachi: No. Christina Adachi (Tina): No. Mary Doi: No, okay. All right so then-- Katherine Nagasawa: I imagine maybe he' ; s passed away. And then David Tanaka? Patti Adachi: I don' ; t know who he is. Christina Adachi (Tina): His name sounds familiar, but I don' ; t really remember much about him. Mary Doi: So, let' ; s ask Bill. Katherine Nagasawa: We can ask Bill, yeah. And the other thing is, I was wondering, does anybody still keep in touch with Mike Ushijima? Christina Adachi (Tina): Nope, not me. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay, cool. Thank you so much. That' ; s really helpful. It' ; s good to know that Janice is still around, maybe we can try to ask Bill for her number or something. Christina Adachi (Tina): Yeah, you should be able to find Janice. Patti Adachi: Yeah. Mary Doi: Okay, great. Well, again, both Kat and I thank you profusely. Patti Adachi: Oh you' ; re welcome! Katherine Nagasawa: Thank you so much, yeah. Mary Doi: This was just wonderful. Really, really wonderful. Christina Adachi (Tina): Well we' ; re happy to do it. ' ; Cause I think it' ; s a great project. I' ; m, I' ; m really, I' ; m really impressed with what I' ; ve seen and heard already and I' ; ll be following what, what' ; s yet to come. Mary Doi: Hats off to Kat. As somebody else at Full Spectrum says, Kat is a chameleon, that she' ; s great at so many things, not just oral histories, but the analysis of the oral histories, you know, making something as, as sophisticated as that online exhibit. So I think you' ; re in great hands working with Kat. Patti Adachi: Kat, are you still on the phone? Is she still there? Katherine Nagasawa: I am, yeah. Patti Adachi: So you' ; re not, are you going to be back in Chicago? I was looking forward to meeting you. Are you back in Chicago sometime? Katherine Nagasawa: I' ; m actually going to fly out on Thursday. I' ; ll be here for the Day of Remembrance event. Patti Adachi: Oh right. Katherine Nagasawa: So if you' ; re planning to go to that, I can, I' ; ll definitely be there. Patti Adachi: I can' ; t. I can' ; t be there. Mary Doi: Oh, I remember why! Patti Adachi: We won' ; t go into why! (laughs) Christina Adachi (Tina): So Kat, how do you like living in California with, with a, like such a, much more visible Asian community? Katherine Nagasawa: It' ; s so different. I mean I actually grew up in Southern California-- Christina Adachi (Tina): Oh, oh you did. Katherine Nagasawa: --so in some ways, like I, I kind of left that environment to then go to the Midwest and be one of the only, the only Japanese American I knew in my class in college. So it is really interesting to be steeped in a place where it' ; s so normal to be Asian, where there' ; s so many Asian American journalists like me or creatives and, yeah I feel like it sparked a lot of new community. But I also think that there' ; s something that comes with not having many, many numbers like when we were in Chicago, I feel like the people who were active in community really treasured that and it made the community stronger because we didn' ; t take it for granted, even though we had so many people around. Patti Adachi: That' ; s, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: So, so I do miss Chicago a lot, you know? Christina Adachi (Tina): Where did you go to college? Katherine Nagasawa: I went to Northwestern for a journalism school. Christina Adachi (Tina): Right, right. Okay. Katherine Nagasawa: But I, I went to the Japan club there trying to find community and it was all white guys who were interested in anime. Christina Adachi (Tina): Oh God. Ty Yamamoto: Kat, Kat (laughs) Katherine Nagasawa: There was no actual Japanese Americans. And there was one Japanese person I met, but she' ; s ethnically Chinese but grew up in Japan. Honestly, it wasn' ; t until I met Mary and Lisa at the Ginza Festival that I really started learning about the resettlement era and the community that came to Chicago. You know and I tapped into that through the Kansha project and other involvements with the young Japanese American-- It' ; s called Next Gen Nikkei Group. Christina Adachi (Tina): Well, your Curious City Stories are great. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, thanks. Thanks. That was my own personal quest to figure out you know, where community was and what happened to the Lakeview and Hyde Park community. So, it was really gratifying to do it and it was all because of Mary and Lisa that I was able to do that story in the first place. Mary Doi: We bugged her into getting involved. But again, so glad. Christina Adachi (Tina): I' ; m glad you did. Mary Doi: So glad that, that she is. Patti Adachi: You were going to ask her question? Ty Yamamoto: Oh, no, it' ; s okay. Kat, I' ; m, I' ; m in conversation with the Northwestern Japan Club right now, but I don' ; t know much about them. I assume it' ; s the same though, they' ; re asking for similar program from me, programs from me, so-- Mary Doi: Anime for white guys. Katherine Nagasawa: You know the thing is though, in the years after I graduated, I think I went back to campus for something and I met some actual Japanese Americans who were trying to revitalize, so I think there' ; s more now. Ty Yamamoto: Really? When I was, when I was in college, we had a Japan club and I had two, two... I think we were all Yonsei, Sansei or Yonsei and then mostly yeah, mostly you know the anime type. Although, we did have a lot of exchange students from Japan, so maybe that, that balanced out a little bit. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, true. So funny. Mary Doi: I think it' ; s really interesting how for Japanese Americans, anime and like cosplay, like what the heck is this? We' ; re really not part of that world, we' ; re part of this ethnic world that is not... We' ; re not Japanophiles as I like to think, but yeah, really different. Really different. Ty Yamamoto: Very different. Mary Doi: So, all right, are we on time to get you... Patti Adachi: Oh yeah, I probably should... Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Footage may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=AdachiPattiAndTina20230214.xml AdachiPattiAndTina20230214.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/browse?tags=Series%3A+Redress
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Title
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Adachi, Patti and Christina (2/14/2023)
Description
An account of the resource
Sisters Patti and Tina Adachi, born and raised in Hyde Park, discuss their experiences as sansei growing up on Chicago's South Side. They describe involvement with the Civil Rights Movement, Women's Movement, and anti-war demonstrations as precursors to their participation in Japanese American redress efforts. They recall being motivated by their outrage after learning about their family's treatment during WWII, engaging with Asian American activism, and joining the Japanese American Citizens League's redress efforts. Having both served in multiple roles at JACL's Chicago chapter, they describe experiences such as editing the newsletter (Patti) and attending the Chicago CWRIC hearings at NEIU (Tina). In reflecting on the significance of redress and reparations, they recount the impact of the apology from the U.S. government on their family and the larger community and express the belief that more work remains to be done with regard to race and identity beyond the Japanese American community.
Date
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2023-02-14
Format
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video
FSF JACS
Series: Redress
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
Subject
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Japanese Americans--History.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the U.S. Department of the
Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations
expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended, the U.S. Department of the Interior
prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability or age in its
federally funded assisted projects. If you believe you have been discriminated against in any
program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please
write to:
Office of Equal Opportunity
National Park Service
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
Creator
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Publisher
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Doi, Mary
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Yoshino, William
OHMS Object
https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=YoshinoWilliam20221206.xml
Interview Keyword
Sansei
Japanese American Citizens League
JACL Chicago chapter
JACL Midwest Director
JACL Midwest District
Legislative strategy
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
CWRIC hearings
Northeastern Illinois University
Portland Assembly Center
Heart Mountain
Edgewater Beach Hotel
South Side
Calumet High School
OHMS Object Text
5.4 12/6/2022 Yoshino, William (12/6/2022) 1:44:03 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection REDR Redress Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded, transcribed, and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Sansei Japanese American Citizens League JACL Chicago chapter JACL Midwest Director JACL Midwest District Legislative strategy Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians CWRIC hearings Northeastern Illinois University Portland Assembly Center Heart Mountain Edgewater Beach Hotel South Side Calumet High School Yoshino, William Doi, Mary video 1:|16(12)|50(11)|67(3)|87(14)|100(6)|111(11)|123(5)|134(11)|146(13)|159(7)|172(9)|197(4)|211(3)|230(11)|249(11)|278(13)|288(11)|300(4)|314(1)|330(12)|341(3)|352(7)|364(8)|386(2)|407(4)|422(11)|444(1)|500(9)|515(9)|553(3)|558(14)|566(10)|574(11)|588(13)|596(12)|605(16)|615(12)|624(15)|640(14)|648(3)|662(3)|670(6)|684(11)|692(11)|704(1)|715(9)|722(13)|732(11)|741(8)|752(14)|764(12)|776(2)|786(2)|796(9)|805(4)|813(9)|824(7)|835(3)|842(9)|851(15)|861(11)|869(10)|880(1)|896(17)|906(16)|919(3)|930(1)|939(10)|962(2)|971(11)|979(16)|992(3)|1001(12)|1017(9)|1027(4)|1036(10)|1044(5)|1053(8)|1069(12)|1077(3)|1089(11)|1110(2)|1121(1)|1130(3)|1141(6)|1164(1)|1171(13)|1180(10)|1191(4)|1199(5)|1208(2)|1213(11)|1220(3)|1226(11)|1234(6)|1243(12)|1252(11)|1262(4)|1277(8)|1290(9)|1296(11)|1308(10)|1319(3) 0 https://vimeo.com/823092099 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/823092099?h=aef563637c" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; William Yoshino, a Sansei whose parents were incarcerated at Heart Mountain, descibes his family's wartime experience and his own experience moving from Washington State to Chicago's South Side as a teenager. In this interview, he reflects on his involvement with the JACL's Chicago chapter and his role as the JACL's Midwest Director beginning in 1978. He recalls that in Chicago, JACL leadership passed from the Nisei generation to the Sansei generation relatively early, perhaps leading the chapter to be more progressive than others. He recalls campaigns prior to the Redress movement that helped JACL members hone their lobbying and organizing skills, shares details about the JACL's Redress strategies, and describes some of the interracial coalition building that proved to be effective in Chicago. He concludes with detailed recollections about the Chicago CWRIC hearings in 1981, particularly the selection of the location, coverage by news media, and his personal experience as a member of the audience hearing the witnesses give testimony. Mary Doi: All right. Well, let' ; s start. I have a little script to read to you today. So today is December 6th, 2022. This is an oral history being recorded at the JACL Chicago office, located at 5415 North Clark Street in Chicago. The interviewer is Mary Doi. The interviewee is Bill Yoshino. 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 be using verbal cues and responses. Instead, I' ; ll use facial expressions to communicate my interest in what you' ; re saying. This makes for a clearer transcript. You can decline to answer any question without giving a reason. You can take breaks whenever you need them, and you can end the interview at any point. So if everything' ; s okay let' ; s begin. William Yoshino: Okay. Did you want me looking at Mary? Ty Yamamoto: Thank you for asking. You can look at Mary. William Yoshino: Okay. Mary Doi: Yeah. Bill, thank you so much for doing this interview. I' ; ve known you as the, well, now retired, Midwest District person for JACL. And also I remember seeing you in San Francisco when you were the acting, I think you were the acting national person at JACL. Were you? William Yoshino: Yeah. I did serve in that capacity several times. I did a stint actually as the National Director of JACL in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Mary Doi: Okay. So that must be when I remember seeing you in Japantown and just passing in the night. Well, I think what' ; s interesting about talking with you is that you bring a really unique perspective to the Redress Movement because you know this story both regionally, Chicago and the Midwest, and you have this national perspective. So, I think you' ; re somebody who can zoom in and zoom out on the redress story. Let' ; s see. This is a JACS grant-funded project that will use oral history videos, archival documents, and other objects to develop a fictional narrative film and a K-12 curriculum that tells the redress history through an innovative healing and justice framework. Full Spectrum Features is going to be working with educators at Harvard to develop this pedagogical model. I know you' ; ve talked to Kat before, for The Reckoning digital exhibit that the JASC curated. So, I' ; m going to try not to ask you the same sorts of questions, but let me just give you an overview of what I' ; m interested in. I' ; m interested in opposing viewpoints in and outside of the Japanese American community about redress. I' ; m interested in, in hindsight, redress strategies that you think could' ; ve gone a little bit better. And I' ; m also interested in how you look back at the Redress Movement from roughly the eighties to the nineties, from the perspective of 2022. You have this great long view of history and your interpretations of it may have changed over the intervening decades. So, that' ; s a little bit about the explanation. I was saying to Ty that I' ; ve known you, I know of you, but I really don' ; t know anything about you. I know that your family moved from someplace in Washington state in the early 1960s. It was a small town. You moved to Chicago in the early 1960s. And you moved to the South Side. How did that happen? What was the reason? William Yoshino: Well, let me start at the beginning. Just, I think in a very general way, my mother was born in Seattle. Her family lived on the south side of Seattle in the community basically where most of the Japanese resided at that time, the Beacon Hill area of Seattle. My father was an immigrant to Japan. He came in 1924. He was a teenager. His father had preceded him to the United States. So, my father actually came in June of 1924. If you recall historically, the end of June actually was the date on which the Immigration Act of 1924 became actionable. It precluded any further immigration for purposes of permanent residency to the United States by people coming from Japan or basically the eastern hemisphere nations. So my dad just made it under the wire as it were. As I said, he had been preceded by his father who was in the military in Japan. He actually was part of the Imperial Guard under the Meiji emperor. Then when the Meiji emperor died, he kind of became like displaced in some ways. I think that that and perhaps, and I don' ; t really know the entire history of it, but he decided that his future was not in Japan any longer. It was elsewhere. So, he came to the United States. My father, coming when he was in his teens still, then started school in Seattle. He docked at the port. His entry point was the Port of Seattle. So he was there. And he actually had to start high school all over again, go through all of that because of the language and so forth. But he was working, I think, in the produce industry at the time that he met my mother, whose family owned or ran, I should say, a very, very small grocery store. I think it was in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. It turned out that my father met my mother because he delivered produce. Her family store was one of the stores that he delivered to. Anyway, they met, got married. This was pre-war, just before the start of World War II. My father, at the outbreak, or I should say prior to the outbreak of the war, really he had heard, I think some of the rumors about an impending so-called evacuation. He thought, well, I don' ; t want to get caught up in this. So he had some relatives who lived in central Washington, south central Washington I should say, the area of Kennewick, which is on the Columbia River, which separated Oregon from Washington. So he moved out there. He was kind of out of the restricted zone, the zone one. He thought that, well, he could just start forward with his life, but what happened was, was they extended the zone to central Washington. So, he got caught up in what would become the removal of Japanese from the west coast of Seattle. As a result, he didn' ; t go to the Puyallup Assembly Center, which was the main point where folks from Seattle went. He went instead to the Portland Assembly Center. That may have changed where he eventually wound up. I think, had he been removed from Seattle to Puyallup, he may have gone to, or my folks may have gone to Minidoka. As a result of being removed out of the Portland Assembly Center, they ended up at Heart Mountain. And then from there, the first chance my father got to get out of the camp, he did so by finding employment here in Chicago. I don' ; t know exactly what the date was, but it was at some point where there was the situation where folks could leave the camp if they were able to find employment or sponsorship in points outside of the West Coast. So he found a job working as a bartender at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, which I think employed not a lot, but it employed, it was open to employing Japanese Americans, those who had been in the camp and then were moving into the Midwest, out east and so forth. So my folks then remained here in Chicago. They actually lived on Kenmore Avenue, which is not too far from where the Japanese American Citizens League and Service Committee are located even today. After that, after the end of the war, my folks moved back to Seattle and then decided to join some of my other relatives who were in a town called Moses Lake, which is in central Washington, an agricultural area. They grew sugar beets, potatoes, that sort of thing. So my father decided that that' ; s what he wanted to do. He had his education disrupted, didn' ; t have the funds to... he had been attending the University of Washington pre-war, didn' ; t have the funds to go back for a variety of different reasons. So, he decided that he would try to do some farming and did so for about 10 years in the Moses Lake area. And then decided because he wasn' ; t doing that well in agriculture, decided to join some relatives that we had here in Chicago. We moved to Chicago, I believe it was in 1961, moved to the South Side of Chicago. And that' ; s how I arrived in this town. Mary Doi: About how old were you at that time? William Yoshino: I was 14. Mary Doi: Okay. I grew up on the South Side too. I was born in Hyde Park, and then I lived at 72nd and Stony. Were you anywhere near 72nd and Stony? William Yoshino: No, I wasn' ; t. I was in kind of a mixed neighborhood. It was an old Irish-Italian neighborhood around 80th and what is now the Dan Ryan Expressway. That' ; s what I remember in fact, was that when we moved to Chicago, they were just building the Dan Ryan Expressway. We were living, actually, with some relatives who were just off of the expressway. We used to run down there because at that time it was just a big hole in the ground. So, that was one of my first memories of the city, was just the construction that was going on there at that time. As I mentioned, it was an ethnically mixed area. It was partially Black. It was kind of Greek, Italian and Irish. Then I ended up, after a year or so, going to high school, Calumet High School on the South Side of Chicago. As I mentioned, the makeup of the school was fairly mixed. So, there was a certain amount of ethnic tension that was created as a result of that equal mixture of different ethnics at the same time. Mary Doi: Well, I really had no idea that there were Japanese American families living where you lived. I think more of them lived in what I think of as South Shore. I don' ; t know what the neighborhood was that I lived at, at 72nd and Stony, but I lived around my relatives and other Japanese Americans. So, I didn' ; t realize that we lived in sort of an ethnic neighborhood. For example, Asayo Horibe was the big girl that walked me to kindergarten. I had cousins. I had people like the Hayashis. Miyo Hayashi and her family lived down there. The Shigehiros, did you know them? They were all in the drum and bugle corps. William Yoshino: Well, I know of them. I know who they are now. Yes. Mary Doi: So kind of a nice extended family and other Japanese American kids in my class, but I see that you' ; re further south and further west from me. William Yoshino: Yeah. Yeah. I don' ; t ever remember seeing an Asian in that area or in my neighborhood at that time. In fact, I think at the high school that I attended, I think there was probably... I remember one Chinese American girl and then my brother, my younger brother. We were the only Asians in the entire school. So, it was a situation where I didn' ; t really then become even aware of what the Asian or the Japanese American community was until much later. Mary Doi: Yeah. Because I remember about that same time going to picnics at Rainbow Beach. I don' ; t know if this was a Kenjinkai thing or just a big family thing, but those to me were the memories that conjure up the ethnic community. William Yoshino: Yeah. Mary Doi: Well, that' ; s really interesting. I had no idea that you had this long series of migrations and ended up here in Chicago. So starting in 1978, I believe you became the JACL Midwest Director. Is that right? William Yoshino: That' ; s correct. Yes. Mary Doi: Okay. Where did you work before you started at the JACL? William Yoshino: I was teaching. I was teaching for the Chicago Public Schools. I taught at a school called Washington High School, which is on the far southeast side of Chicago in a community called Hegewisch. It was a community that formed out of the steel plants that were prevalent on the very, very far South Side of the city at that time. Then after that, I had taught at Fenger High School, which was... Fenger High School, which was on, what was it, about 111th Street and around Halsted, just Wallace Avenue basically, but just east of Halsted. That was my employment prior to working for the JACL. The story of that is kind of interesting, I think in some ways. I mean, it was my brother Ron, my older brother, had been somewhat active with the Chicago JACL. That' ; s kind of how I started some activity. I worked on the scholarship committee at that time because of my teaching background. During that period of time, the so-called governor of the Midwest District of JACL was Lillian Kimura. In ' ; 78, or I should say ' ; 77 I think or somewhere around there, the position of Midwest Director had become... or it was vacated. So, the national organization was looking for somebody to fill that spot. I kind of knew Lillian through my association with my volunteer work with the Chicago chapter. She started talking to me about it and finally pretty much twisted my arm and convinced me that it was an opportunity that I ought to take advantage of because I think she knew some of my interest having to do with being involved in public issues, specifically issues having to do with social justice. Excuse me. After a point, I just thought, well, that sounds like a good opportunity. And that' ; s how I became involved with... or I should say, that' ; s how I became employed by the JACL. So really, I think it was Lillian Kimura who was the one who was responsible for that, good or bad. Mary Doi: It was great, great that she twisted your arm. So thinking back to your early years at JACL, I know that this is the beginning of the Redress Movement in a way, 1978. Maybe the JACL had decided on going the commission route. I don' ; t exactly remember when that decision was made. But I' ; m interested in, before the Redress Movement, what were some of the major issues that the national JACL was dealing with in the mid-seventies, late seventies? Also, what was the Midwest district and Chicago, what were our issues? Do you remember? William Yoshino: Yeah. I mean, I think there were certain public policy issues that were out there. I mean, I think that the way that the JACL would become involved in issues is that things would happen out there in the environment and JACL would become involved in it. I think JACL, at least the way that I described it, was kind of a reactive organization in many ways. The Chicago JACL, I remember during the 1970s, became involved in the grape boycott issue that was taking place in California at that time. At that time, the grape growers had been organizing into a union through Cesar Chavez on the West Coast. It created a tension within JACL because you had many Nisei farmers in the Central Valley of California who would be affected by any type of grape strike, for example. So the Chicago JACL, kind of viewing it as a social justice issue, decided that they were going to take a stand supporting the right of the farm workers. That did cause quite a controversy within the JACL. It kind of evidenced, I think a sense that the Chicago JACL was very progressive in the way that it viewed social issues. I think too, at that time, that there had been discussion at the Chicago chapter level of opposing the war in Vietnam as well. You' ; re talking here about the early 1970s. So the chapter here was comprised of folks who were fairly progressive in their attitudes with regard to what could be viewed as civil liberties, social justice issues. I think though that the national JACL when I first became involved, I' ; m not sure that programmatically there was a whole lot on the table in my recollection. I think that part of what I did when I first came on board was to really assist the various JACL chapters in the Midwest to communicate with them, to try to keep them informed of what national JACL was doing, and then to provide assistance, as much assistance as I could at least, in the programs or activities that they would be engaged in. That' ; s why I was fairly active with a number of the various programs or issues, for example, that the Chicago JACL would be involved in. So that my role was really, at least from a national level, was to be involved in whatever grassroots efforts that the organization was involved in through its various chapters throughout the country. In the Midwest, there were nine chapters, Chicago being the largest. Then there were chapters in places like St. Louis, in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland, Detroit and so forth. Mary Doi: Okay. Well, that' ; s really fascinating that you came in and that you' ; re characterizing Chicago even in the mid to late seventies as the very progressive chapter in the country. William Yoshino: Right. Yeah. Mary Doi: I had no idea. I graduated high school at Santa Maria High School in Santa Maria, California. I' ; d gone to lab school up until then. So, it was this huge dislocation from an urban school to this school with future farmers. I remember the lettuce growers strike. I remember that was a town that was big, had a Japanese American agricultural history. So, strawberries and lettuce were the things that Santa Maria really produced a lot of. So, it' ; s really interesting. And I applaud the JACL Chicago for taking the sides of the workers and pitting yourself against the Japanese American farmers. William Yoshino: Right. Yeah. Mary Doi: That' ; s cool. William Yoshino: I think part of that is due to the fact that in Chicago or at least with the Chicago JACL, I think that the Nisei generation at that particular time wanted to transition the chapter generationally, from the older generation to a younger generation. So, they were very welcoming of young participation on their board of directors. This is beginning in the late 1960s and then 1970s. So unlike many, many chapters, JACL chapters throughout the country, you had that transition from Nisei leadership to Sansei leadership occurring much earlier than their fellow chapters throughout the country. I think that' ; s part of the reason that you had this kind of progressive mindset, was because you had young folks who were coming out of an era of activism, the sixties and the seventies. Mary Doi: Yeah. I was talking to Katherine about this a little bit. I said, " ; People like you and me, we do have the Civil Rights Movement as part of our background, the anti-Vietnam protests and even the rise of ethnic studies." ; This is sort of the zeitgeist under which we grew up. I think it really influences how we see the world, how we see justice, starting with certainly the internment, resettlement and redress. I think that we' ; re a little cohort of people who luckily had mentors like Lillian Kimura, other leaders of the JACL Chicago, to welcome our input and our vitality and our interests. I think that' ; s great. You mentioned that the Midwest District has nine chapters. You enumerated some of them. Did you enumerate all of them? You said, let' ; s see, St. Louis, Minneapolis. Dayton, Cincinnati, Cleveland. William Yoshino: Detroit, Indianapolis. Mary Doi: Oh, Detroit? Okay, Detroit. William Yoshino: St. Louis. Mary Doi: Oh, Detroit. Okay. Detroit. William Yoshino: St. Louis. Mary Doi: Indianapolis. And was there any in Milwaukee? William Yoshino: In Milwaukee, yeah. Mary Doi: Okay. So when you started, were these nine chapters what comprised the Midwest? William Yoshino: That' ; s what comprised the Midwest when I became the Midwest director. Mary Doi: Okay. William Yoshino: Yes. Mary Doi: So there were no chapters added in order to help spread the word about redress. William Yoshino: That' ; s correct. Mary Doi: Okay. William Yoshino: Eventually, and I don' ; t recall the date, I think it' ; s somewhere in the 1990s, the Midwest district merged with what was called the Mountain Plains district. And so the Mountain Plains district was split so that chapters like Denver, for example, went to what was called the Inner Mountain district. And then chapters like Omaha and Houston became aligned with the Midwest district. So the Midwest district actually increased in size from, I think, nine to 11 chapters. Mary Doi: Okay. Yeah. I just had no sense of the distribution, the geographic distribution, or the timeline for the creation of chapters. And Eric Langowski thought that perhaps the Hoosier chapter might have been formed in order to help get the word out about redress, but I' ; m glad to hear that maybe that' ; s not quite the case. So how big was the JACL back in the late 1970s? William Yoshino: Late 1970s, I believe that the National JACL had a membership of about 20,000, thereabouts. Yeah. For some reason, the number 23,000 sticks in my head, but I don' ; t know at what date. That might have been sometime during the mid 1970s, but by the late 1970s, I think it was still probably right around 20,000. Mary Doi: Okay. And then how big was the Chicago chapter when you started? William Yoshino: Chicago chapter at that time was probably about 1800 to 2000. Mary Doi: And what is it today? Do you have any idea? William Yoshino: I don' ; t know. Mary Doi: Okay. William Yoshino: Yeah, I' ; d only be guessing. Mary Doi: Yeah. I can probably ask somebody about that. I want to ask a little bit about the broad brush strokes of redress. How did it become a national issue for the Japanese American Citizens League? William Yoshino: Well, I think it started in, I don' ; t know, I think you can probably attach certain starting days to all of this. There would be some that would say that the move for redress or reparations, depending on what form it would take, could have started during the war, during World War II, with people in the resistance, that type of thing. For JACL, I think if you look at it on a formal basis, it started at the 1970 convention when an individual named Edison Uno from San Francisco first introduced a resolution saying that the JACL ought to pursue the wartime camp issue in some form. It was discussed... the JACL would meet at a national convention every two years. And so in the interim, in ' ; 72, ' ; 74, ' ; 76, they would, you know, kind of, the issue of redress would kind of evolve until 1978, when the organization actually formulated a concrete position saying that the issue ought to be clearly recognized as one where constitutional rights were violated, and that that violation should come with compensation. And they put a number out there of $25,000 per individual. I don' ; t know whether they said interned or affected by, and we can talk about that later because there is clearly a difference in terms of the actual legislation that was finally adopted. And that there ought to be an apology associated with that. And so that came out of the convention in Salt Lake City in 1978, and that was in the summer of that year. And I was hired as the Midwest director, interestingly, in October of that same year, 1978. And so that was, I think, part of my motivation, in some ways, for wanting to become involved. Because you see an issue like this redress issue, and it' ; s how could you not? If you have any sense of community and any sense of social justice, to not be involved in something like that would be a missed opportunity, to say the least. Mary Doi: That' ; s really fascinating, just to hear the chronology of ' ; 70, ' ; 72, ' ; 74, ' ; 76, ' ; 78, you have a more concrete plan. And two main strategies seem to come to the forefront, maybe around that time. And one would be this direct appropriation, monetary redress for internees. And so who were the leading proponents for that? And then who were the leading opponents? William Yoshino: Yeah, I think when JACL first adopted the resolution at the Salt Lake City Convention, the idea was actually to go after monetary redress in a direct way, meaning get legislation in Congress that said $25,000, an apology, so forth. And what happened... and I think that was kind of the approach that the community looked to, because there had been people even outside of JACL, or even on the fringes of JACL, that had been talking about this whole notion of finding remedies for what happened during World War II. And so JACL gets itself tracked to begin implementing that 1978 resolution. And some of the leadership of JACL, specifically those who were involved in the redress issue, went out to Washington, DC, to meet with the members, the Japanese American members of Congress to really get a better handle on how all of this was going to get structured and what would take place. And it was at that meeting in Washington that Senator Daniel Inouye came up with a proposal or a suggestion at that point, that perhaps it might be more productive and better to form a federal commission first. Because his reasoning was that there were very few people within the American public, much less those members of Congress, who really knew anything about what had happened to Japanese Americans during World War II. So his thinking was that there needed to be an educational effort to take place before you could go to the next step. And so he proposed to this group of JACL leaders that they pursue the establishment of a federal commission to look into and investigate what had transpired during World War II, with respect to the Japanese American community. And so that became a dilemma for some who were on that committee, because they were thinking, going into all of this, that we were going to just go with legislation, a direct approach to redress. And so this kind of threw a little bit of a curveball into all of it. And so it actually did cause some controversy, even within the JACL because there were many within the organization who felt it was important just to pursue a pure form of redress. That' ; s what we' ; re here for. The discussion had always been that we were going to go after a direct compensation bill. Why should we bother with doing this so-called commission approach? Is this a deflection? What is all of this? So there were those who felt that it was really important, that there was good reasoning behind the whole notion of having a commission because how are you going to convince an ignorant public and certainly legislators who have no clue about this? That' ; s one part of it. The other part of it is that Inouye knew that federal commissions also come up with a set of recommendations. And these recommendations, if they' ; re the right recommendations, can carry a great deal of weight with legislators. And so I think there was that aspect of it too. So that kind of got thrown into the whole mix of this discussion on direct appropriations, and so it became a controversy that the community, and even the JACL, had to somehow reckon with. Mary Doi: So were the other Congress people, Spark Matsunaga, Mineta, and Matsui on board with the reasoning and the approach that Inouye is proposing? William Yoshino: I don' ; t know firsthand. From what I' ; ve read or with people I' ; ve talked to over the years, there may have been some hesitation among some of the members, but they fairly quickly came on board. After all, it' ; s Dan Inouye who is doing this, he is a senior Japanese American legislator at the time. He is the one who has, I guess, the friendships in Congress. And if you' ; re going to oppose Inouye, you' ; ve got to probably have a pretty good reason for doing so. But he obviously is the one who has the experience. He knows better than most how Congress works. He knew what the tenor, the temperament of his colleagues were, especially surrounding an issue like this. But I think in the end, he also felt that it would be advantageous for the community, just in terms of the educational effort involved. Mary Doi: Right. William Yoshino: But as I said, I think this came into direct opposition with those who were very bent on moving forward with legislation as speedily as possible. It' ; s kind of like one of these ideas, I think, of striking while the iron is hot. And so, as I mentioned, it did cause some controversy within the organization to the point, and I should say that there were factions within the JACL that were very, very strong, in terms of wanting to go the direct approach. There was a group out of the Seattle chapter who felt very strongly that direct compensation ought to be pursued, that it was more clearly in line with the resolution that had been passed out of the Salt Lake City Convention. And to the point, in fact, of getting a newly elected Congressman, Michael Lowry, to agree to introduce legislation in Congress almost immediately. So that was the dilemma that the organization was in at that time. And the way they resolved it was to take it to the chapters for a vote. That' ; s what it came down to. And the chapters did vote on it and narrowly agreed to go with the commission approach to redress. Mary Doi: So thinking back to Chicago, how did Chicago come to its decision and what was the decision? William Yoshino: I would need to look that up. I don' ; t totally recall. The reason I say that is because, number one, I don' ; t recall. But there was very str- ... Chicago, I think, was kind of a microcosm of what was taking place in the larger discussion across the Japanese American community in the country. As I mentioned, at that time, the chapter was fairly progressive, and you had some very outspoken, progressive individuals who were involved with the Chicago JACL at that time. You had Mike Yasutake, who was part of the board. You had people who were very, very outspoken in the community, like Bill Hohri was part of it. Quieter ones who nevertheless were not reluctant to make their feelings felt, like Nelson Kitsuse. And he was very, very, very progressive in his thinking. So it did cause quite a bit of discussion and controversy here in Chicago. I think I know which way the chapter went, but I don' ; t want to say it here on the record because I don' ; t know. I don' ; t recall for sure. But I think it was a fairly, it was closely decided, because I think that there were elements on both sides who were engaged in the discussion at the time. Mary Doi: Well, you mentioned Bill Hohri and Nelson Kitsuse. When I think about a different approach to redress, I think about NCJAR, National Coalition on Japanese American Redress, that I think of as Bill Hohri was the nominal leader in Chicago, but had been sort of schooled by the more progressive JACL in Seattle. And so in Chicago, we' ; ve got the JACL approach and we' ; ve got the NCJAR approach. And I don' ; t know whether JACL, by its history, by its national standing, sort of overshadowed Bill Hohri' ; s group, NCJAR, or whether through the force of personality and for the approach that he wanted to take, which was then, I guess, the legal approach, the class action lawsuit approach, whether Chicago felt like a place where there were two routes to go, and you could choose either to be one or the other, or people like a Sam Ozaki: both. And what are your thoughts on that? William Yoshino: Yeah, I don' ; t think that the JACL, the chapter here in Chicago had any, I don' ; t think that they were conflicted at all in terms of what directions they would go in. I think that the JACL chapter here knew that in the end it would pursue a legislative approach. I don' ; t think that the whole notion of pursuing this thing through the courts was one that had been defined at all in terms of the resolution that was passed at the Salt Lake City Convention. And I think that also too, I think in a practical sense, practical meaning where I think the thinking was that you would get a clear, a good result. I think that that was going to be had legislatively rather than through the court, judicially. So I don' ; t think that that was ever, you know there was never any controversy within the JACL about that at all. I think it was always clearly going to be legislative. I think, though, that, as you state, I think that there were some folks who were kind of open-minded on it, and who felt that if you' ; re going to find a remedy, that perhaps it would be good to look at all possible remedies. And so that' ; s why Bill Hohri' ; s approach on it became viable to many. And I think that even within JACL, there were those who felt that this was an approach too, because it showed the seriousness by a community to pursue this issue, that it wasn' ; t going to be one avenue when you could have multiple approaches to it. And so I think that, as much as the judicial approach that Hohri took, it didn' ; t last a long time because it did find its way through the courts, and the courts generally work very slowly, but this issue moved within a few years. But what it succeeded in doing, I think, was to bring attention even more so to the issue. And I think, for a time, that there was a sense that perhaps this would be successful in a way, because the facts surrounding the approach were certainly there. Even though as we find out later on through the various court- as we knew through the various court cases, and Korematsu, Hirabayashi, and Yasui, all those cases had been lost, but in the end, the Endo case had affirmed the rights of citizenship and that without due process, you couldn' ; t take away those rights. And so certainly I think the facts and the evidence were on the side of Hohri in that case, and were it not for things like sovereign immunity and statute of limitations, perhaps they could have won that thing. Mary Doi: As part of my background, I decided, oh, I' ; m going to read the Chicago Shimpo. Only, the digitization of the Shimpo is available through 1984. So I' ; m reading the Shimpo, every issue from 1980 to 1984. And maybe in ' ; 83, the JACL becomes a friend of the court for the Hohri case, the Hohri argument. And I thought, this really is showing cooperation that there are going to be multiple ways that redress can be sought. Which brings me to a third approach, which is the NCRR, the National Coalition of Redress and Reparations. And when I was in San Francisco, that was the group that I was a little bit attached to. And I did it mainly because a woman there named Satsuki Tashima, I don' ; t know if you knew her, was very active in kimochi. And I became Satsuki' ; s friend. And so I just kind of followed her to the things that she did. Since then, I' ; ve often wondered, was there an NCRR presence in Chicago? So I talked to people like John Ota, who I know was very involved, and Kathy Masaoka, who was also very involved in NCRR. And I said, was there a chapter in Chicago? And neither of them can remember anything. Do you know if there was ever any effort, did NCRR try to penetrate Chicago? Or was it a case where, again, the Midwest is skipped over and it' ; s a West Coast thing, a little bit of East Coast presence too, and we are just this non-entity? William Yoshino: Yeah, in terms of NCRR, I don' ; t know that there was really ever any attempt to form any type of chapter or movement in Chicago or in any of the other major cities in the Midwest, or for that matter, on the East Coast. So it was, I was aware of NCRR because I would travel out to California quite a bit, and I always saw that as more of a California movement. One that found its roots in the labor movement, basically out of San Francisco, I believe. And then it grew to, went to other cities, specifically to L.A/, but I kind of always, I guess, saw it as a group that was and became a part, more, of the California scene than elsewhere. Mary Doi: Okay. Well, you' ; ve often talked about the importance of the Midwest district for the JACL legislative approach, and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that. Who were the Congress people in the Midwest that really became strong allies for redress, and then who were the opponents in the Midwest that were equally strong in their positions? Can you talk a little bit about that? William Yoshino: Yeah. First of all, the Midwest, I think, became an important area simply because of the geography. The Midwest, although there were only nine chapters, just in terms of geographic area, it probably represented or it probably housed more representation in Congress when you compare it to other JACL districts. Because the other JACL districts were basically the West Coast, so Washington, Oregon, California, so you had representation out of California at that time. It might have been, I don' ; t know, 40 or so, 30, 40 members of Congress. But if you look in the Midwest, if you look at the Midwest states, you' ; d have quite a few members of Congress who come from the what seven, eight, nine states that are represented by the JACL Midwest chapters. And I think one of the interesting things too is that in some of these smaller towns like... Or I should say smaller cities, like Milwaukee or Dayton, they had ready access to their members of Congress. It' ; s smaller, it' ; s more local, and so they were able to engage more. Here in Chicago, congressmen like Sid Yates, Sid Yates was always a friend to the JA community. That had come about because when Sid was first elected, and I think that was probably back in 1948, there were Nisei who were involved in his campaign, in his election, and I think he always saw the Japanese American community as one of his allies. Apart from the whole notion that Sid is Jewish, he totally understands the oppression of minority groups, that type of thing. And I think you had that type of situation in some of these other JACL chapters in the Midwest. That' ; s not to say you didn' ; t have the same thing elsewhere, but you definitely had it here in the Midwest because I know I would talk to our redress representatives in places like Cleveland or in Milwaukee, or some of the other chapters, and they knew who their members of Congress were and they could talk to them and they were supportive. Which is important because what you' ; re asking these members of Congress to do is to prevail on their colleagues to be supportive of issues. In Congress, it' ; s like any place else, you' ; re going to outreach to your allies, to your friends, and you' ; re going to convince them to be supportive of the kinds of things that are of interest to you. That' ; s basically how it works. And so, of course we would ask Sid Yates and others to outreach to their colleagues. This became especially important in trying to find co-sponsorship to the legislation. What you want to do in the end is once you get a bill introduced you have the major sponsors to the bill, but then you want to add on co-sponsors to the bill so that at some point, in the House at least, if you have 100, if you' ; re approaching 200 co-sponsors to the legislation and you only have 18 more to get, well that' ; s pretty good. And so that' ; s the whole idea behind it. So you did have that. I think you had members who were close to their representatives, but at the same time ...And one of those in the end was John Glenn, for example, in Ohio. We had people in the various chap-, we had three chapters in Ohio, Dayton, Cincinnati and Cleveland, and so John Glenn was the chair of the General Operations Committee where the Senate bill was housed. And so we would have our JACL chapter members outreach to Glenn, write letters, call the office, try to get a meeting with him, that sort of thing, so that became important. Here in Chicago, it' ; s kind of interesting that at that time Charles Percy was the senator and Tsune Nakagawa was his office manager, and I remember going to Tsune and saying, " ; Gosh. Can you get us a meeting with the senator?" ; And of course she did. Even before we even met with Percy she was probably talking to him and saying, " ; You' ; ve got to do this and here' ; s why." ; That sort of thing. So I remember meetings of that sort. I remember that Chiye Tomihiro was very, very involved in the whole redress effort here. She was one of the key individuals. And I remember that there was a time where you also had to get Republicans on this thing, so we would try to figure out how are we going to get some of these more moderate Republicans? And I remember John Porter was a congressman up in the 10th District at that time, and we didn' ; t know John Porter, but Chiye found somebody who knew his chief fundraiser, and so I remember going to a meeting. I don' ; t remember what that person' ; s name was, but we figured any avenue that we can find, let' ; s try to do that, and let' ; s get to a person who' ; s influential, who can talk to the member. And so we talked to the... And I don' ; t know if we had anything to do with it, but Porter eventually voted for the legislation. You had people like John Erlenborn, who was a member of Congress, I think his district was somewhere up in the northwest suburbs or the northern suburbs. And we had found out that I think it was during the war, his family had taken on an individual from Los Angeles as a... had sponsored a person out of camp. And so we had found that out. And so we located that person in L.A. and asked that individual to talk to John Erlenborn, and Erlenborn eventually supported it. What that tells you is that personal contacts, personal experience that a congressman might have had with somebody from the community, all of these things become important at some point. And so that' ; s how all of this came about. That' ; s how you played this. There was the letter writing where we would have a redress representative out of each of the chapters, they had specific tasks. Number one, they would raise money for the redress effort, but then they would outreach. They would go to their members and they would figure out which of their members were in whose congressional district, and then have them write letters to that particular, their members of Congress, hoping that that representative would listen to that constituent that they had. We also knew that there were people who weren' ; t favorable. There was a guy named Tom Kindness who was a congressman out of the Cincinnati area. I forget, he had been associated with some major company out of the Cincinnati area at the time, but he also counted among his friends Karl Bendetsen, who was one of the individuals who actually was responsible for the drafting of the executive order, the order that Roosevelt signed that caused the implementation of the removal from the West Coast. And so there were individuals like that that were also within the Midwest district. Now, Tom Kindness is not somebody who eventually voted for the bill, because he was heavily influenced by Karl Bendetsen, but that' ; s the way things go sometimes. Mary Doi: I think this is a great example of what does lobbying look like, that there' ; s high level letter writing, fundraising, but it' ; s also that one-to-one touch. William Yoshino: I think it always is, in the end that' ; s what it comes down to. Because I think in the end, at a national level that' ; s key. But I think that, you can' ; t substitute, I think, some of the work that was done by the Nikkei members of Congress on this too, because they were the ones in the end who were working with their fellow colleagues. So I know that on the Senate bill without Spark Matsunaga was the, from all that I' ; ve heard and all that I' ; ve read, and with those who I' ; ve talked to have, and even Dan Inouye had said that Spark was the one who really moved this thing in the Senate. He had, I think, made a decision early on that he was going to talk to each and every one of his colleagues in the Senate on this thing, and so he' ; s the one who I think was most directly responsible for getting the Senate to act on this. He was that committed to it. So, it' ; s much harder in the House. You' ; ve got 435 members, so for at that time, for Norm Mineta or for Bob Matsui, it' ; s a much more difficult thing. But people like Mineta had good relationships with folks like Jim Wright, who was the speaker of the house at that time. And so getting Jim Wright to be a co-sponsor of the bill, and the speaker doesn' ; t usually sponsor legislation, unless it' ; s their own thing, but things like that became critical as well. Mary Doi: Wow. Well, so thinking back to the significant role that the Midwest played in the Redress Movement, was this the first time that the Midwest had really come to the forefront as a region that was really important to engage in the redress efforts? I don' ; t know if earlier legislation, say in 1952, the Midwest was a powerhouse or not. William Yoshino: Yeah, I think that there was a committee called the Anti-Discrimination Committee, which was formed in the late 1940s. And it was the committee that eventually, they were the group through JACL that pushed the Walter McCarran Act of 1952, which provided naturalization rights for the Issei. The Chicago chapter, and I' ; m pretty sure that the entire Midwest, was very active in that campaign. I' ; ve gone through some of the files on that, as well as I' ; ve, in talking to people like Shig Wakamatsu, who is kind of an interesting person in his own right, but in many, many conversations I had had with Shig over the years. And Shig used to come into the office on a regular basis almost during the entire time that I was the Midwest director for a variety of reasons. Number one, he was the chairman, chairperson of the Japanese American Research Project, which produced... Or their goal was to produce a history of the Japanese American experience in the United States. So that became the publishing arm, and they became especially effective when they went into partnership with UCLA on all of that. But aside from that, Shig was also a member of the JACL Legislative Education Committee. He was its treasurer, and that was the group that, in the end, the JACL relied upon as its lobbying arm to move the redress issue through Congress. So Shig had a huge, huge hand in all of that. Mary Doi: So is the Midwest district still important in terms of congressional action? Or have we taken up more of a backseat- William Yoshino: And, well, just to pick up a little bit more on Shig. Mary Doi: Okay. William Yoshino: So it was through conversations I had with him where I learned about the work of this Anti-Discrimination Committee in the late 1940s and the 1950s. And they became very crucial, I think, to the effort of getting that legislation passed in 1952. So they became engaged very early on in their life, meaning the chapter' ; s life, because the chapter had been formed here what in 1945 or so, and so almost from the get-go, the JACL chapter was involved in not just the legislative kind of thing, but they were involved in voter registration, that sort of thing, to get the community involved in public policy kinds of issues that affected the community. So I think that the chapter had that engagement very early on. So by the time redress comes around, you had people who had gone through all of that from an early age, because at that point, what, the Nisei are in their thirties and forties, just after the war. So you did have an experienced group by the time we get to the 1970s. And they had also been through so much, just in terms of being part of a group that had been marginalized, oppressed in many ways when they were on the West Coast, and so they felt all of that. They knew all of that. And I think that many of them who became active had been on this mission their entire lives. Certainly people like Chiye Tomihiro, or you look at people like Sam Ozaki, who he didn' ; t attach himself to JACL, but he was certainly involved in the issues of the organization, but there were many others, like Shig Wakamatsu who certainly knew of the history of the community and had felt the tinge of racism in their formative years, and who wanted to seek ways to remedy these wrongs in the past. Mary Doi: When you mentioned these names, I know some of them, but I only know some of them by name, and I' ; m just so damn proud of the Nisei, just hearing these stories, hearing what Chiye especially, I knew Chiye, but I didn' ; t really know Shig Wakamatsu, but wow, in their prime, these were such strong movers and shakers. William Yoshino: Yeah, they were. And I think the important thing about them too is that they were people who knew that they had to go outside of their community. I think that the Japanese American community had always been an insular community, not because... That was forced upon them in many ways. But you had people, I think, who reached out to other communities and knew that progress wasn' ; t going to be made internally. It had to be done through external contacts and through external persuasion. And you have those people. And- Mary Doi: Do you think the Midwest, Chicago really was an exemplar area in terms of Japanese Americans realizing that they had to reach beyond the community? That in order to affect legislation, you have to form coalitions, you have to, whether it' ; s Ross Harano working with the Jewish Committee, this David Roth fellow, I don' ; t remember what committee it is, but it seemed like he had, Ross has allies that are not within the ethnic community, but maybe within other ethnic groups, so he could reach out to the Polish community or the Jewish community. William Yoshino: Yeah, no, I think that became inherent within the way in which the JA community, through the JACL, operated from the outset. You had, as I mentioned, folks like Shig, folks like Nobi Honda, for example, some of the early leaders who reached out to the places like the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, for example. An agency that' ; s been there since the 1940s, as far as I know, but who reached out to them. And then too, reaching out, as I mentioned, to members of Congress, local politicians, that sort of thing. I' ; m not going to say that they had an easy inroad to everyone, I think it was... But they worked at it, and I think they saw it as being important to reach out as part of a kind of a survival mechanism for the community. I think in the end, there may have been efforts on the part of the government to disperse the community within Chicago, but I think at the same time the community was stubborn enough to know that it had to come together as a community, that it had to create its own institutions, but not to be blinded to the idea that you couldn' ; t interact, but that you had to interact with others. And so I think that beginning in the fifties with this anti-discrimination committee, and then as issues came up, that these leaders could easily reach out to others. And I think they passed that type of strategy onto to the Sanseis. You mentioned Ross Harano, and I remember that Ross introduced me to this... You mentioned David Roth. I became good friends with David and David, he was part of the American Jewish Committee and had formed this organization called the Illinois Ethnic Coalition. And it was a gathering of as many of the ethnic groups as you could name in the city, and so it formed a broad coalition. And so anytime that an issue came up, whether it was in the Italian American community or the Japanese American community, we would bring the concern to David and to the Illinois Ethnic Coalition, and they would listen and become allies to the cause. One of the important things in the whole redress effort was to get resolutions of support from various organizations, from government entities, labor unions, churches, you name it, because this became a way in which you show broad-based support for your issues. So we would go to the American Jewish Committee, we would go to David Roth and the Illinois Ethnic Coalition, and get these various organizations to endorse by resolution the whole redress effort, and specifically those bills in Congress. And through inroads that we had made, I remember going to the Chicago City Council and getting the city council to get a resolution passed, get a proclamation from the mayor to support the redress efforts. So all these different ways of outreaching from the outside became very, very important to the entire campaign. Mary Doi: Do you think in some ways that Chicago, and the Midwest, was especially adept at reaching out beyond the community? Sometimes I hear, well, " ; Chicagoans are different, Midwesterners are different." ; And I' ; m trying to delineate how those differences might be expressed, and some of the things you' ; re giving as examples, kind of. William Yoshino: Yeah. I can only cite the examples. I' ; m not a sociologist, I don' ; t know how those things work scientifically, but certainly I don' ; t... And I don' ; t know if those who remained in Chicago tended to be more adventurous of spirit or whatever it was in their DNA that caused them to want to stay and to seek out a new beginning in a different place. But certainly those early leaders, I think, evidenced an attitude that wasn' ; t one that was insular in any way. It was one that caused them to reach out in many ways. And some of them were ones that became successful in business in a larger way. I remember pre-war, a lot of the businesses and the people that were successful were successful in the community and they had their businesses in the community. But here in Chicago, you couldn' ; t totally rely on that. Yeah, you did have restaurants maybe that catered to the community, or you might have had a business or two, like a grocery store that catered to the community, but you had many others whose business caused them to have to reach out if they were going to succeed. And I think they brought that same attitude to the organizations they became involved in within the community. Mary Doi: Great. This is wonderful. This is wonderful. I' ; m going to skip a little bit ahead in my questions because you' ; ve just been so eloquent. You know the timeline for the redress hearings and all that. But I' ; m really interested in what was it like to be in that room when the Chicago hearings are happening. I don' ; t really have any firsthand perspective, not as a testifier, but as someone in the audience. So if you wouldn' ; t mind talking a little bit about that, and I' ; m going to give you ways to think about it. I know that in September, 1981, the hearings were in Chicago at Northeastern Illinois University. Did you attend? William Yoshino: I did attend, yes. Mary Doi: Okay. So I' ; m going to ask you to paint the picture of what it was like for you to be at that hearing. And I' ; d like to start with something very concrete and move to the more abstract. So for example, what was the meeting space like? How big was it? How many people were there? William Yoshino: Yeah. The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians hearing was held at Northeastern Illinois University. Part of the reason, as I understand it, why it was there was because the commission staff actually had first looked at some venues that were actually smaller. And I think based upon some of the West Coast hearings, they saw what the interest was and the size of the audiences that were interested in attending. And I think that the commission knew that they had to find a large... they had looked at places like the ceremonial courtroom, federal courtroom down at the, I think it was the Dirksen Federal Building. And so they knew they had to find a larger space. And so it ended up being at Northeastern Illinois University in a large... it was just a large space. In the end, they set up chairs for the audience and you had the tables and the dais and all of that stuff up front. But it was a space that could probably house easily about several hundred people and they needed all of that room because I think that that' ; s the one thing, that was one of the, I think the first impression I had was just the enormity of the space. Are all these seats going to get filled? That question comes up. And it did. The audiences throughout the entire two days were audiences that filled, I think just about every seat. So it was just, and it was, they were mainly from the community, JAs from the community. You had others who attended as well, just people who were curious about what this was all about. But you had a huge representation of Japanese Americans attending these hearings, which was the case in all of the, most of the other hearing sites as well. So that' ; s the first impression. And I think the other impression that I' ; m left with is that the representation of the members of the commission themselves. I think you had all but, I don' ; t know, I want to say one or two present at some point during the hearing. So you had good attendance. You had Edward Brooke, a former senator, you had Arthur Goldberg, a former justice of the Supreme Court, the chair, Joan Bernstein was there. Bill Marutani, the lone Japanese American member of the commission was there. And I think Robert Drinan, Father Robert Drinan, who was a member of Congress at the time, was there. So you had a representation of the more notable members of the commission. And so I think that was kind of impressive as well, because they didn' ; t all attend at all of the sites. I think they tried to, but it was kind of hit or miss. Mary Doi: Do you know why maybe it happened that they tried to make an effort to be in Chicago? Was there anything special, or- William Yoshino: It could have been proximity to Washington for one thing. That' ; s a possibility. Mary Doi: What kind of media coverage was there? William Yoshino: There was good media coverage. I don' ; t remember exactly what the setups were. I think we had set up areas for the media. So you had cameras, I think one of the sides, along the side of the audience. And I think too, just by the amount of media coverage you had, that kind of shows, I think that you had a media that was interested. So back then, you had press, you had newspapers. I don' ; t know, today newspapers are kind of a dying kind of communications vehicle, but back then you had this Tribune, you had the Sun-Times, you had The Daily News out there, and then you had, I think some of these smaller outlets too that showed up. And then you had all of the major television... excuse me, networks at that time who showed up as well, so that there was strong media coverage. And I think this was also in part because you had had a lot of national coverage prior to that. And so that kind of interested the local media in this as well. But we were sending out press releases and media alerts all during the lead up to this. We, meaning the JACL were fairly active in trying to get that local coverage. So I think at that time you had even local columnists who were writing columns about it. And I' ; m sure the Tribune, and I' ; m sure the Sun-Times had editorialized about it as well. You' ; d probably have to go back to the file to see what the clippings were, go back during that period to see whether or not, but I' ; m almost certain that all the newspapers during that time had editorialized, and probably favorably, about the issue. So this was all part though of going back to what Dan Inouye had talked about -- about using the commission to generate public awareness about the Japanese American experience during World War II, because the senator knew that there would be a series of hearings across the country. He knew there would be hearings in Washington, D.C. and he knew that that was going to generate interest and that it would become the educational vehicle that many of us, we weren' ; t aware of the enormity in terms of the attraction that it would present for the issue. But he knew, so he was right in that respect. And so that became very, very important. And so I think the last element though of the hearings were the testimonies themselves. And just seeing people you knew or people who you didn' ; t know, who had the courage to go and really tell their stories and pour out their hearts and their feelings about what had happened to them during a very traumatic and dark period of their lives. I think about it now and I still... it' ; s just, you just get wrapped with the emotion of all of that. So I mean, there obviously are testimonies that you remember and if they were compelling to me, they had to be compelling to those people who were sitting up on that dais, who were the members of the commission listening to all of this. So it' ; s credit to all of those witnesses who testified, because in the end, I think if anyone won redress for the community, they were those folks who told their stories because the stories became the crux of the issue itself. Because the stories, I think, encapsulated every aspect of what had transpired, whether it was Min Yasui talking about the violation of rights to someone like Chiye Tomihiro talking about the shame that she felt when some of her classmates came to visit her at the assembly center in Portland, and that she had to talk to them through the barbed wire. So it was stories like that that I think that won the day and captured the issue for the community. It' ; s really, really kind of hard to talk about a lot of that. I remember Helen Murao, who was, she was orphaned, her parents died during the 1930s, and then she had an older sister who passed away, I think it was tuberculosis, just at the outset of the war. So she and her... she had two younger sisters, and so they were kind of like orphans. And so they went to camp and Helen, who I think was probably maybe about 15 or 16 years old at that time, became the person in her family who became responsible for her two siblings. And I mean, I can' ; t imagine just the anxiety and the fear and the stress that she felt as a teenager having to shoulder that type of responsibility. And I remember in her later writings and testimony how she talked about when she was released from the camp, she said that she went to the train station and she said that the very first thing she did was to buy a bottle of Coke, Coca-Cola. And she said that it wasn' ; t so much the Coke, she said it was the freedom to buy it. So I mean, it' ; s that kind of exhilaration that she felt, despite all that she had been through, she knew or could speak to the importance of her being out of that camp. So that became very, very important to her. One of the things we were able to do that too, in terms of the hearing was we wanted to get other people from the Midwest to also appear as witnesses because we didn' ; t want this just to be a Chicago hearing where there were only Chicago people serving as witnesses. And so one of the things I tried to do was to outreach to all the various chapters, encouraging them to find individuals who would be willing to testify. One of those individuals was someone named Toaru Ishiyama, who was a psychologist from Cleveland. I think he was actually became the director of mental health for the state of Ohio during his career. Very accomplished man. But I remember Toaru talking about how the record, there was almost no record of the psychological trauma that had occurred to this population that had been incarcerated 40 years prior to that. That he said he had gone through the literature and he saw virtually nothing when he said that the psychiatrist' ; s office should have been filled with these people because of the trauma that they had experienced. And he talked about the whole notion of abandonment and how these people had been abandoned by their own government. And he said that he tried to deflect all of that when he was in camp himself. He said that one of the ways he did it was that he never went near the barbed wire. He never looked at the barbed wire. He always stayed far within the camp because he said that " ; if I don' ; t see the barbed wire, it' ; s not there and I' ; m not being confined" ; . And he went on to say that " ; what happens when a child is abandoned" ; ? He says, " ; the child cries" ; . And he said, that' ; s why during the 1980s, he would say that " ; at these reunions, these people go back and the first thing they do is they cry and they cry," ; he says, and the reason for it is because he said they didn' ; t cry in 1942. So I thought that that kind of was just a very eloquent expression of the trauma that those folks had gone through. Mary Doi: This is so wonderful, Bill. I' ; ve listened to some oral histories. But there might have been some kind of workshop maybe in the late 80s, early 90s where people like Chiye Tomihiro was part of this in giving oral history, and Bill Hohri and his wife and Bill Marutani, the judge. And what struck me about Bill' ; s interview was how he talked about, as someone who can hear this testimony in such a different way than the rest of the commissioners that he said he would have to literally swallow his emotion and at the end of the day, he would have a sore throat. I don' ; t know if it was a metaphor, but I can just put myself in his position, how it must have been so hard to sit through, I don' ; t how many days the hearings lasted, just swallowing your emotion and hearing your story, hearing your account of what it was like for you. I just got that same sense that you' ; re absorbing it, that you' ; re feeling it. And so you probably were not the only Sansei in the audience who were... whatever. You call yourself a Sansei, or do you call yourself a Nisei or whatever. But you weren' ; t only person that was having this kind of response. So at the end of the day, would you ever get together with other friends from the audience or other people your age and talk about what it was like to be in that room? William Yoshino: I never did. Well, I mean, I talked to some individuals. I remember that I would talk to some of my colleagues about the experience of being in that room. I remember John Tateishi, for example, had come out to view the hearings. I think he went to all the hearings, and I' ; m sure we had conversations after that about what took place. I don' ; t remember or recall specific discussions or conversations that I had. I mean I think that, I suppose it probably would' ; ve been easier to talk to some of the Sansei after that. I think it would' ; ve been hard talking to some of the Nisei who had given their testimonies because it was kind of walking on eggshells in a lot of different ways. So I think that most of what I recall was to just do more idle chat with people, and I don' ; t know whether or not that was kind of exhibiting kind of a defense mechanism to not want to face head on some of these things. I know afterwards, I mean, I would talk to people, and this is like years later, I would talk to people like Chiye about her experiences when we were more removed from the emotion of the hearing itself, that kind of thing. So I mean, I don' ; t think that Chiye was ever removed from that emotion, but certainly I could kind of distance myself from it a little bit. And I would talk to people like Shig Wakamatsu about their experiences of the time. And I remember talking to people like Sam Ozaki, because I used to ask Sam to go out and speak here or speak there. And same thing with Chiye and many others. And they were always very obliged. They felt obliged to do that. But yeah, no, I think the only time, I guess my catharsis to all of this has always been to just go out and speak to groups and to confront it that way. And I think that' ; s probably the way that I' ; ve kind of been able to confront all of this stuff. I mean, I think you have to do it in some sort of an expressive way. And for me that' ; s been the way I' ; ve expressed it. Mary Doi: Well, I really appreciate this interview, this opportunity to talk to you and just hear what it was like both as a staff member and then as an audience member and to hear the arc of how you' ; re able to tell this story. It' ; s going to be such a unique perspective that you' ; re bringing that I just can' ; t thank you enough for talking with us. And I know we could go on forever, but I think it' ; s about time that we wrap up now. So again, I just want to thank you so much, Bill. This has been wonderful. William Yoshino: You' ; re welcome. Thank you. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Footage may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=YoshinoWilliam20221206.xml YoshinoWilliam20221206.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/5 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/browse?tags=Series%3A+Redress
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<a href="https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/show/2731" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oral History Interview: Yoshino, Ron (2/7/2023)</a>
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Yoshino, William (12/6/2022)
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William Yoshino, a Sansei whose parents were incarcerated at Heart Mountain, descibes his family's wartime experience and his own experience moving from Washington State to Chicago's South Side as a teenager. In this interview, he reflects on his involvement with the JACL's Chicago chapter and his role as the JACL's Midwest Director beginning in 1978. He recalls that in Chicago, JACL leadership passed from the Nisei generation to the Sansei generation relatively early, perhaps leading the chapter to be more progressive than others. He recalls campaigns prior to the Redress movement that helped JACL members hone their lobbying and organizing skills, shares details about the JACL's Redress strategies, and describes some of the interracial coalition building that proved to be effective in Chicago. He concludes with detailed recollections about the Chicago CWRIC hearings in 1981, particularly the selection of the location, coverage by news media, and his personal experience as a member of the audience hearing the witnesses give testimony.
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2022-12-06
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video
FSF JACS
Series: Redress
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
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Doi, Mary
Interviewee
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Yoshino, Ron
OHMS Object
https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=YoshinoRon20230207.xml
Interview Keyword
Sansei
Japanese American Citizens League
JACL
Chicago Redress Committee
JACL National Convention
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
CWRIC Hearings
Heart Mountain
OHMS Object Text
5.4 2/7/2023 Yoshino, Ron (2/7/2023) 1:08:37 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection REDR Redress Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded, transcribed, and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Sansei Japanese American Citizens League JACL Chicago Redress Committee JACL National Convention Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians CWRIC Hearings Heart Mountain Yoshino, Ron Doi, Mary video 1:|10(14)|33(2)|51(6)|62(12)|80(1)|100(7)|107(12)|116(8)|130(6)|143(8)|162(3)|173(13)|183(12)|194(5)|211(5)|220(7)|233(4)|244(13)|258(14)|270(14)|291(4)|301(9)|312(5)|322(1)|340(2)|352(14)|361(2)|368(1)|377(7)|385(8)|393(4)|418(7)|434(15)|449(3)|459(12)|482(2)|497(9)|508(2)|518(4)|533(8)|543(4)|558(11)|571(4)|580(7)|598(12)|615(13)|624(11)|636(9)|645(14)|659(16)|674(9)|692(18)|708(10)|724(8)|739(3)|752(16)|763(9)|771(15)|785(13)|793(11)|801(4)|813(2)|820(9)|832(4)|844(6)|859(2)|871(8)|888(3) 0 https://vimeo.com/824882778 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/824882778" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; Ron Yoshino, a Chicago-born Sansei, discusses his involvement in the JACL's Redress efforts and his role as Chairperson for the JACL's 1986 National Convention in Chicago. He recalls the effort that went into logistics and planning for the Chicago CWRIC hearings, and describes his experience as an audience member and the emotional impact of of the witnesses' testimonies. He remembers his father receiving a reparations check in 1990 at the age of 83 and his decision to place the money in a 5-year CD. In closing, he reflects on the psychological effects of incarceration that still impact the Japanese American community and on his efforts to use his organizational skills to contribute to the work of the JACL. Mary Doi: Today is February 7th, 2023. This oral history is being recorded at the JACL Chicago office, located at 5415 North Clark Street in Chicago. The interviewer is Mary Doi. The interviewee is Ron Yoshino. 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 because it makes for a cleaner transcript. You can decline to answer any question without giving a reason. You can take breaks whenever you need them. You can end the interview at any point. So, please make sure your cell phone is silenced. Ron Yoshino: Okay. Mary Doi: And I realize I, I didn' ; t get a little background on you. So when were you born, where were you born and did you, what camp was your family in? Ron Yoshino: I was born on July 4th, 1944 here in Chicago, and my parents were in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Mary Doi: So were you in camp? Ron Yoshino: No, I was born in Chicago. Mary Doi: Okay. Oh, that' ; s right. That' ; s what you said. Okay. Ron Yoshino: I can give you a little history of how my folks got here if you' ; d like. Mary Doi: No, I' ; m trying to keep this to-- Ron Yoshino: Okay. Mary Doi: So this interview has four main sections. The first will be your involvement with the JACL Chicago chapter before Redress, your involvement during the Redress Movement, the road to legislation, and then the afterlife of the Redress Movement. So some of these we' ; ll go through rather quickly-- Ron Yoshino: Okay. Mary Doi: --so we can really focus on your involvement during the Redress Movement and then the road to legislation. Ron Yoshino: Okay. Mary Doi: Sound okay? So when did you join the JACL? Ron Yoshino: I joined around 1971 I, I would guess. I was, I called-- Back then the JACL office was at 21 West Elm Street. I called, I think Ross Harano answered the phone. I told him I was interested in getting involved and he immediately signed me up to be on the board at that point in time. Mary Doi: What made you interested in getting involved? Ron Yoshino: I just wanted to be involved with the Japanese American community. At that point in time, I really never had any contact with the Japanese American community, so, it was an opportunity to get involved. And, and JACL was a national organization, and I knew of them. So I called here at the local office and met with Ross, well, I didn' ; t meet with Ross, I talked to him and got involved. It might' ; ve been 1970 instead of 1971, but it was in that time period. Mary Doi: Where did you live when you got involved? South side? North side? Suburbs? Ron Yoshino: You know I... I may have been involved earlier than 1970 because I got married in 1970. So I got involved, I must have gotten involved back in 1968 or 1969 when I called up Ross Harano. But in any case, I got involved, and they had a group called the YJA, Young Japanese Americans. And at that point in time, I met a lot of other young people that, that were in their 20s that were involved with the JACL at that point in time. I think Ross was one of the people that was instrumental in setting up that organization, that subset of the Japanese American Citizens League. Mary Doi: Okay. Were your parents members? Ron Yoshino: No. Mary Doi: Okay. Ron Yoshino: My parents were not members. Mary Doi: And when you joined, you mentioned that, that there was a social component, the YJA? Ron Yoshino: Yes. Mary Doi: Were there a lot of Sanseis involved in that? And then in the board? Ron Yoshino: There were a lot of them involved in the social activity portion of it, and... But only a few... If there were a dozen people, maybe only two or three were involved with the board. Mary Doi: Okay. So you mentioned that when you come on or when you joined, you got put on the board? Ron Yoshino: Well I, you know, this is over, probably closer to over 50 years ago, and I don' ; t remember the details, but I think that Ross wanted... They were looking for people to be involved on the board, and I think that I, I got involved and was on the board at that point in time. Mary Doi: Okay, that' ; s fine. And then-- Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember who were the other Sansei on the board with you? Ron Yoshino: You know I, I really don' ; t remember. The only thing that I remember was that Hiroshi, I think Hiroshi Kano was the president of the chapter. And at that point in time, he was involved with a lot of social-- not social activities, but civil rights activities. And he was involved with the... The union guys, the farm workers, United Farm Workers, and he wanted to become involved in their cause. And as a result of that, we, he got the Chicago Chapter Board of Directors to become involved with the United Farm Workers Organization. And as a result of all of that, the Chicago-- not the Chicago Nisei, but the central California Nisei farmers were on the opposite side of that. And they got very upset that Chicago was involved with the United Farm Workers, and they sent a representative out here, and they had a long discussion at the Japanese American Service Committee, I remember. And nothing was resolved with that. They didn' ; t convince Hiroshi Kano to not be involved with the United Farm Workers. And as a matter of fact, the 1972 JACL National Convention was held in Washington DC, and Hiroshi Kano went to Washington DC, as the representative of the Chicago Chapter, promoted the United Farm Workers at the convention. I don' ; t know the details of that, ' ; cause I wasn' ; t there, but I' ; m pretty sure they rejected the whole idea of becoming involved with the farm workers. And as a result of that, Hiroshi was not very happy. He came back to Chicago, resigned as president of the Chicago Chapter, and asked me to be president of the chapter at that point in time. So that was my early involvement with JACL. Mary Doi: Well, that United Farm Workers story is a great one. I had no idea that there was that kind of social activism in the chapter. What about-- Ron Yoshino: Well, it was basically Hiroshi Kano. Mary Doi: Okay. So you, yourself, were you involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s or the anti-Vietnam protests in the 60s and 70s? Ron Yoshino: No, I mean, I was not happy with the fact that everyone, all the people my age, were getting drafted and going to Vietnam and everything, and not for a reason that I thought it was worth dying over. So certainly, I was not happy with that situation, but I, I didn' ; t get actively involved. I just, my biggest involvement was hoping that my draft number was high. Mary Doi: Yeah, yeah. Well, the other thing that' ; s going on in Chicago in the late 70s, and it seems to-- it seems like JACL played a major role in this is the pardoning of Iva Toguri. Do you remember anything about that? Ron Yoshino: No, I just remember that it happened that Iva Toguri was here in Chicago, and that I remember that the Chicago Chapter got, was promoting the pardon for Iva Toguri. And I know that as a result of JACL' ; s involvement, she was happy about that. And she, she donated a screen to the Chicago Chapter as a result. I don' ; t know where the screen is right now, but I remember she donated one of those Japanese screens to the chapter as her token of appreciation for JACL' ; s involvement in promoting her case. Mary Doi: Right, and then I guess eventually President Ford pardons her in 1977. Ron Yoshino: Right. Mary Doi: So thinking about this same timeframe, we' ; re going to move into your involvement in the Redress Movement. Did you attend the 1978 JACL Convention in Salt Lake City? Ron Yoshino: No, I did not. Mary Doi: So I guess that' ; s the convention in which the idea of Redress comes up? Ron Yoshino: Right. Mary Doi: And when the word... When that idea comes back to Chicago, what did you think about the decision to seek Redress? Ron Yoshino: I, I really was kind of... I didn' ; t have very much thinking relative to all of that. I, the-- I think, basic, from my perspective, it was probably a cause that the Japanese American community could coalesce around. So, and I thought it was a good idea, but I really didn' ; t, wasn' ; t strongly involved in the Redress Movement or, or any of that thing prior to, to that happening. I mean, I knew what was going on. I, I thought that maybe it was something to work on, you know at that point in time. I don' ; t think very many people ever thought that we were going to get a pardon or any, any redress or reparations, or anything else like that. But I mean it was, I think it was a good thing for the community and a good thing for JACL to become involved and coalesce around an idea like that. Mary Doi: So I know that I' ; ve read that in Seattle, one of the approaches that was early on was to go directly for reparations payments. Do you know if Chicago went on board with that or the, sort of like the concurrent, and maybe, I don' ; t know, more persuasive advice of Inouye, Matsunaga, Mineta, and Bob Matsui, who suggests, no, let' ; s do the legislative approach because we have to educate the public? Ron Yoshino: Right. I, you know I was not involved with that. You know, I was on the chapter board at that point in time. I think John Tani might' ; ve been president around that, that time, and he was more involved in all of that, all of those issues and the Seattle' ; s involvement, and you know, whether we were going to go with, along with Seattle for direct, was it direct reparations or whether I think NCJAR at that point in time was talking about suing the government. And, of course, as a member of the Chicago chapter and JACL, I was just kind of tagging along with whatever JACL was planning to do. And you know, at that point in time, I think John Tateishi was involved with the Redress Movement for JACL, and, and they got involved with Dan Inouye and Spark Matsunaga, and Norm Mineta, and with Bob Matsui at that point in time. And I believe the story is that Dan Inouye promoted the redress hearings or hearings commission. And so that' ; s how, that' ; s the direction that JACL went. And so that' ; s how we got involved here in Chicago. Mary Doi: Well I' ; m glad that you brought up NCJAR, the National Coalition. No, National Japanese American... No, National Coalition-- Ron Yoshino: National Coalition for Japanese American Redress, I think. Mary Doi: That was the Bill Hohri group. Ron Yoshino: Yes. Mary Doi: You know so Chicago has the chapter working on the legislative route. And Bill Hohri, also Chicagoan, is working on the, sort of the judicial route through suing the government. Do you remember much about the Bill Hohri group? Ron Yoshino: I don' ; t know, I don' ; t know who was involved with Bill Hohri. All I know is that at one point in time along the history, Bill Hohri and his wife came to the Chicago Chapter board meeting sometime in the, probably in the early 1980s and tried to persuade the Chicago Chapter to become involved with NCJAR and the legislative, or the route of suing the government at that point in time. And at that point in time, the Chicago Chapter said, no, we' ; re, we' ; re working with the National JACL, and that' ; s the route that we' ; re going. So as a result of that, we didn' ; t agree to move along with Bill Hohri. Mary Doi: So was there any friction between the JACL and the NCJAR efforts or, you know or groups? Ron Yoshino: I think Bill Hohri was here in this office talking to us, and at the end of the discussion, when agreed to, to or we told him we were going to go along with the National JACL, I think he said something to his wife, like, " ; Thank you. Let' ; s go, dear. They don' ; t quite understand what' ; s going on," ; or something to that effect, and left. So, I mean, I wouldn' ; t say there was friction. It was, we didn' ; t understand, or we didn' ; t quite want to get on board with his proposal. Mary Doi: So sort of bringing it back to the Chicago JACL Chapter, when it comes to, you know the earlier decision, whether you go for direct payment or you go the legislative route suggested by Inouye et al., were there any generational divides? Were the Nisei more prone to say, let' ; s do it legislatively, and the Sansei were saying, let' ; s go for the money. Was there anything like that? Ron Yoshino: I don' ; t remember much of all of that. You know, I think we were involved, but only to the extent of supporting whatever the national organization wanted to do. That' ; s my, that' ; s what I remember. In any case, I was really not actively involved in a lot of that at that point in time. Mary Doi: Okay. And then I noticed that, that there is a, where did I put those papers? The Midwest District Redress Committee where there are representatives from each chapter, and I believe you were the Chicago representative to that group. Do you remember anything about that? Ron Yoshino: I don' ; t remember being the Chicago representative. I don' ; t remember being involved with that at all. Mary Doi: Okay, that' ; s fine. Just thinking back on that time, was there much difference between, say, the Cleveland Chapter' ; s stance about redress and reparations versus the Minneapolis versus the Cleveland versus the Milwaukee, all the different chapters? Was there friction at the Midwest district level or differences of opinion? Ron Yoshino: Not that I' ; m aware of. I mean, the only thing that I remember was that Cleveland had Hank Tanaka and Toaru Ishiyama, and I think they were probably people that I kinda looked up to in terms of direction and whatever they thought I was going to follow their, their lead from my perspective. I mean, I, I respected their opinions. I think those were the two leaders in, in the Chicago or in the Midwest that, that I remember and respected, and respected their opinion. Mary Doi: Well, another person that I know that was very involved in the Chicago Chapter, he was very involved in JACL period, and then the Chicago Chapter is Shig Wakamatsu. Do you remember much about him and was he working actively for Redress? Ron Yoshino: You know he, he might' ; ve been involved, but I wasn' ; t involved with him. I know there were other people in the, in the Chicago area that were involved. I know Art Morimitsu was involved, and... But most of the activities that I was involved in weren' ; t directly related to what Shig Wakamatsu or Art Morimitsu were doing. Mary Doi: That' ; s fair. But, but when you think back on the Midwest district level, Hank Tanaka and Toaru Ishiyama are people that you valued their opinions? Ron Yoshino: Yes. Mary Doi: Okay, great. So do you remember at the Midwest district level if the committee would get together and have meetings? Ron Yoshino: That, I, I don' ; t remember anything like that at all, because really, I don' ; t remember being involved at the district level at all. Mary Doi: Okay. Well, we just saw your name on a roster, so-- Ron Yoshino: Oh, okay. Mary Doi: It could, it could be that you were nominally involved, but back at the Chicago level, there did seem to be a Chicago Redress Committee, and you' ; re, you' ; re involved in that, I believe. Ron Yoshino: Right. My involvement with the Chicago Redress Committee, well, let me back up one step. Chiye Tomihiro was, was involved with Redress, and from a Chicago Chapter point of view, I think she was probably the one person that was more actively involved than anyone that I can remember. But at the time, they decided they were going to go with the commission, and they had set up a schedule for commission hearings in Washington, I think, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. And Chicago. I think Chicago got, got involved to the extent that we wanted to make sure that the hearings here in Chicago were, were run, and we got people involved in the hearings and that type of thing. I remember I was kind of surprised that the hearings ended up at Northern... Northeastern University. I had thought they would be somewhere else you know, in some other facility, but in any case, I know they ended up at Northeastern University. Mary Doi: NEIU. Ron Yoshino: Northeastern Illinois University. And at that point in time, we as a chapter said, you know in order that the hearings get as many people involved as possible. I think we decided to set up a committee to see if there were people that were interested in getting involved in presenting their, their stories to the commission at that point in time. And I think we set up an opportunity for people to come here and practice their testimony to get it written down, to work on, on their testimony so that it wasn' ; t a haphazard hearing or haphazard presentation to the committee at that point in time. And, and so I know we did a lot of work to, to try and make sure that the people got involved and, and put their presentations together, and had a chance to practice them. Mary Doi: And that seems very necessary because I believe people only got five minutes to tell their story. Ron Yoshino: Right. Mary Doi: So you can' ; t just have a rambler. Ron Yoshino: Right, exactly. Mary Doi: So I hear Chiye' ; s name in conjunction with identifying possible people to testify as well as preparing. Do you remember anybody else that was very involved in that part of getting involved in the hearings? Ron Yoshino: You know I don' ; t remember much. I, somebody was telling me that Mike Ushijima was involved in the sense that he was going to videotape people, but I don' ; t remember that off the top of my head. Somebody recently reminded me of that, and, and Mike Ushijima' ; s father, Henry Ushijima, was a, was a film producer and... in the Chicago area. So I think he was able to get video equipment, and I think they had a chance to videotape the people so the people could see how they were, how their presentation was coming off and that type of thing. But I honestly don' ; t remember videotaping people, but I, I heard that that' ; s what, that' ; s what had happened as a result of all of that. But I, I think we made a concerted effort to try and get as many people involved in testifying before the commission at that point in time from the Chicago area. Mary Doi: Well, and then I also heard your name in conjunction with helping with the logistics of the actual hearing. Do you remember anything about that? Ron Yoshino: Well, I remember we wanted to make sure that the, that the commissioners got here, got here safely, got to the hearings, and everything. I, personally, I remember at the end of one session, Arthur Goldberg had to leave and go to the airport. And I remember I drove him to the airport. I mean, that was one of my in-- one involvement that I had. So I got a chance to talk to him a little bit. But there wasn' ; t anything substantive that we talked about. But in any case, in terms of, of the people that testified at the, at the hearings, there are few people that I remember and their testimony. I remember Sam Ozaki, who was a principal-- who was the principal at Taft High School. I think he was in the 442. And I, I remember one of the questions that they asked him, I think he testified on the role of the 442 in Europe. And one of the questions they asked him afterwards was, " ; Do you think that the 442 and the Japanese Americans were used as cannon fodder?" ; And his response was, " ; Yes, we were." ; So I remember that answer. And I remember the story of, I' ; m trying to think of her name. She was from Portland. She was an orphan with her two younger brothers, and she had to take care of her two younger brothers without the help of her parents. She was, I think, maybe a teenager. And she had to help them, and she was responsible for them when they, when they were evacuated. So I mean, that was kind of a pretty sad story. But Helen Murao and her husband, I think Shig Murao, was a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. But Helen Murao' ; s story was one that really was kind of a tear-jerker. Those are the stories that I remember. And the other person that I remember that testified here was Min Yasui testified, and I don' ; t really remember Min' ; s testimony. I, you know I know most of these people that, or all of the testimonies, are on videotape, and you can look at them online. I have not done that. But the one thing I, I remember about Min Yasui, well you know, he was one of the four Supreme Court cases, and the other, one of the other Supreme Court cases that not too many people are aware of was Mitsuye Endo. And Mitsuye Endo just lived down the street here. I remember he wanted to meet Mitsuye Endo, and I remember walking into the office one day and Min Yasui and Mitsuye Endo were in here talking. I mean, that was probably an historic occasion at that point in time. So at least he got to meet with her at that point in time. But in any case, that' ; s one of the things that happened you know as a result of all that. And the other thing I remember was that some of the hearings, part of the hearings were on television. I' ; m not sure of the exact details of all of that, but I remember Min Yasui was a spokesman for JACL regarding the hearings at that point in time. And I remember that one evening I went home and watched the 10 o' ; clock news, and I saw an interview with Min Yasui, who was, made a very strong statement regarding redress and what happened back in 1942, and it was, it was on local television news. And off the top of my head, that' ; s about all I remember. John Tateishi was, was here at that point in time for the hearings. And I remember at the, at the end of the day, he says, you know, " ; We should have gotten you to testify at the hearings." ; But you know I, I was never planning to do it, and I didn' ; t testify. One of the people that testified was John Tani. I remember he testified as, as one of the younger people that testified at the hearings. You know most of the people were people that, that were in camp. You know John was not, John Tani was about my age at the time, or even younger than me, but he testified. There was a, a couple of younger people that testified, people that were in their 20s. And John Tani, and there was some other person from Cleveland, I think, that testified that was in their 20s. But most of the people were- Mary Doi: John Sone? Ron Yoshino: Tani. Mary Doi: No, but for the Cleveland person, was that John Sone? Ron Yoshino: No, no, it was somebody else. Katherine Nagasawa: --was Monica Sone who also testified. I just wondered that might be the person. Ron Yoshino: It was-- No, I don' ; t think, it-- what was the other person? I don' ; t, I don' ; t recognize that name. Mary Doi: So Monica Sone was an author. Ron Yoshino: No. Mary Doi: And her son was John-- Ron Yoshino: No, it was not, that was not the person that I remember as a young person that testified. John Tani and somebody else, but I, those were not the names. Mary Doi: Okay. Well, I' ; m glad that you were at the, at the hearings. Did you attend both days? Do you remember? Ron Yoshino: I think so. Mary Doi: Okay. You know, I just want to hear it from somebody' ; s mouth. Paint the picture of what it was like to be in the room. Ron Yoshino: You know I, one of the things that quite surprised me was, the seats were filled. I mean it was, you might' ; ve expected that not very many people would' ; ve attended, but the room was full. Most of the chairs, I mean, I would say the, the room was, 80 to 90% of the chairs were filled. The, there was a dais with all of the commissioners. I think Joan Bernstein was there, and the senator from Massachusetts, Ed Brooke, was there. I guess Arthur Goldberg was there. I think Arthur or Drinan was, or-- Father Drinan was there. I' ; m not sure who else was there, but I mean, at that point in time, I was quite surprised that Joan Bernstein was chairperson for the committee. You know, you would' ; ve thought that Edward Brooke or Arthur Goldberg or somebody whose name you recognized might' ; ve been chairperson, but Joan Bernstein was chairperson, and I' ; m pretty sure she was there at the hearings. Mary Doi: The other name that I hear is Judge Marutani. Ron Yoshino: Bill Marutani was there also. Mary Doi: Yeah. So you' ; re sitting in the audience. Do you remember anything about the expression of the commissioners as they' ; re listening to this? Were they bored? Were they outraged? Were they sad? Ron Yoshino: I, I don' ; t remember. I was more interested in, in hearing the stories of the people that, and you know quite honestly, I don' ; t remember a lot of the stories. You know that was 40 years ago, and I don' ; t have a recollection of, of the people that, that testified or what they testified about, but I just remember that... Oh, the only other person that I, I remember, Warner Saunders, was there. He must have been covering for one of the, the TV stations at that point in time. I think he had a Sansei wife, and, and he was, I don' ; t remember-- I remember seeing him there. I don' ; t know if he was there just to watch the hearings or if he was covering it for one of the TV stations, but I remember he was there. I mean, I have some, there are some things that stand out, and that was one of them. Mary Doi: Right. So Warner Saunders was a newscaster, is that right? Ron Yoshino: Yeah, he was, and I recognized him as a newscaster at that point in time. Mary Doi: Isn' ; t he also African American? Ron Yoshino: Yeah. Mary Doi: Okay so that was-- Ron Yoshino: But he passed away several years ago. Mary Doi: So you mentioned that the room is like 80 to 90% full. Is it mainly Japanese Americans who are in the audience? Ron Yoshino: I, I think so. I think more than 50% of the people were, maybe even two-thirds to three-quarters of the people may have been Japanese Americans, community people that, and a lot of them I probably recognized as, as being community people and people that were involved with the various Japanese American organizations here in Chicago. Mary Doi: So those would be things like the churches or? Ron Yoshino: Churches, Service Committee, JACL, the Chicago Nisei Post and the churches. Yeah. I recognized a lot of the people from those various organizations. Mary Doi: You know one way I think about the hearings across the country is that this is one of the first times that individuals get up and tell their story. Did you have any sense of the importance of the hearing themselves to the community, to you, and not just to the commissioners? Ron Yoshino: You know people talked about well, it was a catharsis, but I think, in some cases it was a story that people wanted to tell, and, and this was really an outlet for them to tell their stories. And so I think it was, it was an outlet for a lot of people to get it off their chest, get it off their mind, and, and say what they really thought and, and tell their stories. Mary Doi: So you mentioned how sad Helen Murao' ; s story was as the teenager responsible for her two brothers. Were there any other stories that sort of stood out like that, revelations to you that this is the range of experiences? Ron Yoshino: I think one other story that as I sit here and think about it is Chiye Tomihiro' ; s story. I think her story was that you know her father was a, a businessman back in, in Oregon, I think in Portland. And as a, as a result of having to, to relocate, they had, they got rid of their business. And, and when he came to Chicago afterwards, at that age, he was never able to, to get his feet back on the ground and start all over again. So it was a pretty sad commentary about how, how as a result of the relocation that, he lost his business and was never able to recoup from that. Mary Doi: Great. We are well into the hour here, and I have a couple more sections to talk to you about. One of the things that I found out about the Chicago hearings was that actually the day before and the Saturday before, and the Monday before, I think Tuesday and Wednesday were the hearing dates themselves at Northeastern, but I came across this conference at NEIU With Liberty and Justice for Some: The Case for Compensation to Japanese Americans Imprisoned During World War II. Do you remember this conference? Ron Yoshino: No, I don' ; t. Okay. Mary Doi: I guess in day one people like, I was just looking at it, people like Roger Daniels spoke, Min Yasui spoke, Bill Hohri spoke. I think those are the names that immediately stood out to me. And then the evening before the hearing starts, Arthur Goldberg gives a special address. So you don' ; t... Okay. That must not have been a JACL organized effort. Ron Yoshino: No, I don' ; t think so. I don' ; t remember that at all. Mary Doi: Okay. So you didn' ; t attend, obviously. You know, so the hearings happen. The commission puts out their report, Personal Justice Denied, and their recommendations. So now it' ; s the road to the legislation. How do we get from the recommendations to legislation and a bill? Did the, do you remember if, at that point, the Midwest District was still meeting as a redress committee, or was the Chicago committee really active in this stage? Ron Yoshino: I think that, yes, they were, they were actively involved in getting letters out to their, to the congressmen. You can reach a lot more congressmen here in Illinois, in Michigan, and Ohio, and that, that type of thing. So I know there was a concerted effort to get members to write letters to their congressmen and senators and, and that type of thing to promote the redress effort. And so I think there was a substantial letter-writing campaign to, to make sure that people were, were involved in getting their government officials involved in the Redress Movement legislation. Mary Doi: Yeah one of the-- One of the things I' ; ve read is that the Midwest district, because it covers so many states, also had the most representatives in Congress. The West Coast is divided up into different districts, or different chapters. Ron Yoshino: Right. Mary Doi: So the Midwest then plays a prominent role in the sheer number of votes that we have. Ron Yoshino: Yes. And that' ; s why they, they promoted the letter-writing campaigns. So you know, I know that was going on, I, I can' ; t-- and I know that people had form letters written up so that, so that all you had to do was sign one and send it into your congressman. But I mean I wasn' ; t, I knew that was going on. I wasn' ; t really actively involved in that at all. Mary Doi: Okay. Early on, you mentioned the churches getting involved, the Japanese American organizations learning about the Redress Movement, there seemed to have been other national allies such as the labor unions and different, different sects of churches, different denominations of churches, and one of the things I read about in the Chicago Shimpo was how Art Morimitsu really worked with the Veterans group. I don' ; t remember if it was the Veterans of Foreign Wars or the American Legion to actually get that group to support not just the, the apology, but also the reparations funding, the money. Were there other Chicagoans that stand out in your mind as really influencing national groups? Ron Yoshino: The only other person that, that I remember off the top of my head was Chiye Tomihiro' ; s involvement with the American Friends Service Committee, but-- and I don' ; t really remember. I just remember that. I don' ; t remember what her involvement was or how, how if she was successful in getting endorsements from them, but I know that she used to talk about them on, on occasion. But I think Art Morimitsu was more involved with the American Legion, the, the Chicago Nisei Post here in Chicago, and, and I think he got involved with the American Legion on a, on a national level, or certainly on a district and maybe on a national level, to get their support. Mary Doi: Right and this is not-- Tsune Nakagawa' ; s name came up. I was talking to somebody else and she said that Tsune was the assistant or a secretary to Percy, Charles Percy. Ron Yoshino: Chuck Percy, yes. Mary Doi: Yeah. And that she helped kind of educate him. Do you remember anybody else that might have had that kind of tie? Ron Yoshino: Not really. Not off the top of my head. Mary Doi: And then I listened to an interview that Ross Harano did, and he talks about how he had ties to other communities, to other groups. So for example, he mentioned David Roth with the American Jewish Committee, but he, but Ross also mentioned that he had ties to the ethnic communities in Chicago so that when he got to talk to them, they could kind of talk to other people in their communities across the country to gather support. Do you remember other things like that? Ron Yoshino: I remember Ross was much more involved in that than I, than I was, and I know that he had a lot more ties to the, to the other communities, to the Jewish organizations, and that type of thing. And I know that he was much more active than I was in, in promoting people to get involved and getting their organizations involved in the Redress. Mary Doi: You know, I think between when the report and recommendations come out in ' ; 82 till the time that the bill is actually passed, and we get the Civil Liberties Act of 1987 or ' ; 88. Ron Yoshino: ' ; 88. Mary Doi: ' ; 88. How did, how did the chapters keep up the momentum? You know I was just wondering, is there fatigue when you don' ; t know when the endpoint is going to be reached and, and you have success? Ron Yoshino: Yeah, you know I, I was not actively involved in all of that. I, I know that my, we had a JACL National Convention here in Chicago in 1986, and, you know which was kind of a prelude to Reagan signing it in 1988. And, and I was involved with, well, I was chairperson for the, the National Convention back in 1986. So, I mean, most of my time and activity was involved in the convention. So I wasn' ; t really involved with a lot of this activity in terms of soliciting support from various congressmen and senators. I was more involved in, in the JACL Convention at that point in time. Mary Doi: It' ; s understandable how when you' ; re the chair of the convention, you have so many things to be responsible for that these things might not happen. So at that convention, was there still dissent in the Japanese American community that, were there people that didn' ; t think that we needed the financial, the, the money part of what becomes the Civil Liberties Act? Ron Yoshino: You know I, I' ; m sure there was, but I was not involved in, in the politics of the organization. I was more involved in just setting up the convention and, and doing, making sure they had a place and a forum to discuss all of these issues. And so I wasn' ; t really involved in any of the political, I, I know there were, there were politics involved within the JA community, and, and there were people that had differing views on how we ought to proceed and everything. And I, I know there was a lot of politics involved in that whole process. I know that at one point in time you know, John Tateishi was, was in charge of redress for JACL, and, and then at some point in time he was out. And...But I don' ; t know the politics of all of that, but I know it happened. And I know when the, when Reagan signed the bill. I know John Tateishi wasn' ; t involved in any of that. It was, I think, well, I' ; m not exactly sure. You know, Denny Yasuhara, I mean, these are some of the names that I remember was involved. And Harry Kajihara was president of JACL at that time, and he was the one that' ; s in the picture with the bill signing with Reagan as president of JACL. But you know a lot of things happened during that point in time, and I was more involved in the activity of setting up a convention and doing those types of things as my support to the organization. Mary Doi: So such, such important operational feet on the ground, making sure we' ; ve got the menu for the banquet and all the hotel rooms are up to snuff. Ron Yoshino: Yeah. Mary Doi: So that' ; s good. Now we' ; re getting into the, the last part of the interview, which is the afterlife of the Redress Movement. You know so the bill was signed, the, the law is that they' ; re going to set up a way to pay, pay out the individuals who are affected. So at that time, I believe about 60,000 out of the 120,000 internees were still alive. Ron Yoshino: Mhmm. Mary Doi: Was Chicago very involved in disbursal? Ron Yoshino: No. The, the only thing that I remember about... I think Bob Bratt was, was the person that was... I think various government agencies, once they allocated the money, wanted to be involved with the disbursal of the money. But the only thing that I know is that my cousin' ; s grandmother was, was one of the people that went to Washington and received the first checks, Hisano Fujimoto. I think she was 102 years old, and-- Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, yeah, I' ; ve seen the picture of her. Ron Yoshino: Okay. Yeah that' ; s, yeah my cousin' ; s grandmother. I mean, I knew her, and... But yes, I think they tried to pick some of the oldest people, and she was one of them. Katherine Nagasawa: I think she was 101 when she received it. Ron Yoshino: 101, well, I, I was at her 100th birthday party in 1989. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, my gosh. Mary Doi: That' ; s wonderful. Katherine Nagasawa: I was wondering, do you remember your parents' ; reactions when they received their checks and the apology letter? Ron Yoshino: Well, I think, say, it was 1990, I guess my father was ; he must' ; ve been 83 years old at that point in time in 1990, and he put it in a five-year CD. Now, you know, who puts money in a five-year CD when you' ; re 83 years old? I guess he expected to live a longer life. I mean, he lived till he was 90 or 91, but that' ; s as much as I remember. He put it in a five-year, the what, $20,000 check in a five-year CD. Mary Doi: How about your mom? That is a great story. How about your mom? Do you remember? Ron Yoshino: I don' ; t know. I just remember seeing the letter that they got from Reagan. That' ; s all and reading it, but I don' ; t remember any specific reaction. So... Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember if your parents closely followed what you and Bill were doing during that time? Because both of you were pretty heavily involved in the movement. Like do you remember how they felt about redress and what you were doing? Ron Yoshino: No, actually, you know we never talked much about it with, with our, our parents. In fact, you know, I never learned about the camps until I was like 25 years old, and I did not learn about it from my parents. They didn' ; t talk about it at all. So, and, and during the whole redress campaign, I never really had much conversation with them about it. They may have talked to my brother more about it, but certainly I didn' ; t have very many conversations with them about the whole process or anything. Mary Doi: Interesting. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you know if they went to the hearings? Ron Yoshino: Did they go to the hearings? No, they, they didn' ; t. They weren' ; t really involved in the community that much, much at all. So they let us be involved in the community, I guess. So no, they, they did not go to the hearings. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you feel like after they received the redress check, did you notice anything change about their willingness to talk with you guys about what happened, or was it the same even after 1990? Ron Yoshino: Yeah, I don' ; t think we talked much about it before or after. So, there was not a whole lot of conversation, even when we went out to dinner with them, about this, this topic at all. You know as much as I knew is they were in Heart Mountain, Wyoming, and they came to Chicago afterwards, and that' ; s about as much, I mean, they didn' ; t really even talk that much about being in camp or anything at all. Mary Doi: Where did you learn it when you were aged 25? Ron Yoshino: I learned it from my cousin' ; s husband. He gave me the book: " ; American Concentration Camps" ; , I think it was Bosworth or-- And, and said I ought to read it. And that' ; s where I, that' ; s where I learned. Mary Doi: Do you know if Bill was equally in the dark and had to learn about it from a book? Ron Yoshino: Yeah, I, I' ; m not sure when Bill learned about it. You know, when I got the book American-- " ; America' ; s Concentration Camps" ; , I was about 25 years old in 1968 or ' ; 69. I mean, that' ; s when I first really got involved. I don' ; t think my parents ever, I don' ; t ever remember them talking about it at all when I was a youngster or even after I was out of the house and married. I don' ; t, I don' ; t remember having that many conversations or any conversations. I mean-- Katherine Nagasawa: I think I heard from somebody who' ; s close to your age, like a Sansei, who was in Ohio. He also said the same thing about his parents not really being that talkative about camp, but he said he learned a lot of it through the Nisei that were part of the JACL chapter he was in. Do you recall any of the older board members or, or Nisei in JACL kind of helping fill in the gaps for you? Obviously, the hearings were a big part of that because you heard all those stories that day, but are there any particular people you remember being more open about it, if you will? Ron Yoshino: The one person that, that I know that was involved was Shig Wakamatsu. You know, he was involved in the Japanese American History pro-- project for JACL, and I think they published you know a half a dozen books on Japanese Americans and that type of thing. So I, I learned something about the whole episode in 1942 from just following what, what Shig Wakamatsu was doing back in the 60s, and 70s, and 80s, I think. So... You know he, he was the one that, I, I think the first book that came out of, out of that was Bill Hosokawa' ; s book Nisei, and then there, there was a book on, there were half a dozen books that came out of the Japanese American research project that was sponsored by JACL. In fact, there' ; s a bunch of books downstairs in the basement that, that are left over from Shig Wakamatsu' ; s time, and actually you ought to go down there and just take, that them and take them home. They got books on the legal aspects of JAC--, or of the Japanese the American community, the, the ag-- their contributions to agriculture. And, and Robert, I think Robert Wilson wrote a book. And anyway, a number of people were commissioned to write books, and, and Shig was the one that followed all of that. And by being around Shig, I, I learned some of all of this stuff. Mary Doi: Right, I remember when he was interviewed for Regener-- Or, for, yeah, Regenerations about the resettlement that he had not only been involved for a long time, but had such amazing recall. Ron Yoshino: Okay. Mary Doi: You know? That, that' ; s my memory of Shig. So just to end up, I' ; m kind of interested in, and this is, this is a question that is sort of a more recent question, and especially Yonsei like my daughter are very interested in this, and it is, what does repair look like? We' ; ve, we' ; ve got the act, we' ; ve got the law signed. Was that sufficient to repair the injustice? Ron Yoshino: I guess it was. You know, I haven' ; t really thought about that. I mean, you know when they first started out in this whole process, I think it, it went back to the early 1970s, I think. I can' ; t even remember his, his, name who, who got involve-- Who was the first person involved with redress. Uno, Edison Uno. When Edison Uno got, I think he was the first one that started talking about it in the 1970-- early 1970s. I think it was a pipe dream, and the fact that nobody ever thought that we were going to ever get redress or reparations, and the fact that, that it happened, I think people were really, really happy about, about that. I mean, surprised, happy. You know no one ever really got anything like that from the government. And so I think it' ; s more satisfaction out of getting redress and reparations from the government more than repairing your psychological memories, and, and hurt, or whatever you, whatever happened as a result of being relocated. So I think there was more happiness at the success of the Redress Movement more, more than anything. Mary Doi: That' ; s a really good distinction to talk about the satisfaction that the community felt, the happiness that the community felt as one kind of a repair. And then you mentioned the psychological damage that might have been done. Has, has that been repaired? Is it still an ongoing thing? How do you see it manifested? Ron Yoshino: I think probably you know the, the people that were relocated and, and maybe even, you know I know my parents were relocated, and I feel badly about all of that. So you know until maybe the next generation, I think until it' ; s all behind us, it' ; s, it' ; s still there. Psychologically. Mary Doi: How do you see that? How does it manifest itself that the repair has not completely happened? Ron Yoshino: I think you feel a little isolated, or, or not part of the community, or, or you feel like you' ; re... I' ; m struggling for the right words. The... I' ; m drawing a blank right now. Mary Doi: Okay, that' ; s fine. Kat, do you have any questions? Katherine Nagasawa: I think you, I think you got everything. There' ; s just one thing I wanted to share with you, Ron. I was looking through a really old 1981 copy of the Chicago JACL newsletter, and there' ; s a shout-out to you. It was like a recap of the hearings, but the president wrote, " ; Redress Chairperson, Ron Yoshino, did an outstanding job organizing, planning, and following up on thousands, literally, of details. There were many people making significant contributions in the Redress effort, but Ron must take credit for putting the whole program together. I' ; m thoroughly impressed with the job he did." ; And I think kind of, maybe to one of Mary' ; s earlier questions, I, I wonder, just, it just seemed like an absolute incredible amount of work and tireless effort that you put into making sure that the hearings went smoothly. What do you feel like motivated you, or what like drove you to do that and put so much, so many hours and so much time and effort into this movement? Ron Yoshino: Well, I think it was you know, a major program of the JACL, and being a member and, and being responsible for all of that, you know I, I just wanted to make sure it got done right more than anything else. I, I can' ; t say that there was any other ulterior motive other than the fact that it was a responsibility. It was something that I was responsible for and I just wanted to make sure it got done right. Like running a convention, you want to make sure that gets done right, and whatever project you' ; re working on, it was a project. Now, you know I can' ; t tell you that I, I was one of the people that really felt deeply about Redress and everything deep down from a motivational point of view. I, I didn' ; t, I did it more because it was a job responsibility that I had to take care of. Katherine Nagasawa: And you felt responsible to the Japanese American community more broadly. Ron Yoshino: Well more, yeah more to the JACL as an organization. You know we were involved with it and spearheading the effort, so it was, I felt more, more responsible to the organization. Katherine Nagasawa: Mhmm. And I guess more broadly then, what has it meant for you to have been involved in an organization like JACL throughout your adult life? Ron Yoshino: Yeah, I' ; ve been involved, well, until I think the last time I was really involved was five or six years ago. I, I haven' ; t really been involved since then, but I was involved for, for quite a long time, from late 1960s to about 2015 or 2016, I think was the last time I was really involved. Katherine Nagasawa: Mhmm. And why do you feel like it was important to you to be involved in Japanese American community issues and, and with the organization for such a long period of time? Ron Yoshino: You know, I, I' ; m more involved in the organization and what the organization has done for the Japanese American community. And, and my contributions have been more in terms of organiza-- you know, organizing conventions. You know I' ; ve been involved in the organization at the National Conventions as being credentials chair, just being involved, doing what I could do as, based on the skills that I have in terms of organizing and, and getting things done. And so that' ; s you know, how I can contribute to the organization. I, I' ; m not really an issues person at all. I' ; m more of a, an organization-type person, and that' ; s where my skills are, and that' ; s where I' ; ve, I' ; ve tried to contribute to the organization. Katherine Nagasawa: Thank you so much. Mary Doi: Yeah. Ron Yoshino: Okay. Mary Doi: No, one more. Just wrapping it up. Is there anything else you' ; d like to tell us? Ron Yoshino: I' ; ll probably think of something after I leave, but right now I can' ; t think of anything. Mary Doi: Okay, you can email me. Ron Yoshino: Okay. Mary Doi: Thank you so much, Ron. This has been incredible. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Footage may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=YoshinoRon20230207.xml YoshinoRon20230207.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/browse?tags=Series%3A+Redress
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<a href="https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/show/2732" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oral History Interview: Yoshino, William (12/6/2022)</a>
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Yoshino, Ron (2/7/2023)
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Ron Yoshino, a Chicago-born Sansei, discusses his involvement in the JACL's Redress efforts and his role as Chairperson for the JACL's 1986 National Convention in Chicago. He recalls the effort that went into logistics and planning for the Chicago CWRIC hearings, and describes his experience as an audience member and the emotional impact of of the witnesses' testimonies. He remembers his father receiving a reparations check in 1990 at the age of 83 and his decision to place the money in a 5-year CD. In closing, he reflects on the psychological effects of incarceration that still impact the Japanese American community and on his efforts to use his organizational skills to contribute to the work of the JACL.
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2023-02-07
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video
FSF JACS
Series: Redress
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the U.S. Department of the
Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations
expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
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Creator
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Nagasawa, Katherine
Interviewee
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Kudo, Elsa
OHMS Object
https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=KudoElsa20221126.xml
Interview Keyword
Japanese Latin American
JLA
Japanese Peruvian
Peru
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
CWRIC hearings
Testimony
Campaign for Justice
Civil Liberties Public Education Committee
Adios to Tears
Peru-Kai
OHMS Object Text
5.4 11/26/2022 Kudo, Elsa (11/26/2022) 1:15:33 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection REDR Redress Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded, transcribed, and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Japanese Latin American JLA Japanese Peruvian Peru Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians CWRIC hearings Testimony Campaign for Justice Civil Liberties Public Education Committee Adios to Tears Peru-Kai Kudo, Elsa Nagasawa, Katherine video 1:|21(5)|27(5)|36(8)|47(8)|59(5)|70(7)|84(12)|93(18)|104(11)|111(14)|119(10)|137(5)|144(4)|160(6)|167(1)|179(7)|190(2)|201(13)|213(9)|220(12)|230(1)|249(1)|270(14)|293(18)|304(2)|325(5)|335(1)|357(1)|373(6)|388(16)|396(14)|415(4)|423(5)|434(5)|449(7)|464(7)|481(12)|497(10)|508(7)|538(8)|553(8)|561(1)|574(9)|586(2)|594(10)|601(10)|618(14)|630(3)|650(3)|683(3)|707(15)|714(6)|724(13)|736(14)|745(3)|771(4)|791(10)|809(13)|820(10)|831(13)|852(6)|867(4)|878(1)|891(3)|902(6)|921(4)|947(1)|962(11)|973(4)|1001(6)|1020(7)|1042(14)|1079(4)|1119(5)|1146(11) 0 https://vimeo.com/823047519 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/823047519?h=d250f72b30" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; Elsa Kudo, a Peruvian of Japanese descent, describes her experience testifying at the Chicago CWRIC hearings about her family's experience of expulsion from Peru and incarceration at Crystal City. She recalls the difficulty Japanese Latin Americans faced in securing permission to give testimony at hearings in other cities and the role of her brother in persuading organizers in Chicago to allocate time for JLAs. She also shares about her experiences with the Campaign for Justice, negotiating with White House representatives to secure reparations for her family, serving on the Civil Liberties Public Education Committee, and publishing her father Seiichi Higashide's book, " ; Adios to Tears." ; Of note are her reflections on Peru-kai, a recurring event for formerly incarcerated Japanese Peruvians and their descendants that began in Chicago and has become international in scope. Elsa Kudo: ... and I don' ; t know how much I could add to this. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s okay. I think I wanted to ask you about the Campaign for Justice. Elsa Kudo: No, I don' ; t know too much. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s okay. Elsa Kudo: Ask Grace. Katherine Nagasawa: We' ; ll do what we can and there' ; s no pressure. Okay. I' ; ll try this one more time. Today is November 26th, 2022, and this oral history is being recorded at 301 Adobe Estates Drive in Vista, California. The interviewer is Katherine Nagasawa, and the interviewee is Elsa Kudo. This interview is being recorded by the JASC Legacy Center in order to document the Japanese American Redress Movement in Chicago and the Midwest. So could you start by telling me, when did you first learn about the Redress Movement? Do you remember what you thought about the concept of redress? Elsa Kudo: Those are loaded questions, but I think it might have been in Chicago. And all I remember right now is Bill Hohri, who used to have a paper, small paper, that he used to publish. I read his articles, which were well written and to the point, and he was such a wonderful person and activist. So probably partially that. And then of course, my dad, who used to read Japanese and English papers regarding anything Japanese Americans, Japanese Peruvians, whatever. And so he was quite knowledgeable about such things, and he would give us information that he learned about the redress. Katherine Nagasawa: And what did you think about the idea of Japanese people asking for redress for their incarceration during the war? Elsa Kudo: I personally thought that was the right thing to do, and I thought that it' ; s a way to present the Japanese Americans and what happened to them to the general public, American public, who knew very little or nothing. So it was kind of a way for people to be informed and to have an education in American history that they were not aware of. Katherine Nagasawa: Especially for something like Japanese Latin American incarceration, which even fewer people knew about. Elsa Kudo: Yes, absolutely. And with that, of course, hardly, probably no one outside our little group knew about our case, the Japanese Latin Americans. So it was good that the JAs started doing something about their horrendous experience in the camps or being taken from their homes. They' ; ve lived all their lives and then put behind barbed wires with guards watching over them with their guns, not pointing outside the fence, but towards, inside the fence. And so that to me is scary that it should happen in our country. Katherine Nagasawa: Did you feel included in the movement as a Japanese Latin American when you were hearing about it in the newspapers or talking to Bill Hohri? Elsa Kudo: When the Japanese Americans started to fight for redress, we were not included. And so that part was a bit painful. But on the other hand, they were trying their best to be compensated for all the losses, not only emotional, but financial, reputation wise, everything that they had lost just because they had the faces of the enemy at that time. Katherine Nagasawa: So you understood why or- Elsa Kudo: Oh, yes, of course. Yes, I understood why they were fighting for their redress. And of course so many of them did not know about the Latin Japanese being incarcerated. So our fight for redress was a way to also kind of make information available to those Japanese Americans who hardly knew anything that was going on with the Japanese Latin Americans. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I understand that you ended up testifying in Chicago in 1981. Can you tell me about the process of getting involved in those hearings? Elsa Kudo: It' ; s so long ago, but it was my brother, Carlos, who kind of started the ball rolling because he knew Ms. Nakahiro. Katherine Nagasawa: Tomihiro. Elsa Kudo: Tomihiro because they belonged to the, I believe it was a skiing club, and she was very active, and so he talked with her. And so when she came to Hawaii, we had a chance to meet, and she was very, very kind and also wanted to be of help. Katherine Nagasawa: And so when Chiye said the Japanese Latin Americans could testify, did you immediately know that you personally wanted to testify, or how did you decide who from the community was going to present? Elsa Kudo: Oh, well she was so nice that she would include us. I don' ; t know who it would be, but probably our family. I think we did inquire about the various places where these hearings were held, and we were told all the slots were closed. But thanks to Tomihiro-san, we were able to get a couple of slots in Chicago where we did fly to do our little talk. Katherine Nagasawa: How did you get your dad, Seiichi Higashide, involved in the hearings, and also how did you help him prepare his testimony? Elsa Kudo: Well, I think my dad, of all of us, was the most in tune about the redress, about the hearing. He knew more than we did, and he encouraged us to be part of it. He wrote his talks in Japanese, which then my husband would translate in English, and that' ; s how we did it at the hearing, where he spoke in his Japanese and my husband translated in English. Katherine Nagasawa: For you, what was your thought process when crafting and drafting your testimony? What kind of message did you want to communicate to the commission? Elsa Kudo: Well, basically to give the information that this thing happened under the, shall I say, auspices of the U.S.A. And so few people knew about our case that it was a way to educate the public about the Latin Japanese being incarcerated in this country where they did not know, where they did not want to come. So many people want to come here, but that time we didn' ; t want to come to the U.S. Every Latin Japanese were doing very well there. They had businesses, homes, and so forth, even household help. So no one really was interested in coming to the U.S. at that time. But all of a sudden, our fathers were first taken to places unknown. And then many months later, we find out that our fathers were in Panama Canal zone. And on one of his telegrams, he said, " ; No matter what happens now, get rid of the businesses," ; meaning sell it. Because when he was taken, he had told my mother, " ; No matter what, you keep the business because you' ; ll supply the children and yourself food and clothing and a roof over your head." ; And now all of a sudden he' ; s saying, " ; Sell everything and come no matter what may come. We may die together, but at least we' ; ll be together." ; And so that' ; s when my mother, who was still quite young, maybe in her mid-to-late twenties, and she was already going to have the fifth child. She was married at 18 or something. And so she did the best she could. And then we got on the ship to go to meet dad. Katherine Nagasawa: Getting tired. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I wanted to ask you about your testimony. I was watching it, and I noticed you got kind of choked up when you were talking about- Elsa Kudo: My mother. Katherine Nagasawa: ... the experience of your mother. Can you tell me about that moment and why was it particularly emotional for you to talk about that? Elsa Kudo: Right. My mother -- when my dad was taken -- she was pregnant with my little sister, Martha. And when she was born, she was the smallest baby. And my mom thought she might not survive because also when she would nurse, she nursed all of us at least six months. But she had a hard time with the last child, with Martha, the fifth child. And when she tried to nurse, she said it hurt so much and blood came instead of milk. That' ; s how traumatic it was, must have been for her. So it was a dramatically awful time for my mother who was young with five children now. And then my grandparents, who came from smaller town in Peru to live with us in this second store. So they had their own independence. And my young auntie, a teenager of 17 or so. So at least my grandparents were there. So they were of some emotional help to my mother, plus with us little grandchildren. Katherine Nagasawa: Why was it important for you to include that anecdote in your testimony about the trauma that your mom experienced? Why did you want to include that detail? Elsa Kudo: Yeah, because I have never heard of anyone else having such a traumatic experience nursing a baby. Maybe there are, I don' ; t know. But at that time, I had never heard of it. At this time, I never have heard of it where blood would come out of one' ; s breast that she was trying to feed her baby. That' ; s why. Katherine Nagasawa: And you talked about some other difficult experiences where you had to be sprayed with DDT as well. Can you talk about including that detail, and why was that important to include as well? Elsa Kudo: Well, all of us were told to disrobe completely, and it was a, as I recall, and remember, I was just about what, seven or eight, but then they sprayed us from above. I think something came rolling down, I can' ; t remember exactly. And these DDT was sprayed on us from head to toe. And now of course, that' ; s poison. Well, at that time, we didn' ; t know. So yeah, so that was not as scary as later we learned that it could really harm us, but it was not pleasant to be naked in front of everybody. But I thank my age, where I felt for my auntie who was a teenager and my sister-in-law who was a teenager, all those in their teens who may have had periods or whatever, and they had to be completely naked in front of everybody, and you know how shy we girls become especially during that time period of time. So yeah, I felt ... I could picture it and I wanted others to see it, to picture in their minds how it would' ; ve been if their daughter or their daughter herself felt this and how she would react. It was an awful time for young girls. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I remember my great auntie saying something similar where she was 16 in camp and it was really hard for her to have to use the showers because there was no privacy. Elsa Kudo: No, there' ; s no curtain even. That' ; s right. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: For you, what was the experience like of delivering this story in front of a crowd of hundreds in front of this commission? Do you remember what was going through your mind, how it felt in your body to do that? Elsa Kudo: I think it' ; s something that I had to do for our group of people, and it was very traumatic, but I had to do it. And so I remember I choked up on something, but the judges, the one who was especially kind was a Supreme Court justice. I don' ; t know if he was at that time, maybe -- Goldberg. He was really very kind, as I could say. Yeah. And all the other people too were nice, but he was verbally kind. He says, " ; Would you like to stop or would you like to?" ; I said, " ; No, I want to go on." ; " ; So someone give her water." ; Yeah, he was that kind of person. Katherine Nagasawa: How did it feel afterwards, having said all of your testimony? How did it feel to get that off your chest? Elsa Kudo: It felt somewhat relieved, but hoping that it would help our group of people and the public in general to know that this was this other little case of incarceration -- brought from a foreign country to this country to be incarcerated in the barbed wired fence concentration camp of Texas, which most Americans do not know, do not want to know. And if they learn about it, they' ; d think we' ; re lying, some of them, because that' ; s what we were called, liars, in one of my husband' ; s speeches. So it felt a sense of relief a little bit, and just the hope that maybe something good will come out of this. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember the reactions of other Japanese Americans in the room who came up to you afterwards or the kind of comments that you got in the days following? Elsa Kudo: I think almost, well, those who did come up were very sympathetic, and they said, " ; We didn' ; t know that you people were also in camp and brought from another country." ; So they learned a lot too. Yeah. And all the reporters from all the papers in Chicago -- Tribune, Sun-Times, what was it, Herald, I think, and the radios and television people were there. But among the reporter, this is kind of a side story, but among one of the reporter was a female lady, a female. When she tried to interview me, I said, " ; You know, I worked for you one time." ; She and her husband and two children lived on the Gold Coast of Chicago near Lincoln Park in a beautiful, a whole flat for just four people, where we were crowded in Sedgwick and Division, we only had one and a half rooms for seven people. I worked there when I saw an ad in our University of Illinois at the [Navy] Pier, someone seeking help to take care of two children, and they would give room and board. So I said, " ; Oh, I' ; m going to school, and our house is so crowded with all my other siblings. I have no place to study except the dining table," ; which was used for everything else. So I said, " ; Maybe this is a good way. I have my own room next to the kitchen, behind the kitchen, and all I have to do is take care of two little ones, which I loved anyway." ; I love children. And so when I went to interview, right away they said, " ; When can you start?" ; And so Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford, that was her name. So I lived there for I don' ; t know how long, maybe six months, maybe less. I don' ; t remember. But the children were very sweet, still nursery school age and a baby. But Mr. Rutherford was a very kind person. So I really liked him and respected him. Katherine Nagasawa: And so the person you saw at the hearings that interviewed you was his wife? Elsa Kudo: Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: Wow. Elsa Kudo: Yes. And that was really strange. I said, " ; You know, I took care of your children for a time." ; And she was just shocked. She couldn' ; t say anything, just her mouth open. But she was one of the reporters. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember what she asked you about during the interview, or did she have any reaction to your story when she heard it? Elsa Kudo: I don' ; t recall because there were so many other reporters came. All of a sudden I had all these people saying whatever questions they had. So I don' ; t remember individually at all. But yeah, so that was a very unusual, unique experience I never expected. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, that piece of your past. Elsa Kudo: Yes, yes. Katherine Nagasawa: I' ; m curious who else was in the audience from the JLA community. Do you remember? Elsa Kudo: No. Katherine Nagasawa: Did your brother go there? Elsa Kudo: Oh yeah. Of course. All my family who could go were there -- my brother, his wife, his in-laws. Who else? And probably a few others that I can' ; t name right now. Katherine Nagasawa: The Shibayamas? Elsa Kudo: I don' ; t know if the Shibayamas were there because I think they had already moved. I don' ; t recall that. But I know my brother, because I stayed with my brother too, and my sister and her husband, Eigo' ; s older brother. Yeah. So they were there. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Did you follow the Redress Movement between the 1981 hearings and then the Civil Liberties Act in 1988? That' ; s seven years of legislative fights. Did you remember following it or even following what NCJAR was doing, Bill Hohri' ; s lawsuit? Elsa Kudo: Oh, yeah. Right. Yes, I did. Yeah, because I used to contribute to his paper that he used to write. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: So you would donate and then receive a monthly newsletter? Elsa Kudo: Yes. Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: So you kept up with them? Elsa Kudo: Yes, I did. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember how you felt when the Civil Liberties Act was passed in 1988? Elsa Kudo: I don' ; t remember per se, but I know that to me, that was a kind of hallelujah day, that somebody' ; s listening and somebody' ; s trying to do something good out of this. So I did like Reagan then. Katherine Nagasawa: Were you at all surprised that Japanese Latin Americans were not included in the legislation, or did you expect that? Elsa Kudo: I was kind of saddened by it, but maybe it was an expectation because the JAs were trying so hard to get it for their group. And probably by adding another group, they might have felt strongly that it' ; s too much of a burden for the government to include another group of people, and who knows who may come after that, that kind of ... That was just my thought. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: So when did the idea for the Mochizuki lawsuit and the Campaign for Justice start? Do you remember who those people were that were working on it and what your involvement was in it? Elsa Kudo: I don' ; t think we were involved that much, but it was Grace and the Mochizuki sisters and those on the West Coast. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Was it Bay Area or L.A. or both? Elsa Kudo: It may have been both. I don' ; t know. Yeah, for sure. Katherine Nagasawa: So that' ; s Grace Shimizu. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: And then what were the names of the Mochizukis? Elsa Kudo: Carmen Mochizuki and Nagao, I think she called herself Alice by then, Alice. But I knew Carmen only because her brother was a Japanese school teacher in camp in Crystal City, Texas. So I didn' ; t really know them one-to-one. Katherine Nagasawa: When did you get to know Grace Shimizu? Elsa Kudo: Oh my gosh. I don' ; t remember how we met. I know that it was in San Francisco area. One of the talks, her father was then still living, so she had brought her dad in, and I took my dad. So they were, of course, they knew each other from camp, so they were chatting away, remembering old times. I can' ; t remember exactly where. But since then, we have traveled together to Japan to tell them what was happening with the redress activities. And she needed me to help her with Japanese. Yep. Katherine Nagasawa: So you helped translate the message? Elsa Kudo: Yes, and to tell the Japanese people, " ; This is Grace Shimizu. She' ; s working hard for all of us, and that includes you in Japan," ; you know. That type of thing. Katherine Nagasawa: And these are Japanese Peruvians or Japanese Latin Americans- Elsa Kudo: Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: ... who went back to Japan? Elsa Kudo: So they were very, very grateful and thankful and invited us, especially in the Kyushu area, invited us to stay in some ryokan and treated us to good food. They were very welcoming. Katherine Nagasawa: In what other ways were you involved in the campaign for redress, besides translating and visiting Japan? Elsa Kudo: Being interviewed on radio probably was one, going around making talks wherever. I don' ; t know what else. Letting people know what was happening in wherever I wrote letters -- to Japan or Peru or wherever Peruvian people were located. Katherine Nagasawa: So mostly sharing your story. Elsa Kudo: Yes, but my dad was very good about that. He was a writer. Katherine Nagasawa: So he also worked with Grace on Campaign for Redress? Elsa Kudo: Not directly because of language. Katherine Nagasawa: I see. Elsa Kudo: If he did anything like that and he wanted to do, then I would have to get in because of the language problem. But he did go to San Francisco, though, and L.A., and he spoke at the Japanese American Museum and the national, what was it, National Historical Society, I think? Yeah, wherever we were invited. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember the settlement for Mochizuki, the apology letter, and the $5,000? Elsa Kudo: Yeah, a little bit. That I recall. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember how you felt when that settlement came up? Did you feel it was enough? How did you- Elsa Kudo: I was glad about the apology, but I didn' ; t think financially, monetarily, it was not fair. It was not fair to them and not fair to the rest of the Peruvian internees. So yeah. So that part financially was not good. And they lost everything. Imagine if you had businesses and now you had only a suitcase full of clothes, and only what, 50 some pounds of it. I mean, it' ; s hard to imagine such a thing, but this is what happened to those people. They lost everything. Bank account, money saved wherever hidden. I mean, it was taken. No telephone, no cameras, nothing. So it' ; s like you wouldn' ; t have anything here. Everything would be taken away, especially cameras. So yeah, we don' ; t have, we have very little pictures of those times. The only ones in camp were the school picture, whole group of children with the teachers. That' ; s about it. We have no pictures, and I wish we somehow, somebody could have snuck and take those pictures of the housing, of the food, of the schools, whatever, the camp fences, the guard house, that it was real. So, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. It' ; s not just the monetary loss, it seems like memory was lost. Elsa Kudo: Memory. Oh, yes. Katherine Nagasawa: And loss of culture. Elsa Kudo: Exactly. Katherine Nagasawa: And kind of as we were talking about with Eigo, it' ; s also the decade after camp where your status was unclear. Can you talk about the toll that took on you and your friends? Elsa Kudo: Yes. I was young, but looking back now as an adult, having punched in, so to speak, as " ; illegal aliens" ; was a very trying experience that we suffered, because jobs, money-wise, wages were at the lowest. Taxes were at the highest. Hardly anything left. We had no bank account, because no need to open one. We couldn' ; t put any money in it. So for our parents with five children, I said, " ; Oh my gosh, poor Mom and Dad." ; At least we were little, so we didn' ; t know. As long as your parents are together, reasonably happy, you don' ; t miss much. At least you have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No matter how humble it was food, and you had your parents there. So as a young children, I' ; m thankful that we were little, and my mother being so resourceful, she would bleach the ... I don' ; t know if you know this, but long time ago, they did have, I remember, paper diaper, but it was rather rough. Not the nice ones these days. And it was expensive, so she never had those. But other little babies had, other mothers. But she made out of flannel sheets, she would bleach it, and she would cut it up and then make it into diapers. And after the baby no longer needed the diaper, then she would bleach that again, and she would make the bodices of my and my sister' ; s clothing. So she was so resourceful, and she made her own patterns, and out of very little material she would somehow make decent looking dresses for us. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s incredible that you were talking before, just the kind of strength that requires emotionally for your parents. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you ever remember talking more candidly with your parents about what that experience was like for them when you were an adult? Elsa Kudo: No. No, I wish I had. Looking back, I said, " ; Oh, I missed asking them so many questions. After they' ; re gone it' ; s too late already. But I remember in Seabrook, we had three little, I don' ; t know, what do you call it, cabins put together with a side opening so there were no doors. And my parents' ; room was the third one. The second one was ours, the children, bunk bed and I think two single bed, not the kind that we have now with thick mattresses, but those springy, what are those called? Katherine Nagasawa: Box spring? Elsa Kudo: Not even box spring. Just the simplest of beds with just wire and then a thin mattress. Yeah, that kind. But we were kids, so it didn' ; t hurt us too much. But what did I start to say? So that was a middle room with one, two, three, four children. And she had purchased what they call " ; bacinica" ; in Spanish. What is it in English? Pot, a potty pot. Katherine Nagasawa: A chamber pot. Elsa Kudo: Huh? Katherine Nagasawa: A chamber pot. Elsa Kudo: Chamber pot. Yeah. Yeah. So we didn' ; t have to go outside to go to the bathroom, which was many yards away. And the paths were all muddy, especially if it rained or snow, whatever. So they bought a little chamber pot that we used in the room if we needed to. And then the first room, first cabin, was the table with wooden chairs and a tiny kitchen. They finally put water. Until then, we had to go all the way and carry it in buckets, and then a big pot belly stove for coal. And that was our first room. Second room, children' ; s bedroom and third was my parents with half of it for all our junk, necessary thing, including, which I, at that time, I didn' ; t know, was a big bag of sanitary napkins. And I thought they were used, my mother used it to make pads for the clothing. I didn' ; t know that- Katherine Nagasawa: The shoulder pads. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s funny. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Even though you weren' ; t able to talk to your parents about their experiences directly, do you remember how they felt about redress when the Civil Liberties Act passed? Elsa Kudo: Oh, my dad was one of the first to say, " ; Good, we have to be there." ; He was very conscientious about that. So he' ; s a, I would say the starter, the leader, the pooler for all of us Peruvians. He said, " ; No, we have to get in there with the Japanese Americans." ; Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: But when the Civil Liberties Act passed, do you remember what his reaction was? Elsa Kudo: He was very happy, of course. I don' ; t know if we had any real talk about it. He probably, of course, he was extremely happy. But he said, " ; We just have to keep fighting for the Peruvians." ; Katherine Nagasawa: When did he decide to write his book, and how did you get involved? Elsa Kudo: Well, he was getting older now, and we said, " ; Daddy, you have to write about your history, because we don' ; t know other than what we have seen, but we don' ; t know about your background. Please sit down and write it." ; So he started to do that. Yeah. So little by little, he said, " ; You know, when I start to write all these things, like a dream comes forth and I remember little things that happened, and some fun things," ; like going with his dad to cut down trees that they were allowed to cut down. There were certain trees they could not, but the government had stamped on it, and so they would cut down for lumber and other things. And so he said those were the happiest memories that he and his dad had, because they would go together. I guess it must have been like on a horse-driven cart. Yeah. Yes. And he said he remembers how the snow would shine on the trees and the ground and how it would glisten. And he said, " ; I remember that was happy time for me and my dad." ; Katherine Nagasawa: Like kira-kira? Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Katherine Nagasawa: I remember reading about that in his book. He said that it was so cold though. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: They were just always freezing. Elsa Kudo: Yes. It was very cold. They didn' ; t have the warm thermal clothes that we have. Katherine Nagasawa: I know that' ; s hard on a little kid- Elsa Kudo: Oh yeah. I know. Katherine Nagasawa: ... to be out all day. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Could you explain to me how you guys were able to eventually get the $20,000 and how you used that for your dad' ; s book? Elsa Kudo: Of course we kept up with the help of my dad, who read everything English. He couldn' ; t speak very well, but he learned a lot of English studying himself and in night school. So he would read both English and Japanese publications, and he would encourage us to do things and go talk to Senator Inouye or whoever, do that kind of thing. And what else? Attend all the meetings possible, because it might help someone in our group. Is that what you mean? Those kind of things? Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. But wasn' ; t it a specific letter that you wrote to Reagan that got you a meeting with- Elsa Kudo: Yeah, I think, I don' ; t know if it' ; s in the book. I don' ; t remember. Katherine Nagasawa: Was it Bratt or? Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Robert Bratt was the representative from Washington who came to Hawaii a few times. And so I made sure that the Peruvians, that' ; s us, the Kudos, Higashides, and the Yamasatos family. I said, " ; As much as possible, be there." ; Because if we' ; re just names and numbers, it' ; s not easy for him to remember. But if we meet him, shake his hand and say, " ; We are from Peru, the ones the U.S. took by force," ; then he will remember more. So they all cooperated, the Yamasato family, with obaachan and the son, Maurice, was an architect there, quite famous. And then his sister, Rosa Yomogida, Maurice' ; s wife, who is Hawaiian American, and us, and my mother, grandma Kudo, Eigo, as many people as could come, just so that we have a face for Mr. Bratt to say, " ; Oh, yeah, those are the Peruvian people." ; Yeah. So we did do that. Katherine Nagasawa: And can you talk about how you had to prove to him that you had an entry into the U.S.? Elsa Kudo: Oh, yeah. And I said, " ; How can we qualify for the redress?" ; Katherine Nagasawa: This is for the Civil Liberties Act? Elsa Kudo: Yes, yes. He said, " ; Well, for one thing, if you could find some record of the entry and the date may easily qualify you." ; And that was 1944. And then I remember Mama Kudo' ; s green card said 1944. I remember seeing it in her wallet, which she carried because I' ; m the one that was free to drive them around to doctors and dentists and opticians and anything, shopping. So I said, " ; Grandma, do you still have that card?" ; She said, " ; oh motteru yo." ; And so that' ; s how we got it. Katherine Nagasawa: And can you tell me how you used that $20,000 to support your dad' ; s book? Elsa Kudo: Oh, yeah. So my husband Eigo and I of course by now had received $40,000, which we then spent on the printing publication, et cetera, of my dad' ; s book, " ; Adios to Tears," ; which we had it published in Hawaii. And because we did it ourselves, it was very expensive. But we said, " ; That' ; s okay. At least people will know about it and my father' ; s name will be known, and people will know about ' ; Adios to Tears,' ; et cetera." ; And so then I was sweating, so to speak, because I saw these boxes come into the hallway of our house in Aina Haina. And I said, " ; Oh my gosh, what if I don' ; t sell but a few? I have all these boxes full of books. What do I do with them?" ; But thank goodness my husband helped to make prints out for order sheets. And then we' ; ll " ; send your money if you like it, and we' ; ll send you back a book or two or three," ; whatever. And so people did respond to that. So luckily we were able to sell most. And then what happened was, let' ; s see. Oh, some people kept asking, " ; How can we get more books?" ; This is from the mainland people. So I said, " ; Oh my gosh. It was already hardly any left." ; That' ; s when I started to call universities, like first U of H, the closest. They said, " ; No, we' ; re already tied up with so many immigrant stories. We don' ; t need another one." ; I said, " ; But ours is different." ; She said, " ; Nevertheless." ; But they were very nice. They gave me places I might get in touch with. So that' ; s how I went to the mainland and University of Washington people finally said, " ; Yeah, we' ; d like to do it." ; And that' ; s taking a chance for them, so I really felt very thankful and appreciative that they would take such a big chance because they' ; re not rich, rich schools. They' ; re just a state school, right? But the publisher, what was her name? I can' ; t think of it right now, but she was very instrumental in getting this done. Katherine Nagasawa: I remember last time we talked, you mentioned that it was Bill Hohri who told you to add an index. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: How did he get involved with the book? Or did you just run a copy by him? Elsa Kudo: I think I sent him a draft, maybe. Then he said to Michi Weglyn also, and they both said, " ; Elsa, you must have an index. You must have, because scholars will read this book, and they don' ; t want to go page by page, because they' ; re there to research and study. So you need to do an index." ; And yeah, that was another thing. I said, " ; An index for my dad' ; s book? That' ; s another time and cost." ; He says, " ; But Elsa, we urge you to do it. You must do it." ; So I did. So I went all over the place asking for, " ; Would you," ; and one was University of Illinois indexer. She said, " ; Elsa, your book sounds wonderful. I would love to do it, but I have two more to do, indexing. But I can recommend someone from," ; I don' ; t know, I think it was Indiana. " ; Send her the book and see. She' ; s my like, a what assistant or like a disciple, what is that called? Like a student. Katherine Nagasawa: Somebody like a mentee or mentor? Apprentice? Elsa Kudo: Apprentice. Yeah. Opposite of mentor. She was a mentor. She said, " ; She might be able to do it. I think she is finishing up on a book. So she gave me the address and whatever." ; I talked to her and she said, " ; Oh, wow. That sounds really interesting. I' ; m finishing one up, so why don' ; t you send me, and then I' ; ll see what I could do?" ; And then she did. So I was very fortunate for these kind people who gave me good advice. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s a lot of work to self-publish. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: And to translate and- Elsa Kudo: Yeah, it was, yeah. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I' ; m curious about the way that the Campaign for Justice has evolved over time, because in the 2000s, it went to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. Did you follow that proceeding? You know where, I think it was the Shibayama brothers were the center? Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Kind of. Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: Did you attend the 2017 hearing in D.C.? Elsa Kudo: No. Katherine Nagasawa: It was a public hearing. Okay. That would' ; ve been Grace Shimizu? Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay. Elsa Kudo: I don' ; t think I did. I mean, I have gone to Washington too, but I don' ; t know if it ... no, it was for some other reasons. Katherine Nagasawa: You were on the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund Committee. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Can you talk about that and what your role was on it? That was in the late eighties and early nineties. Elsa Kudo: Yeah, right. What can I say? We had a wonderful leader and lawyer, what' ; s his name? Gosh I could see- Katherine Nagasawa: Hirabayashi? Elsa Kudo: No. Katherine Nagasawa: Matsui? Elsa Kudo: No, no, no. Nandatta, namae? Eigo Kudo: Dare? Elsa Kudo: Ano, lawyer. Hawaii. We' ; re getting too old to remember. Speaker 3: Oh gosh. Elsa Kudo: He' ; s well known and he' ; s very quite an activist in San Francisco. You know him. Eigo Kudo: Yeah, he fought for us. Yeah. Peruvians. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay. Because Korematsu. Elsa Kudo: No, no. I think he represented them probably. He and- Katherine Nagasawa: Mineta? Elsa Kudo: Dale Minami. Katherine Nagasawa: Minami. Elsa Kudo: Minami, yeah, yeah. So he was the leader. I mean, we chose him because he' ; s so, he was a leader. He could do almost anything. I said, " ; You know what, Dale? You don' ; t need a secretary. You could do the whole thing yourself." ; He said, " ; Oh, no." ; Yeah. But he was a very capable, charismatic person to lead. We kind of chose him to be the leader. But we had Father Drinan who passed away, he was able to come from Washington to San Francisco. I think we only saw him maybe at the most twice. And then he dropped out, sort of. Then we had Leo Goto, a businessman who owned a restaurant, restaurateur, in Denver, Colorado. So there were all kinds of people. I' ; m just a housewife. People like Dale Minami and who else? Mr. Kuwayama, a second World War II hero. He passed away too. And Leo Goto. Let' ; s see. And Professor Naka- Eigo Kudo: Talking about the- Elsa Kudo: Professor. Yeah. He was from California. Professor, oh, what' ; s his name? Nakasone jyanai? Nakao... Nakano? Nakano. That doesn' ; t sound quite right. But anyway, so they were all part of the group. I was the least, I felt like I don' ; t belong here. I' ; m just a housewife. But they would, I think, halfway tease me, say, " ; You bring all the practical reasons why you' ; re here." ; I give them some little suggestions. " ; Oh, that' ; s a good thing. We didn' ; t think about that." ; They were just so sweet. And so, yeah. So we got things done. We were from everywhere with different backgrounds and stuff. But we all got along because I think our goals were the same. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: And what was the type of work you were doing on that board? Elsa Kudo: Oh, gosh. One was to hire people who knew about funding because none of us are in the funding business. So how do you go about it? So we did hire someone named Hatta. Do you know Hatta-san? Lady. So she was one of those hired, I think there were a couple of them. And then to read all the projects, there were over, I don' ; t know, hundreds. And you had to choose, because we only had $5 million. We should have had $50 million, but there was no money left but a measly -- it sounds like a lot, but it isn' ; t when you have all these wonderful projects who need help. And so I think it was $5 million. And so anyway, so these people who knew about how to handle projects and stuff, we would go over slightly to grants, like some on education, some of the entertainment like show biz, but with the internment story and some art project and so forth. And so then we gave someone a lot of money, but the most that we gave per block was like $100,000. $100,000, $100,000, $50,000, $20,000, $5,000, $25, like that, until all of it was spent to help these projects become a reality. Katherine Nagasawa: How many years did that fund? Elsa Kudo: I think it was about two years, or two and a half years, about. Katherine Nagasawa: Did you end up seeing some of the projects to fruition, like the ones that you had approved? Did you see the final...? Elsa Kudo: Yeah, I think we did in some of the publication. Oh, yeah. Some of the money was used to republish that book. Katherine Nagasawa: Years of Infamy? Elsa Kudo: Years- Katherine Nagasawa: Farewell to Manzanar? Elsa Kudo: No, not years. Years ... Katherine Nagasawa: Of Infamy by Michi? Elsa Kudo: No. The one done by the government. Katherine Nagasawa: Personal Justice Denied. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Yes. So we spent a lot of money on that one so people could have it easily. I think it was given out free. I' ; m not quite sure, yeah. We did see those kind of fruition. Yeah. So it was money well spent, but we could have used $50 instead of just $5. Katherine Nagasawa: Give me one second. I' ; m just going to get a new battery. Elsa Kudo: Oh, okay. I think it' ; s there. This one? Oh. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, yeah. I just have a new charge. Elsa Kudo: Oh. Oh. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s pretty incredible to be part of the educational grant. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Yes, it was. Especially because I' ; m a former school teacher. It meant a lot. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, to be in education arm a bit, I think it' ; s very huge. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay. A few final questions. Let' ; s just refocus. Okay. For the audio, I' ; m just going to clap to let you know that we have a new battery. Let' ; s see. I think as we' ; re talking about the education fund as one of the outcomes of redress, I' ; m curious for you, what do you think is the biggest legacy of the redress movement? One being the public education projects that came out of it. There was the actual monetary compensation, there was the apology. There were also the hearings where you both testified. Elsa Kudo: And the books. Katherine Nagasawa: And the books. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: What do you think has had the biggest impact, or is the biggest legacy of it? Elsa Kudo: I' ; m not sure. I think we' ; ll probably know the answer to your question maybe few years down the road yet. Things are slow to move, but one day we' ; ll know it. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I' ; m also curious for you, what would true redress mean for you and your family? If you were to think of what would actually make up for what you lost, what you endured, what would true justice look like? Or is it even possible? Elsa Kudo: I don' ; t think it' ; s possible to ever " ; repay" ; -- in quotes -- whatever our parents lost. I mean, how do you repay someone who' ; s worked, like in Eigo' ; s case, his parents were in business, what, 30, 40 years? I mean, how do you do that? You can' ; t. You can' ; t ever repay it and say, " ; Here' ; s $100,000." ; Because there' ; s all these emotional, psychological, and much hardship that they went through, especially the older people. We were young and children so as long as our parents were together, we were okay. But it' ; s the older first generation or second generation older people. Yeah. I cannot answer for them. I think it was awful for them. Katherine Nagasawa: I know that Grace Shimizu is still fighting for redress for Japanese Latin Americans in the international courts. What is your greatest hope for what will come out of that? What would you like to see happen? Elsa Kudo: If it could be equal, at least equalized to the Japanese American redress, would be good, would be very good. But the other is that the whole world will know that you mustn' ; t do this to another group of people. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: So it' ; s not just the compensation for you. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: It' ; s also the- Elsa Kudo: The lesson- Katherine Nagasawa: The lesson. Elsa Kudo: ... that we should learn. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I know that your daughter, especially Tami, has been kind of carrying the torch and you passed the torch to her. What is it like for you to pass it to the next generation to continue this fight? Elsa Kudo: Well, all I can say is unless our offspring or anyone in the group carries on their own will, we cannot force them. They all have to want to do it. And maybe it' ; s because we always talk with the children, that our kids are very much in tune, and they want to do as much as they can to help. I don' ; t know how other families deal with this, but in our family, we do talk about things, many things, fun things, too. And we do stuff together. We travel together, eat together, play together, like that. So I think that makes a lot of difference in how a child perceives to want to do things. I mean, that' ; s my own feelings. Katherine Nagasawa: So you aren' ; t necessarily telling your daughters that they need to be involved? Elsa Kudo: No. Never. Katherine Nagasawa: You hope that they will. Elsa Kudo: I have never said it. She has never said it. They just did it. So I think it' ; s because we always included them in things, in everything. Eating, traveling, playing cards, joking around, cooking around, you know, everything. So I think that' ; s, to me, that' ; s the thing. Yeah. We never said, " ; Oh, you got to do this. You got to help this." ; No, they just volunteer. Katherine Nagasawa: One thing we' ; re trying to do with this project is to connect the Japanese American redress movement to other movements today around racial justice or reparations. And I' ; m curious, for you, do you feel like there' ; s some sort of responsibility or moral authority that Japanese people have to advocate for other communities that want reparations given the fact that we received redress? For example, for Black Americans, do you feel that Japanese Americans should support those movements? Elsa Kudo: Well, people who wish to support should do it, but it should not be made mandatory. I think it all depends on that person. If they have a good relationship with a group of people and they want to do it, help them, that' ; s terrific. And not everyone can be that involved either, because they may be suffering themselves. And you can' ; t help someone when you' ; re suffering yourself is a thing. Katherine Nagasawa: That it should be also a choice? Elsa Kudo: Yes. I think almost everything is a choice. Choice to be bitter about things or to accept things or not, to be happy with what you have or not. I mean, it' ; s all choices, really. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I guess final question is, what kind of takeaways would you want people to have about the Japanese Latin American story? If you' ; re thinking about your grandkids, what do you want them to remember about it? Elsa Kudo: Mostly that they should know the facts about their grandparents, what happened to them, and what could happen to them, the grandchildren themselves in the future because how our world is, how people are, the people' ; s heart don' ; t change that quickly, and so we have to be very careful. At the same time, be very charitable to others, and to learn from not only one' ; s experience, but other people' ; s experience, which is harder, because unless you sympathize, it' ; s hard to do that. Yeah. But at least with our grandchildren, I think they' ; re more sympathetic because so many of them have read the book, so they know what happened to their great grandparents and to their parents, or to their grandparents, us. So I think they' ; re a little bit more aware than other people because of that, because of our talks too in there. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I know that your granddaughter, she participated in Peru-Kai last year. Didn' ; t she sing a song or something at the- Elsa Kudo: Oh, oh, Katherine Nagasawa: ... Kira? Elsa Kudo: Kiana? Katherine Nagasawa: Kiana. Elsa Kudo: Kiana. Did she sing a song? Did Kiana-chan sing a song? I don' ; t remember. She' ; s very musical. She' ; s the only one in our family who is musical. None of us are musical all. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. She sang at Peru-Kai. Elsa Kudo: Which one? The last one? Katherine Nagasawa: The virtual one. Elsa Kudo: Oh, Yuuyake Koyake. You know the Japanese song? Katherine Nagasawa: I don' ; t, no. Elsa Kudo: It' ; s a real cute song that we remembered as children. It' ; s about taking a walk when the sun is setting, and that you could hear the church bell. It' ; s a very picturesque, and then you see the karasu, the... Eigo Kudo: Crow. Elsa Kudo: ... crows flying overhead. Yeah. It' ; s just a cute that we learned when we were kids. Yeah, yeah. So we like that. Yeah. And she has a beautiful voice, we think. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. That' ; s so sweet. One more thing. I was thinking, I don' ; t think we explained what Peru-Kai is. Could you talk about the origins of it? Because your dad helped organize it in Chicago, the first one. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: So what' ; s the history of Peru-Kai, and how does it continue to today? Elsa Kudo: Well, Peru Kai started in Chicago with my dad, and Papa Kudo. At that time, he was single, Mr. Takeshita, and they would organize picnics. Why- Eigo Kudo: Every year we had a picnic for all the Peruvians. Elsa Kudo: And we all would meet at Lincoln Park, or what was that other park? North Side. Anyway, yeah, just little parks area. And we all share in our bentos. And my mother would make a lot of Peruvian food. His mother would make sushi and nigiris and all that and chicken teriyaki, good food. Lots of good food. Katherine Nagasawa: And lomo saltado, right? They had the Peruvian food. Elsa Kudo: Yeah, Peruvian food. Yeah. They didn' ; t do lomo saltado too much because that should be warm, but they did make like ceviche, things that could be taken with ice underneath the thing, container. What else did we take? Corn, gohan, anticucho -- beef hearts. Yeah, those kind of good food. So we all would gather and then share. Yeah, because each family has his or her favorite kind of food that they would bring but we all shared it. That was our Peruvian picnic we called it. It was the least expensive and everyone could drive to the park or get to the park, and everyone could bring something. It didn' ; t have to be elaborate at all. It could be just nigiris, sandwiches, whatever. Usually it was more nigiris than sandwiches and tea or chicha morada, the purple corn drink? Katherine Nagasawa: Chicha. Yeah. Elsa Kudo: Which we like. Katherine Nagasawa: I had that. I went to Bolivia one summer. Elsa Kudo: And they had it? Katherine Nagasawa: I had a chicha. Yeah. It was yellow corn they used. Elsa Kudo: Oh, yeah. That' ; s more alcoholic. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, really? Elsa Kudo: Yeah. That' ; s good. But we used to make the chicha morada, which morada means purple. Katherine Nagasawa: Purple. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. So we used to do that. I don' ; t know, we just had fun seeing each other, because everybody worked so hard. So once a year we have this picnic of gathering of the Peruvians in the park, which was free. Katherine Nagasawa: And then it has gone international since then. You' ; ve had ones in Japan and Peru, right? Elsa Kudo: Did we? Peru. Peru has its own Japanese Peruvian Olympic size grounds really? Like for swimming, running, track. What else? Tennis. Those kind. And a huge picnic area. Eigo Kudo: Are you talking about school? Elsa Kudo: No, no. The Peru no... Katherine Nagasawa: Peru Kai. Elsa Kudo: Peru Kai picnic area. And you know where Miyo-chan and Yuri-chan took us and we had a nice time underneath the trees. Yeah, Nihon-dewa Peru Kai was held in Peruvian restaurant in Kawasaki, which is the next town to Tokyo. And so then we had Mr. Oyama. Did he live around there? Oyama-san? Eigo Kudo: What? Elsa Kudo: Did he live around Kawasaki? Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Elsa Kudo: Oh, okay. He was trilingual. He was a Nisei from Peru. But he married another Nisei from Peru. And then they were the ones who left to go to Japan after the war. And he was the one, because he was trilingual, he would translate what Grace or I or anyone else wrote in English. He would translate it to Japanese and then send it out. So he was a real force in Japan, but he died about two years ago. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Elsa Kudo: Ne? So we' ; ve lost a great leader. Eigo Kudo: Honey, more than four years ago. Elsa Kudo: Is there more than four? Oh my gosh. He was a wonderful person, a wonderful giver. A wonderful person who did so much out of his own heart. Yeah. So we have no one now. Not that I know of. Katherine Nagasawa: You mean in Japan? Elsa Kudo: In Japan. Dare mo inai yo, ne? Mo. Eigo Kudo: What? Elsa Kudo: Nihon ni. Nobody' ; s there after Oyama-san. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Nobody took leadership at all. Elsa Kudo: Well, everyone' ; s gone, or they' ; re all getting older. Eigo Kudo: Well, Oyama-san was one of those that went back from camp to Japan, and he graduated from the second university that' ; s famous in Japan. Elsa Kudo: Oh, he did? Eigo Kudo: Hitotsubashi. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Most famous. Eigo Kudo: So now he knew Spanish, English, and Japanese. Elsa Kudo: Well. Eigo Kudo: And he worked for Sumitomo- Elsa Kudo: The big- Eigo Kudo: ... the trading company. And he went to Bueno Aires as a branch manager. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, wow. Eigo Kudo: Yeah, because he knew Spanish. Then he came back and then he retired after he became 60. That' ; s when we met him when he retired. Katherine Nagasawa: Is he around your age or is he- Elsa Kudo: He' ; s a little older. Eigo Kudo: Yeah, he' ; s older than me. Elsa Kudo: So he died about four years ago, I guess. I thought it was two. He said four. Eigo Kudo: Wonderful guy. Elsa Kudo: So we miss him because whenever we went to Tokyo, he would come out and we have lunch. Eigo Kudo: His wife was on the Tami' ; s Peru-Kai broadcast. Katherine Nagasawa: I watched her. Eigo Kudo: She was the one that came out first and said Happy New Year in Japanese. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Oh, she was in there? Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Oh, Mrs. Oyama. Elsa Kudo: Oyama-san. Yeah. Eigo Kudo: She is the only one that' ; s married a Peruvian to Peruvian like us. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. All the others married Japanese- Katherine Nagasawa: I see. Elsa Kudo: ... once they went to Japan. Katherine Nagasawa: Kind of nice that you both understand- Elsa Kudo: Yeah, it is. Katherine Nagasawa: ... those experiences and also have the Spanish. Elsa Kudo: Yes, yes, yes. Katherine Nagasawa: English. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I just want to be mindful of time. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: So I wanted to close but ask you if there' ; s any final words that you wanted to part with or final reflections on- Elsa Kudo: Final- Katherine Nagasawa: ... the Japanese Latin American redress efforts or the Japanese Latin American story. Elsa Kudo: Well, most of all, I think my husband and I feel the same, that we' ; d like to thank you for your effort in recording this for future generations, because we' ; ll be gone shortly. We' ; re in our 80s and 90s, so that' ; s " ; atari-mae" ; as they say --natural. But thank you for your interest and the fact that you are doing something for the future, not only now, but for the future, which is a big deal, really. So thank you. Katherine Nagasawa: Of course. It' ; s an honor to interview you both. Elsa Kudo: Thanks. Katherine Nagasawa: I' ; m just going to ask, if not can take a quick picture- Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Footage may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=KudoElsa20221126.xml KudoElsa20221126.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/3 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/browse?tags=Series%3A+Redress
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<a href="https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/show/2729" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oral History Interview: Kudo, Eigo (11/26/2022)</a>
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Kudo, Elsa (11/26/2022)
Description
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Elsa Kudo, a Peruvian of Japanese descent, describes her experience testifying at the Chicago CWRIC hearings about her family's experience of expulsion from Peru and incarceration at Crystal City. She recalls the difficulty Japanese Latin Americans faced in securing permission to give testimony at hearings in other cities and the role of her brother in persuading organizers in Chicago to allocate time for JLAs. She also shares about her experiences with the Campaign for Justice, negotiating with White House representatives to secure reparations for her family, serving on the Civil Liberties Public Education Committee, and publishing her father Seiichi Higashide's book, "Adios to Tears." Of note are her reflections on Peru-kai, a recurring event for formerly incarcerated Japanese Peruvians and their descendants that began in Chicago and has become international in scope.
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2022-11-26
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video
FSF JACS
Series: Redress
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
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Creator
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Nagasawa, Katherine
Interviewee
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Kudo, Eigo
OHMS Object
https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=KudoEigo20221126.xml
Interview Keyword
Japanese Latin American
JLA
Japanese Peruvian
Peru
Panama
Seabrook Farms
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
CWRIC hearings
Testimony
Adios to Tears
OHMS Object Text
5.4 11/26/2022 Kudo, Eigo (11/26/2022) 1:28:03 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection REDR Redress Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded, transcribed, and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Japanese Latin American JLA Japanese Peruvian Peru Panama Seabrook Farms Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians CWRIC hearings Testimony Adios to Tears Kudo, Eigo Nagasawa, Katherine video 1:|13(7)|19(5)|30(15)|39(4)|48(12)|55(11)|65(1)|74(9)|82(5)|92(2)|100(3)|106(14)|112(11)|120(3)|130(9)|137(17)|144(6)|150(12)|157(8)|165(2)|174(15)|182(13)|191(6)|197(7)|205(3)|213(13)|221(9)|229(4)|237(10)|245(10)|253(16)|261(12)|271(8)|278(14)|294(11)|309(12)|325(12)|334(14)|341(8)|348(11)|355(8)|368(5)|375(4)|381(10)|387(12)|394(6)|403(15)|417(7)|424(6)|432(1)|441(12)|465(14)|483(7)|496(7)|505(6)|511(13)|522(6)|529(6)|535(13)|541(12)|569(1)|603(8)|636(8)|673(6)|697(3)|749(8)|761(2)|766(10)|782(6)|789(8)|803(4)|832(11)|852(11)|867(14)|884(16)|893(8)|910(2)|924(6)|930(12)|955(2)|972(5)|990(5)|995(11)|1005(5)|1018(4)|1053(1)|1077(9) 0 https://vimeo.com/823067855 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/823067855?h=4945ff5109" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; Eigo Kudo, a Peruvian of Japanese descent, describes his family's experience of expulsion from Peru and incarceration at Crystal City. He recalls with remarkable clarity the details of the journey by ship from Peru, through the Panama Canal, to the United States ; the emotions he experienced as a child being separated from first his father, and then his mother ; the conditions at Crystal City ; and his family's experience working at Seabrook Farms in New Jersey. He describes the difficulties Peruvian Japanese and Japanese Latin Americans faced during and after incarceration and the challenges they faced when seeking to be included in Japanese Americans' Redress efforts. He shares his direct experience testifying at the Chicago CWRIC hearings and subsequent efforts by his family to secure redress and reparations for Japanese Latin Americans, including the publication of his father-in-law Seiichi Higashide's memoir, " ; Adios to Tears." ; Katherine Nagasawa: Today is November 26th, 2022, and this oral history is being recorded at 301 Adobe Estates Drive in Vista, California. The interviewer is Katherine Nagasawa, and the interviewee is Eigo Kudo. This interview is being recorded by the JASC Legacy Center in order to document the Japanese American redress movement in Chicago and the Midwest. So could you start by telling me how you first heard about the redress movement, and how you got involved in it? Eigo Kudo: Well... Elsa Kudo: I used up all the cream, the half-and-half. Eigo Kudo: We were living in Honolulu then, and we heard that there was a movement for Japanese Americans to at least get something, I guess what you call redress. And we were also concerned, because we wanted to be included. But we were told by the political officers of Senator Matsunaga at that time that we will not be included because they cannot take a chance. If we go in there, there' ; s more chance of saying no. So my wife and I just gave up hope on that. And rightly so, because they were fighting for Japanese American side, not us. So we just gave up and said, " ; Okay, I hope they get what they want." ; So that was it. Katherine Nagasawa: Did you hear about redress from the JACL in Hawaii? Or do you remember exactly- Eigo Kudo: No, JACL never contacted us. We went through newspapers were mentioning about all this. So we talked to Senator Matsunaga' ; s office because he was one of the main person to put this into Congress. I was told by the office, not Senator Matsunaga, but Matsunaga' ; s office people told us that they didn' ; t want to take a chance by including us. So we understood. Katherine Nagasawa: So then how did you get involved in the CWRIC hearings in Chicago? Eigo Kudo: We heard about the hearing, that the Japanese Americans are going to have hearing as to how that happened, et cetera, and everybody' ; s comment, et cetera. So we wrote to Senator Inouye, saying, " ; Now, how can we get into this so that we can testify also?" ; And he wrote us back. He said, " ; Well, the next one, hearing, is Los Angeles. After that in San Francisco, I think Seattle was in there. And then Chicago and New York." ; Those were the last five. I don' ; t know where else he went. But Senator Inouye also said that we had to contact JACL so that we can get into any of the five. And we contacted JACL for the five places, and all five said no. Elsa Kudo: Meaning they were already- Eigo Kudo: Yeah, they just said no. And Elsa just happened to mention this to her brother Carlos in Chicago, and he said, " ; Well, I know this lady that' ; s doing all this programming very well, so I' ; ll ask her." ; So we said, " ; Yeah, good luck." ; And then Carlos called us back and he said, " ; Hey, I got you 15 minutes for three people." ; So I said, " ; Oh, okay." ; And we talked to Peruvian Issei in Chicago like Mr. Takeshita, Furuya, and Matsuda, and we told them, " ; So, Seiichi Higashide, me, and Elsa, the three of us will represent Peruvians." ; And all three of them agreed, because Papa Higashide, Seiichi Higashide, was leader for all this Peruvian group in Chicago anyway, and in Nisei, Elsa and I were the leading... Well, we' ; re always for the Peruvians, for meeting, et cetera. So we said, " ; The three of us will go, you think it' ; s okay?" ; And all three of them said, " ; Yeah, we' ; ll select you three anyway at any time." ; So we contacted a couple of others in L.A. and San Francisco, and they agreed that we three will represent. And that was one of your questions as to how we were selected, the three of us. But in any event, Elsa went on Friday, she flew with her father and mother and stayed with my brother and his wife. His wife is Elsa' ; s younger sister. Just for the benefit of your... There are four generation. Katherine Nagasawa: Brothers and sisters marrying each other? Eigo Kudo: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My grandfather in the Kudo side and his younger brother married two sisters. My father and my mother got married, and my mother' ; s older brother married my father' ; s younger sister. And then we are married, and then our daughters are married to brothers. So that' ; s four generations. Kind of interesting, but that' ; s a side story. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. Eigo Kudo: But anyway, our testimony... Oh, her brothers and sisters, and my sister and my brother were all rooting for us anyway, so I went there on Saturday. I left Friday night, because I had work to do and then arrived Saturday morning. I flew all night on United Airlines. And when I got there, Elsa said, " ; We still have the five minutes for the three of us." ; So that' ; s when I started writing my speech, and Elsa started hers, and then Papa Higashide started his. And he said to me, " ; I' ; m going to speak in Japanese. You think it' ; s all right?" ; I said, " ; Oh yeah, I' ; ll do the translating for you." ; And he said, " ; Oh yeah, okay." ; So he wrote it in Japanese, and then I wrote it in English, and I was supposed to give that English. When we got there, when I got there on Saturday, I was told by Elsa that they added three more people, two more people, and 15 more minutes. So I said, " ; Okay, we' ; ll keep our five minutes the way we planned and then let..." ; Because one of them was a Professor Gardiner, and we were very glad that he was there, because he was an authority on Peruvian... Elsa Kudo: Japanese. Eigo Kudo: Getting caught in Peru, and Japanese brought to the U.S. for prisoner exchange. You have to remember that we were supposed to be exchanged with prisoners caught in Philippines, 30,000 were prisoners in Japan, American soldiers. Originally, Roosevelt said, " ; Hell, we got 120,000 in our camp, use them to..." ; And all the advisors said, " ; No, we cannot do that because more than half are American citizens, and the rest are all, what we call ' ; legal aliens.' ; " ; So he said, " ; Okay, then get some Japanese from some other place." ; And that' ; s how we got caught. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile said, " ; No way you' ; re going to get any of our people." ; Then he went to Peru, and Manuel Prado was the first one said, " ; Yeah, I' ; ll give you Japanese." ; And then Roosevelt told them, " ; You can keep all their assets." ; So they started to take our assets and all our bank accounts were frozen and we couldn' ; t take them out. And eventually, they took it over. So we never got it back. My sister was a Peruvian citizen, because she was born in Peru, so she had her savings account, and that was the only money that we had. My brother and I were too young to have bank account, so... Lot of people don' ; t realize that we lost a lot of assets that we had. My father owned an import-export business and he had wholesale outlet and then a retail outlet in another place. And we imported silk from Japan, cotton from U.S., and wool from England. And those were the main products. And then we started to bring in ceramics like Kutani from Japan. And oh, we sold many, many items to prominent Peruvians because they loved Japanese ceramics. And it took a year and a half for my father' ; s assets to be sold out. A year and a half. In December of 1943, finally, we had no more assets at all because finally all the items are sold. During that time, the government people get into the cashier box, and when we sell, they keep the money, and at the end of the day, they give my father the allowance and all the payment to the employees. And we never saw any income cash from day one. So my father said, " ; Okay, so we' ; re finished. So I guess I better get used to the 50-kilo suitcase." ; And he used to practice at home. In December he started and then he got arrested on January. And then all of us would take bento at night. My mother would make, and we used to go there to the jail because that was the only way that we can talk to our father was he used to write us letters in a empty bento box. So we used to love that. And I saw her for the first time in that jail. My mother said, " ; That' ; s Mrs Higashide, and oldest daughter, Yukiko." ; I said, " ; Oh." ; But I was 10 and she was seven, and at that age, you know... Katherine Nagasawa: You don' ; t care. Eigo Kudo: But anyway, I knew who she was, I knew who the mother was, and her father and my father were cellmates during that period in Peru. And one night, the night of the 17th, we went and the guard said, " ; There' ; s no Mr. Kudo" ; in Spanish. So my mother says, " ; There' ; s no Mr. Kudo?" ; He says, " ; No." ; So my mother says, " ; Oh, we got to go to Callao." ; Which is a seaport. And we started to go out and catch a cab and then we saw a big truck coming out with Japanese people in it. So my mother said to the cab driver, " ; Follow that big van." ; And we did. And oh, they were waving to us, but we couldn' ; t see my father. He was not sitting toward the end, but we assumed he was in there. And when we got to Callao, the big gate was closed and they were able to go in, but our cab couldn' ; t. They said no. So we had to go home. So we didn' ; t know where he was taken or anything. And on February 1st, we got a telegram from Spanish Embassy. Our telephone was taken over by the government too, so we didn' ; t have a telephone anymore. So all we got was a telegram saying, " ; Come to the Spanish Embassy and see Minister such, such and such." ; So the four of us went, my sister, my brother, myself, and my mother. And they told us, " ; We don' ; t know where your husband is, but we can tell you that he' ; s probably somewhere between here and the United States, and somewhere in territory of U.S., because we know that he was taken toward United States. Now, the United States want the family if you want to get on the ship on March 1st. But you could only take 50 kilo of clothing for you, Mrs. Kudo, and you -- my older sister." ; And then for my brother and I were 25 kilo each. So we were 150 kilo of clothing only. So we couldn' ; t take anything else, just clothing. And we measured, we weigh it and everything, and we went to Callao, the port, in March 1st, and they weighed our stuff and they said, " ; Oh, perfect, 150." ; So they were able to put it on the ship. All those other Japanese Peruvians that had more than their weight, they had to take out, so that their weight will be limited. So I know these people took out the sheets and took the clothing out and gave it back to the government people so they can tell their relatives to take this back. We were separated. My brother and I had to go, and we had to go to the stairway to the ship and they frisked us and they took our pen, the watch, everything that' ; s not on the body. And they said, " ; Put it in an envelope and put your name on an envelope and then we will give it back to you next week. We' ; re going to first see that you don' ; t have anything explosive or anything dangerous." ; And so I put my pen, my mechanical pencil, my watch, everything. And one week later when we got it, we got everything back. Nothing was lost. Isn' ; t it terrific? I guess that' ; s U.S., because other countries, we probably wouldn' ; t have half of the stuff back. So my brother and I were taken to the head of the ship, and then all the way to the bottom, and all the men were there. And there were several kids, but their fathers were there. We were the only small children without father because my father was already taken away. Katherine Nagasawa: How old were you and how old was your brother? Eigo Kudo: Ten and seven. No, 10 and 13. That' ; s it. I was 10 and my brother was 13. And I said, " ; You think Mother and Sister will be all right?" ; He says, " ; Oh yeah, don' ; t worry. When we get off the ship, we' ; ll join them. So don' ; t worry." ; But I cried all night because I was scared. And to go to meals, MP with a carbine would be following us to go to mess hall. You go to mess hall, you eat standing up, because these are transport ships for soldiers. So after I put the tray on the table, I never saw the food because I couldn' ; t reach it. So all I did was I opened my mouth and then just shoved. So I got the cocktail fruit first, the canned ones, and then the food will... It was horrible. And about week later, one of the Filipino cooks came out, and he took me to the side and he said -- and it was by the window so I could see the food. And I went there every day after that for meal time, so I could at least see what I was eating. But two days after we left, that was March 1st. So March 3rd, all the Japanese men said to the captain, " ; These two boys don' ; t have their father here. All the rest of the children have fathers here, so why don' ; t you take them back to the women' ; s side, so that they can be with their mother?" ; So the captain agreed. So we were sent back to... And that' ; s when I saw my brother -- my sister, and my mother. So we stayed there. Now, the men were in the front at the bottom, and then the women were at the bottom on the back. All the rest with small children were on the deck where the officers usually stay. So they had a window, they were able to get out to the deck. We couldn' ; t get out to the deck because you got to go about three stairways. And then to go to the cafeteria, we had to go that way, because the cafeteria was about one or two floors after the deck. And the meals were really something because we only had one fruit a day. The veggies were never raw, and it was always orange. So, that was the only raw fruit or veggies. So we always ate the one orange, so that at least we don' ; t get beriberi, I guess. Then on the March 6th, we arrived to Balboa in Panama. That' ; s the port that' ; s on the Pacific side where the Canal is. And we stopped there. And so my brother and I went up to the cafeteria and ate breakfast. And we went up to the deck, and we saw bunch of trucks lined up and we see Japanese men. So my brother said, " ; Hey, maybe Papa is there." ; I said, " ; Yeah!" ; So we yell, " ; Papa, Papa!" ; And my brother said, " ; Oh, that' ; s stupid. Everybody' ; s probably ' ; Papa,' ; so we' ; re going to yell Kudo." ; So I said, " ; Okay." ; So we go, " ; 1, 2, 3." ; And it was, " ; ichi, ni, san." ; But then we said, " ; Kudo, Kudo, Kudo!" ; And my father stuck his face from the truck like this. And he saw us and he said...[waves] So we said, " ; Oh, he' ; s alive." ; So we ran down to my mother' ; s, where she was, and we said, " ; Hey, we saw Papa in the truck." ; So my mother says, " ; You did?" ; So she spoke good Spanish, so we went up to the captain, and the captain was from Puerto Rico, Teniente Soto. And she told him that her husband will be coming aboard, can we see him? So he said, " ; Well, let me first I have to sign for all the prisoners. And then after that I' ; ll come and get you here in the captain' ; s room." ; So we waited in the captain' ; s room. About an hour later, he came back and then he says, " ; Okay, let' ; s go down." ; And then he told him, " ; Señor Kudo, K-U-D-O." ; And they all go out. And then my father came out and he went [waves]. So I thought, " ; Oh my God, he' ; s here." ; And we waited and then he came up the stairs and oh, we hugged. Yeah, that was the only time we saw my father inside the ship. In any event, on the sixth they told us everybody got to stay down there and don' ; t come out to the deck because we were going through the Canal. So I wanted to see how the Canal worked because I knew how it worked because I read it in a Japanese book. So there' ; s a street car that' ; s on both sides, they pull the ship into the Canal. And sure enough, the street car was there. And I told my brother, I said, " ; The street car is there." ; He says, " ; Oh yeah, there it is, pulling." ; And then we got into Gatun Lake and my brother said, " ; Oh, this is a lake, so let' ; s forget it. Let' ; s go down." ; So we went down. And then on the 9th, we were still in Colón. That' ; s the entrance to the Canal on the Atlantic side. And we were there for three days and we couldn' ; t figure out why we were just stopped there. And then the morning of the 9th after breakfast, we went to the deck and I realized that now we' ; re in a convoy. That' ; s what we were waiting for, the convoy to develop. There were about 12 ships, but we were on the side. So I told my brother, I said, " ; Hey, if the U-boat comes, they' ; re going to fire at us first." ; Because the three in the middle were really sunk down. So they must have been carrying a lot of valuable stuff. And they were right in the middle, and there were four ships, and we were one of the four on the side. But fortunately, U-boat didn' ; t come around, so we made it to New Orleans. The morning of the 21st, after breakfast, we went out to the deck and all the water was muddy water. So my brother says, " ; This is funny." ; So I said, " ; Must be a river." ; And I said, " ; If it' ; s a river here," ; I said, " ; Mississippi is the only big one here." ; So my brother said, " ; Yeah, got to be Mississippi." ; And then they told us, " ; Okay, everybody get ready, tomorrow we' ; ll be going into New Orleans and all you people will be getting off. So pack everything and wear the heaviest coat, et cetera, because from here on, you' ; ll be traveling to the camp." ; So I was the first one to get out. I' ; m always first, I like to be. So anyway, so the four of us went down and I was following this leader. It was an MP, and he took us to one big building, and then they told us, " ; Take off all your clothes and put it in the basket." ; So we did, and we all had to take a shower. And my sister says to me, " ; Eigo, I want you to stay in front of me and when we walk, don' ; t walk fast because I' ; ll be right behind you." ; So her friend, she stayed in her back, so nobody can see her front of the body in the... And that' ; s how we walked. And one of the ladies in a bathing suit grabbed me and they started to wash me, and I thought, " ; I can wash myself," ; in Japanese. And she didn' ; t understand. And so I said it in Spanish, and she didn' ; t understand. I didn' ; t know a word of English, so I couldn' ; t say anything else. Anyway, she finished washing me. So after we washed, we had to dry ourselves. And after we dried, they threw DDT to us, our hair, all over our body. So it all was white. And then they gave us our basket of clothing, and that was all white with DDT. So we had to get the powder off so we can get our clothing. And there' ; s a funny story in there. My brother says to me after we got on, he said, " ; Hey, there' ; s a line over there, they' ; re giving something. So let' ; s line up over there." ; And we lined up and it was all just ladies. So my brother realized, so he said, " ; Okay, Eigo, I want you to just get that, and then wipe your nose and then throw it away." ; So I said, " ; Oh, why?" ; He said, " ; Just do as I say." ; So my brother did that, so I did that, and we came out and I told him, I said, " ; What in the world was that?" ; He says, " ; You' ; re too young, so I' ; ll tell you in a couple of years." ; And it was Kotex. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh no! So you blew your nose... Eigo Kudo: So I didn' ; t know. And a couple of years later, he told me in camp and I started to laugh. I said, " ; Oh my God, is that why we did that?" ; And after we ate our fast lunch, we were taken to our train and we had our number here. And I figured that out finally when he said, " ; This way." ; So I follow and to this train car here. So I went in and I see that' ; s number 12 and my first number was 12. So I said, " ; Oh, this must be our seating." ; And sure enough, we walked, and my father was waiting on his seat, which was right next to us. And then the first meal was that night in a train. It was a Pullman, it was a beautiful train. And they told us, " ; Okay, car number 12, you' ; re next." ; So my mother says, " ; Oh, they' ; re telling us that we got to go to the dining car." ; So we went and we saw this cup with celery and carrots, and we haven' ; t seen any fresh veggies in three weeks. So, the three of us ate with, we didn' ; t even give it to my parents. So the guy said, " ; Don' ; t worry, don' ; t worry." ; I guess that' ; s what he was saying. Then he brought two more glass food over there. So we gave one cup to my folks and then we, three of us, finished that cup also. Then we had a dinner and it was... Oh, that Pullman train breakfast, lunch, and dinner were beautiful. Really well done. And the morning of the 23rd, we were awakened, and they told us we' ; ll go to breakfast inside the camp, so get ready to get off and pack up. So that' ; s what we had to do. And then we got into a bus and they took us in. Katherine Nagasawa: How much knowledge... You were only 10 years old. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: How aware were you of what was happening? Eigo Kudo: Oh. Katherine Nagasawa: What did you think was happening at that time? Eigo Kudo: Oh, I love history and geography. And something like that, I want to always remember. That' ; s why I can give you in detail what happened those 23 days. But I guess now I look back, I was probably the only one that remember everything like that. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember what your parents' ; reactions were? Did they ever explain to you- Eigo Kudo: Oh yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: ... what was happening? Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. My father used to include me in every discussion with the family when I was only 10. But I listened, and I probably remember more in detail than my brother and sister. When we talk about our coming here and I explain, and my sister and my brother says, " ; Boy, you really remember well." ; But they say, " ; Oh yeah, I remember that too now, yeah." ; When I mention it, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: You' ; re helping to jog their memory, is that it? Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. So did you know you were part of a prisoner exchange program? Eigo Kudo: Oh yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: You knew? Eigo Kudo: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Because my father was one of the Peruvian Japanese leaders. And when we went there about second or third day, my father was called by the warden, and he came back and he told us that we were on the first list if there' ; s an exchange with a prisoner to prisoner. And I guess we were one of those in the prominent Japanese list, so we were in it. And O' ; Rourke, the warden, told my father that, " ; Your family is on the first ship." ; Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I see. Eigo Kudo: See, actually, there were two transport ships between United States and Japan. One was in January of 1942, which included all of the government dignitaries, like Consul-General, and all those people who worked in the Consul-General' ; s office from almost every country in South America, in Central America. They left New York and all the diplomats of U.S. from Japan, they met in Madagascar, and then they exchanged the people, and the ships were supposed to be lit up, and nobody' ; s supposed to attack them. And that was safely. And the next one was, I think, in the spring of 1942, another ship exchange. And that included school teachers, doctors, and all those people that was from South America and Central America. Not from the United States, because they were on the 120,000 relocation camp people. So the other day we received a note, see if we know anybody on the second exchange and so on. But I know two families. One was a doctor and the other one was a businessman, and they were on it. And in the Peruvian case, like my father and her [Elsa' ; s] father and so on, they had what they called a long-term visa because they had business there. And the short-term visa are the Bank of Tokyo branch in Lima. So those branch people from Japan had what they called a short-term visa. So they were on the first and second ships. So we were never included on the second exchange ones, but we were being in the first available prisoner exchange, if there was one. But we were told in November of ' ; 44, in October of ' ; 44, that Japan found out that the people in Crystal City included old people, women, and children for exchange with American soldiers. So they said, " ; We don' ; t trade soldier with the common people." ; So O' ; Rourke, the warden, told us, " ; You have to stay for the duration of the war." ; So we knew we were going to stay until the end of the war. Katherine Nagasawa: So over two years then, right? Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: More than two years. Eigo Kudo: Except in December of 1945, the first ship went out from Crystal City. We had to be taken to Seattle and then they put on the ship and go back to Japan. And almost all, except for the... We were close to about 1,997 Peruvian Japanese in Santa Fe, the single people, and Crystal City, the family people. And those two combined, 384 of us said, " ; No, we' ; re not going back to Japan." ; My father told me, he said, " ; We' ; re not going back, because I have a home in Yokohama, and Mother has home in Tokyo, and they probably is flattened with bombing. So how can we go back now, the five of us, and say, ' ; Feed us?' ; " ; So my father said, " ; We' ; re going to stay at least for three years, hopefully for five, and then we go back." ; So we had no choice, really. So I said " ; Okay," ; and my brother said, " ; Okay," ; and my sister said, " ; Okay." ; Then for us to be released, the U.S. said, " ; You guys are going to be released as illegal aliens and you will not receive one penny of welfare." ; And that was the reason they put us into illegal aliens. Illegal aliens cannot get any welfare. So anyway, they said, " ; You have to get a supporter in the U.S. to get out." ; Now, we don' ; t know anybody in the U.S. So most of us from Peru couldn' ; t go out except for three or four families. One had a sister in Denver, Tawara-san, and so they said, " ; Oh yeah, we' ; ll take care of the whole family and we' ; ll support them." ; So they were able to go. So now the rest were church involved and so on, and three or four or five family left. So we couldn' ; t go anywhere until a guy named Seabrook came from New Jersey and said, " ; If you come to work in our place, I' ; ll be your supporter." ; But for each worker, you could only have one dependent. So, a family with two children were automatically allowed to go to Seabrook if they both signed that they' ; ll work at Seabrook. So in our family, with my two parents saying, okay, that there were three of us, so they said, " ; Well, your daughter is 17 or 18, so she can work." ; So she said, " ; Yeah, I' ; ll work then, then we can get out of here." ; So that' ; s how we got out. Now, Elsa' ; s family had parent and five children, so they were not allowed to go to Seabrook. So, all the single people were allowed to go if they signed that they' ; ll work. So we left in August of 1946, took three days to go to Seabrook, and then we started working and our parents started working and everything worked out beautifully. And all the Peruvians were hard workers, so Seabrook said, " ; Oh, if they work like that, maybe even if they have more than two dependents, maybe it' ; s okay." ; So they were allowed to come. So they came in September. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I see. I see. Eigo Kudo: But being illegal alien, our salary or earnings, 30% were taken away by U.S., IRS, and we cannot file tax returns, so we don' ; t get any benefit or deductions. And it still is that way, our tax situation. If you don' ; t file tax return, they' ; ll take out 30%. But any other income, you get 30% off too. If you had interest income coming, then that' ; s 30% also goes to the government. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: So you faced so many challenges for years after the camps, because -- You faced many different financial challenges after the camps because- Eigo Kudo: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: ... of being quote, unquote, " ; illegal alien" ; . Eigo Kudo: Yeah. And we were told working in that kind of condition, where my father worked, and my brother, and my sister, and my mother worked, and they worked 12 hours a day. And then every two weeks, the shift changed. So our family, my mother told me, she said, " ; Eigo, you' ; re the first one home, so you' ; ll do all the cooking and all the purchasing." ; So my mother took me to the market and told me how to choose veggies and meat and all this. And that' ; s when I started cooking -- I was 13 -- for the family. And my sister would say to me, " ; Eigo, that was a good meal. Thank you." ; And you know, that feels good. And I always thought, " ; Boy..." ; That' ; s why when we got married and she would make something and it' ; s good, I tell her, " ; Oh, that was good!" ; Because it feels good to hear that to the person cooking. I learned that when I was starting to cook. But my first rice, I burned the daylights out of it. We didn' ; t have the electric gohan maker, so you had to know when to knock it down. And we were playing baseball, and every inning I' ; d come back. And we batted too long, and the whole thing was black. And it was hard for us to buy because that was a meal for five of us. And I burned the whole thing. That' ; s a whole day' ; s... So my brother came home because he had to go to extra study for the English. So he said, " ; Oh, Eigo, I' ; ll wash this, and you start on another pot because they' ; ll be home soon." ; So I did, and I told my mother, I said, " ; I burned that thing, and I' ; m sorry, I lost the whole day' ; s rice." ; She said, " ; That' ; s all right. Just don' ; t let it happen again." ; And I haven' ; t to this day. I never burned anything after that. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s a lot of responsibility though, for somebody who' ; s 13, to have to feed the whole family. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. But, you start to feel... First I started with onion and the cheapest meat was hotdog. So I used to cut it, and saute, and then put shoyu on it. And I make salad, cut the lettuce and so on. And each time, I wanted to do something better. Katherine Nagasawa: Continually improve? Eigo Kudo: Yeah, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I know you write about a lot of this in your testimony. You talk about your dad being a business owner in Peru. Eigo Kudo: A what? Katherine Nagasawa: You talk about a lot of this story in your testimony that you gave during the five minutes. And five minutes is such a short amount of time to have to tell this whole story. Can you tell me what it was like to have to write it out? What did you want to make sure you... What kind of message did you want to come across? Eigo Kudo: On the testimony? Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, because you had to tell this whole story in only five minutes, right? Eigo Kudo: I figure the three of us will have something and Professor Gardiner will cover all of the technical things, how much we lost and so on. So I didn' ; t have to go too much in detail. I just told them my father was a import-export businessman and he had a great life going until the war started and the government took over, and we lost everything. But that write up on that testimony has a copy of my speech. So you can take a look at it, I can' ; t remember in detail now, but- Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, I have it printed, if you want to look? Eigo Kudo: Oh, that' ; s good. Katherine Nagasawa: I was curious, did you guys practice delivering it in the days leading up to the actual hearing? Eigo Kudo: No. Katherine Nagasawa: You didn' ; t? Eigo Kudo: We didn' ; t practice or anything. I was pretty much involved with many things in Hawaii, and I was very active in the Chamber of Commerce, so I made a lot of speeches, and I made a lot of speeches in Japanese, too. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: How about Seiichi Higashide? Did you help him with his speech? Did you help him to write it? Eigo Kudo: No. He wanted to write his speech in Japanese, and I just translated it. And that translation is in that book, yeah. And Elsa told her story, you know what it looks like, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. What do you remember from the day of the hearings? What was the room like? Do you remember anything about what it was like to testify and deliver it to the Commission? Eigo Kudo: Well, I figure if I do a good job, at least I' ; ll get on the record. Whether that' ; s successful for us to get something, was something else. I just wanted to get in and say.. You see, when I was in Hawaii, I was asked to talk about our plight, the Peruvian plight. And so I did, and a American old man stood up. He said, " ; I don' ; t want you to tell lies. We Americans don' ; t do such things, so deny it!" ; I said, " ; I cannot deny it because I went through it. Whether you believe me or not, I don' ; t care. But my speech still goes as is." ; And I hope he reads that and I testify that, you know. But I don' ; t know who the old man was, anyway. Yeah. So whether they believe me or not, I don' ; t care. I wanted to get on the record, what gets printed by the government, that this is what I said. And I got on there. So I was satisfied with that. Yeah, if it goes through, that' ; s fine. But when Reagan told everybody about what we' ; re getting, the Japanese Americans were getting, so her father said to us, " ; Why don' ; t we write a letter telling about our plight, and why we' ; re not included?" ; So we wrote it in English and I explained to Papa Higashide in Japanese. I said, " ; This is what we' ; re going to say. Do you agree?" ; He says, " ; Oh yeah, a hundred percent." ; So we printed three letters the same. And then she signed one, and I signed one, and my father-in-law signed his, yeah. And we sent it to Ronald Reagan. And boy, he wrote us back right away, and said... What was his name? That guy that Reagan' ; s group know? Elsa Kudo: Oh, Robert Bratt? Eigo Kudo: Yeah. He told us that, " ; Mr. Bratt will be going to Hawaii and wants to see you, so please make sure you see him." ; So when he came, we called him, and said, " ; We' ; re the one that President Reagan said..." ; He said, " ; Oh yeah, oh yeah, Mr. Kudo, I really want to see you, and your wife, and your father-in-law." ; So, we three of us went to his office and we talked, and he asked me, " ; How can you prove that when you were given Green Card, that it started from March 21st, the day you came into New Orleans?" ; So I said, " ; Oh, my mother has a Green Card." ; So we took my mother' ; s Green Card and it had started in March 21st, 1944. I said, " ; That' ; s the day we arrived in New Orleans." ; And hers [Elsa' ; s] was in July 1, 1944. But we were already citizens, so we didn' ; t have any. So I said to Mr. Bratt, I said, " ; We have a record in the FBI, and that mentions all our plight and so on." ; So he said, " ; Thank you very much." ; So he contacted FBI and what he got was the same thing as Professor Gardiner had. Yeah. So that proved that we all got our Green Card at that time. It took us 10 years to get it. But I was already in the Army. And all of us got the $20,000 also, because of that. And many Peruvians got married to Japanese Americans, and they were told, " ; You won' ; t be illegal alien if you go across Detroit and come back from Canada and that' ; s the day that you' ; re going to get your Green Card from." ; So, many did. So they didn' ; t get the $20,000. So when the second group of Peruvians said, " ; What about us?" ; And then we also said, " ; What about those people that went to Japan in August, I mean December of ' ; 45?" ; So they said, " ; Well, they should be included also." ; So Elsa, and by that time we had met Grace Shimizu, so she and Elsa went to Japan, and went from city to city where Peruvians were to explain what to do to get the $5,000. Katherine Nagasawa: So you were the only ones to get the $20,000? Eigo Kudo: No, no, there were many of us. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Because you were able to prove your entry date? Eigo Kudo: Yeah, the day that we came to the U.S. was, the Green Card said that' ; s when you came, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: What year was this, that you figured this out? Was it 1988 or was it later than that? Eigo Kudo: Right, 1988. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, because because you wrote to Ronald Reagan. Eigo Kudo: Right, right. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, I see, okay. Do you know about how many Peruvians were able to get eligibility? Eigo Kudo: Oh, God. Elsa Kudo: I don' ; t know. Eigo Kudo: I don' ; t know either. Katherine Nagasawa: Would you say the majority, or only a small number? Eigo Kudo: Only small, because many people got married to Americans. Elsa Kudo: Oh, yeah. And they reentered, because that' ; s what they were told. That they could become citizens after. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Elsa Kudo: So it' ; s just one of those quirks, unfortunately. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. So I have no idea, because we know Peruvians in Chicago because we were there and we were invited to the wedding, so we know that. But like San Francisco or L.A., we don' ; t know who got married when to whom. Katherine Nagasawa: I see. Eigo Kudo: So, it' ; s very tough. Katherine Nagasawa: But the Civil Liberties Act did not include Japanese Latin Americans originally. Elsa Kudo: No. Eigo Kudo: Right. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember how you felt when that passed? Were you surprised that it didn' ; t include your community, or did you know that it was not going to be inclusive? Eigo Kudo: What was that question? Katherine Nagasawa: When the Civil Liberties Act passed, were you surprised that Japanese Latin Americans were not included in it? Eigo Kudo: Oh, that we are not included? Katherine Nagasawa: In the Civil Liberties Act, yeah. Eigo Kudo: No, because I knew they were -- because I talked to Senator Matsunaga after that thing came out in 1987 or ' ; 8, yeah, and Matsunaga told me, he says, " ; I never considered you at all from the beginning because we didn' ; t think we' ; ll have a chance if you were put in there." ; Katherine Nagasawa: So, even though you testified at the Chicago hearings, you didn' ; t expect to be included? Eigo Kudo: No, no. Katherine Nagasawa: You just wanted your story to tell. Eigo Kudo: Right. Katherine Nagasawa: I see, okay. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I see. Eigo Kudo: I was surprised that we got the $20,000. I still don' ; t understand that. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, I didn' ; t realize that either. Yeah. Elsa Kudo: A few of us got it because we proved that we were here in 1944. When I saw his mother, my mother-in-law, card she carried with her, that' ; s a Green Card, actually. And it says 1944. So I said, " ; Oh, we may have a chance." ; So that' ; s why we... Katherine Nagasawa: Oh, wow. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. We took Grandma to meet Mr. Bratt too. I said, " ; See?" ; Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s amazing. Elsa Kudo: " ; We should be included." ; Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; s amazing you kept the card too, you still had it. Elsa Kudo: Yeah, that she had it, chanto. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. Elsa Kudo: Daiji. Katherine Nagasawa: Amazing. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember what you did with your $20,000? Eigo Kudo: What? Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember what you did with your $20,000? Eigo Kudo: I put it in a savings account. That' ; s all I did. Elsa Kudo: Actually, didn' ; t we then use it for the publication of Adios to Tears? Katherine Nagasawa: Oh! Elsa Kudo: The first 2000 batch, we did it ourselves. And then... Eigo Kudo: That' ; s right, yeah. Elsa Kudo: And then after that, I went to University of Hawaii to see if they would be interested. And they said, " ; It' ; s so interesting, but we' ; re already no finance," ; right? And so then... What was that lady' ; s name? Eigo Kudo: Oh, the University of Washington, yeah. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Press, I went to them. I can' ; t remember her name. It starts with a P. You know she passed away since, but she said, " ; Yeah, send the book." ; Katherine Nagasawa: Oh. Elsa Kudo: Not the book. What is it called? Katherine Nagasawa: The manuscript? Elsa Kudo: Yeah, manuscript. And she said, " ; That is so interesting." ; So they got interested in it. So they did publish. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I' ; ll have to ask you about that during our interview, because that' ; s interesting. So that' ; s something tangible that came out of the $20,000, yeah. It helped. Elsa Kudo: Yes. Because we finished it ourselves. Eigo Kudo: Yeah, I forgot about that. Elsa Kudo: Yeah, we sold it. We were everything. The publisher... Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Elsa Kudo: The sellers, the senders. With each packet, we had to send it out for those interested. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, I see. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. She did a great job on that. Katherine Nagasawa: Incredible. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Incredible. I just want to do a time check. So we' ; ve talked for about an hour. I wanted to ask you about the Campaign for Justice and some- Eigo Kudo: I don' ; t know too much about... Katherine Nagasawa: Okay, would you know more about the campaign? Elsa Kudo: I know a little bit more, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay. Elsa Kudo: Because of Grace. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay. Can I ask you about Mochizuki? Do you remember that? Eigo Kudo: Yeah, I know her. Elsa Kudo: Carmen, yeah. Eigo Kudo: I knew her from camp. Katherine Nagasawa: And the lawsuit? Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay. Yeah, I was just wondering how you felt about the verdict for Mochizuki? Eigo Kudo: Well... Katherine Nagasawa: Did you take the $5,000? Eigo Kudo: Well, see, I wish they all got $20,000. And it' ; s a shame that we are such a small group that they say, " ; Oh, the $5,000 should be enough." ; And I think everybody just forget about us. And each time our... I' ; m one of the last surviving Peruvians, and I' ; m 89, and it' ; s... Politically, we don' ; t have much power. If we were a large group, you do have political power. So as they say in Japanese, " ; shikata ga nai." ; Cannot be helped. So I don' ; t feel bitter or anything. We' ; re not very powerful in politics at all. So no sense in being teed off at anybody because I' ; m going to be the loser. I serve in the U.S. Army, and I don' ; t feel bitter toward the U.S. I do against Roosevelt, but then he' ; s dead. So my father says, " ; Let' ; s forget it because he' ; s dead." ; And I agree. Because no sense in hanging this on until I die. What for? Yeah. So somebody asked me about that, and I just said, " ; I' ; ll be the loser if I keep blaming somebody." ; It' ; s time to forget it, after a while. Katherine Nagasawa: It seems like you don' ; t want to hold onto resentment- Eigo Kudo: Right. Katherine Nagasawa: ... into your old age. Eigo Kudo: No, no sense. Yeah. I' ; m getting too old for that. Katherine Nagasawa: True. I was wondering though, obviously there wasn' ; t full justice, right? The $5,000, $20,000, it doesn' ; t fully compensate what your family lost and what you endured. But if you could imagine what true redress would mean for you, what would that look like? What would true redress have looked like, if it had happened? Eigo Kudo: I don' ; t know how you can put dollars or anything on it. Even $20,000 is an arbitrary number. Yeah. Somewhere you got to say, " ; Oh, that should be it." ; I didn' ; t expect any. But I got $20,000, so I was that much ahead. But U.S. probably the only one that would do that, though. I don' ; t see any other country doing that. Did you know that the San Francisco Treaty was signed by Japan, and that included the Japanese nationals who lost assets in other countries, should be reimbursed by Japan? Yeah. And Japan went to Peru and wanted all the records of the Kudo family, and they said, " ; We have none." ; Yeah. So they came back and they wrote us, and said, " ; They have no record of you owning anything." ; They said they don' ; t have any records. Katherine Nagasawa: Of your dad' ; s business? Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Oh. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. So we got $100 from Japan. My father received his $100, and I was already working as a CPA. And I asked the tax department, " ; Do I include that for my father' ; s income?" ; And they all said, " ; Boy, this is a great challenge." ; So they researched, and they came to conclusion that it does not go in to the income. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, $100. Oh my goodness. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. But isn' ; t that something? Peru saying that they don' ; t have any record? Elsa Kudo: Of course not. Katherine Nagasawa: Of course they don' ; t, yeah. Oh my. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Elsa Kudo: Can my daughter... Can we have lunch at 12:00? Katherine Nagasawa: Definitely. What time is it right now? Elsa Kudo: It' ; s quarter to. So my daughter' ; s going to get something. Katherine Nagasawa: That' ; d be great. Elsa Kudo: So then we' ; ll... Katherine Nagasawa: We' ; ll have a lunch? Definitely, okay. Eigo Kudo: Oh, I' ; m sorry it took so long. Katherine Nagasawa: No, it' ; s okay! I' ; m so glad you remember so many details, it' ; s incredible. Your memory is so sharp. I was curious, do you know if your parents were alive for the 1988 Civil Liberties Act, or did they receive any of the settlements? Eigo Kudo: My father was already dead. He died in 1984. So my mother received the $20,000. Seiichi Higashide and Angelica, her [Elsa' ; s] mother and father, they received the $20,000, and all the brothers and sisters who were old enough to be in camp, they received. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I see. Eigo Kudo: Yeah, because we proved that on the FBI, that our Green Card show the day we arrived to New Orleans as a starting date, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: I see. Eigo Kudo: I still don' ; t understand that, but that' ; s something else. Katherine Nagasawa: I think, just a couple final questions. I was wondering, what do you think that the Japanese Latin American redress movement can teach other communities today that are fighting for their own redress or reparations? Are there any lessons? Eigo Kudo: Oh boy. We are very unique. I don' ; t think anytime else in the U.S. they brought Japanese from other countries to here for the exchange. Elsa Kudo: And I think- Eigo Kudo: So- Elsa Kudo: ... one of the big things is that none of us wanted to come here. We were forced to come. That' ; s the difference. Nobody wanted to come. We all had very comfortable lives. Eigo Kudo: See, it' ; s like Al Capone, you know? You get the old man and take him out, and we don' ; t know where he' ; s taken. So then they say to the family, " ; Do you want to go together?" ; And my mother said, " ; Yeah, we' ; re going to die together then." ; That' ; s why we decided. Her [Elsa' ; s] mother was pregnant, almost giving the... Elsa Kudo: Fifth child. Eigo Kudo: Yeah, fifth child. So she couldn' ; t get onto the March 1st boat when we went, because the baby was born on the 4th, right? Elsa Kudo: Yeah, my sister, little sister. Eigo Kudo: So they were on the next ship in late June, and then arrived in Crystal City on July 1. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. Eigo Kudo: So I don' ; t know if going back even to history, I don' ; t think some of the Japanese from Peru was ever taken a place where you brought from another country to the U.S. So I have never thought about it. But you think back, we' ; re so rare that... Yeah, it' ; s good to know in history that they did happen so that another person will not happen again. It' ; s very doubtful though. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: You' ; re saying almost as a warning, to not repeat the same thing using people and families as exchange, prisoner exchange. Eigo Kudo: Yeah. But I wish our numbers were larger, so that everybody... Elsa Kudo: That way... Eigo Kudo: Yeah, but it' ; s too bad. It' ; s less than 2000. Yeah. Elsa Kudo: 1800 something. Katherine Nagasawa: Well, I guess maybe when it comes to sharing the story, and making sure that it' ; s in the history books, what do you really want people to take away from the history of your family and what happened to Japanese Latin Americans? For your granddaughters and your grandkids, what do you want them to remember about your story? Eigo Kudo: Well, at least our grandchildren, we' ; re able to talk to them ourselves. So they' ; re pretty well aware of what happened to us. And especially Amy and Tami, they grew up with us, so they knew about our plight all the way through, since they were small. Tami has more time than Amy, so she is very active in this, to keep it going, yeah. I' ; m glad- Katherine Nagasawa: That the next- Eigo Kudo: ... that they are... Yeah. Because somewhere along the line, I guess I wanted our children to really realize how hard it was for us, yeah. Elsa Kudo: Our parents, especially. Papa Kudo and my dad. His father was already in his sixties. Eigo Kudo: Fifties, yeah. Elsa Kudo: Late fifties, ready to retire, and went... And he comes from a samurai family, so he never did any physical labor. And so he... And yet I admire them, because they' ; re so emotionally and mentally strong. At least both families were not religious, in a sense that some people get strength from their spiritual interests, but they were so strong, nevertheless. And I could only say about the Kudos and my dad, they were so resilient. And even though their lives changed overnight, even as a child, I didn' ; t hear them moaning and complaining. They just went on and did it, whatever needed to be done. And that part, I really admire them. Because you don' ; t know what life' ; s going to bring, but you take it as is, and you do your best. And if they preach anything, it was that. Just do your best, work hard, do your best, study hard, work hard. That was their thing. That' ; s it. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: They had to adapt any- Elsa Kudo: Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. Elsa Kudo: They adapted. And it was hard, especially Papa Kudo. He was a, what is it, ojyouchan jyanakute... Katherine Nagasawa: Okay. Eigo Kudo: Botchan. Elsa Kudo: Oh, botchan. Do you know, botchan? Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-mm. Elsa Kudo: Oh, someone who comes from a very wealthy family, and the servants do everything, but he does use his mental capacity, but he doesn' ; t learn any physical labor. And my dad, coming from a poor family in Hokkaido, he did a lot of physical labor. But when we saw him, when we went to camp, and they brought the men, the dads, and I noticed his hand because it used to be very smooth and nice, and it was all like tanned and- Katherine Nagasawa: Wrinkled. Elsa Kudo: ... wrinkled and hard. And my mother, I remember, oh, held his hand and cried. She says, " ; Oh, Papa' ; s beautiful hand is all yucky." ; That' ; s not the word. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. Elsa Kudo: Yeah. So those kind of things. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: It really probably took a physical toll on everybody. Elsa Kudo: Yes, exactly. They labored in the Panama Canal Zone. They did all those... What the prisoners do. You know, so, but I don' ; t think I ever heard them complain. They may between husband and wife, but not in front of us, ever. I never heard them. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: One thing I was wondering, and I just want to go back to the Chicago hearings. Did a lot of people in the audience know about the Japanese Latin American story? Eigo Kudo: No, no. Katherine Nagasawa: Do you remember people coming up to you afterwards then? Eigo Kudo: Yeah, yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Could you tell me a bit about what the response was by the Chicago community? Eigo Kudo: Yeah, yeah. Well, my sister married Thomas Okamoto, who' ; s a veteran from 442nd. And his family, the third person was Hannah, the sister. She came up and she said, " ; We didn' ; t realize that you people really suffered that much." ; I said, " ; Well, there' ; s no sense in advertising what you suffered, but we did. But you just never heard our complaint." ; But several others that I knew were there. They said, " ; Oh, we didn' ; t know that you went through such an ordeal," ; and so on. But, you know, it' ; s hard. You get to know Japanese Americans, and I was with a Japanese American group of boys. I went to Hyde Park High School and all of us were in Hyde Park. There were 18 of us and we had a pretty good baseball team, we had a pretty good basketball team. And they knew I was born in Peru and my Japanese was almost perfect. So everybody knew that, and our friends, but I never mentioned anything about our hardship and so on. So they never knew. Elsa Kudo: No. Katherine Nagasawa: So it wasn' ; t until the hearings in Chicago that the story was really told more fully? Eigo Kudo: Yeah, yeah. And several of my friends called me in Hawaii and said, " ; I heard you spoke at the hearing," ; and so on, and, " ; I hope you people receive whatever [Japanese] Americans get too." ; Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Gotcha. Eigo Kudo: I didn' ; t expect any, but Mr. Bratt brought that up, and that' ; s how we got it. Elsa Kudo: But at the hearing in Chicago, there were all the newspaper people and radio. Even the Spanish radio people came, so they put out the news. So I think more people read about it, but I' ; m sure it wasn' ; t front page. Eigo Kudo: I remember the next day, Sun-Times had, " ; Japanese from Peru were kidnapped." ; Elsa Kudo: But not on the front page, was it? Eigo Kudo: No, no, no. About the fifth or sixth. Elsa Kudo: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Eigo Kudo: But it was interesting. But see, the hearing, ours was only half an hour, but we got on the news. Elsa Kudo: That was good. Katherine Nagasawa: Was Chicago the only hearing that had Japanese Latin Americans testify? Eigo Kudo: No, New York had Murono Seiji. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay, one person? Eigo Kudo: Yeah. Elsa Kudo: Murono and then San Francisco? Eigo Kudo: No. Elsa Kudo: No, nobody. Eigo Kudo: Nobody. L.A., nobody, and Seattle, nobody. Yeah. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah. Elsa Kudo: Sou yo ne... Chicago. But it was already, all the slots were taken by Japanese Americans. So that' ; s why we had to go all the way to Chicago from Hawaii. Eigo Kudo: And that was a no first, until her brother talked to- Elsa Kudo: My brother' ; s friend was kind of in charge. I forget her name. I had her friend name. She came to Hawaii, so we dined together. Very nice lady. I can' ; t think of her name right now. Yeah, so she helped us. Katherine Nagasawa: Chiye Tomihiro? Elsa Kudo: Yes. That' ; s it, thank you. Yes. Katherine Nagasawa: Because she organized the list of witnesses. Elsa Kudo: Oh, okay. Yeah, she was so nice, and so willing to try to help us, so she gave us a slot. Eigo Kudo: Boy, when Carlos told us about the 15 minutes for three people, I thought, " ; Wow, at least we made it." ; Elsa Kudo: Yeah, because he flew in that morning. He had overtime work. Katherine Nagasawa: Mm-hmm. Wow. Eigo Kudo: But I tell you, when you' ; re young, you do all kinds of things that' ; s wild to... Elsa Kudo: If you would do it now, you' ; d be-- Katherine Nagasawa: You had the energy back then. Elsa Kudo: Yeah! Eigo Kudo: Now I probably won' ; t be able to do it at all. Elsa Kudo: No. Katherine Nagasawa: Good that they captured it while you were still young. Elsa Kudo: Yes, still young. Katherine Nagasawa: I think these were the full list of questions. Do you have any final thoughts or reflections before we close the video? Eigo Kudo: No. Katherine Nagasawa: You good? Eigo Kudo: That' ; s it. Katherine Nagasawa: Okay. Thank you so much for your- Eigo Kudo: Oh, you' ; re very welcome. I hope you' ; re successful. Katherine Nagasawa: Thank you. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Footage may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=KudoEigo20221126.xml KudoEigo20221126.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/2 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/browse?tags=Series%3A+Redress
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<a href="https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/show/2730" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oral History Interview: Kudo, Elsa (11/26/2022)</a>
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Title
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Kudo, Eigo (11/26/2022)
Description
An account of the resource
Eigo Kudo, a Peruvian of Japanese descent, describes his family's experience of expulsion from Peru and incarceration at Crystal City. He recalls with remarkable clarity the details of the journey by ship from Peru, through the Panama Canal, to the United States; the emotions he experienced as a child being separated from first his father, and then his mother; the conditions at Crystal City; and his family's experience working at Seabrook Farms in New Jersey. He describes the difficulties Peruvian Japanese and Japanese Latin Americans faced during and after incarceration and the challenges they faced when seeking to be included in Japanese Americans' Redress efforts. He shares his direct experience testifying at the Chicago CWRIC hearings and subsequent efforts by his family to secure redress and reparations for Japanese Latin Americans, including the publication of his father-in-law Seiichi Higashide's memoir, "Adios to Tears."
Date
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2022-11-26
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video
FSF JACS
Series: Redress
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
Subject
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Japanese Americans--History.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the U.S. Department of the
Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations
expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended, the U.S. Department of the Interior
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write to:
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Creator
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Doi, Mary
Interviewee
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Doi, Lisa
OHMS Object
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Interview Keyword
Yonsei
Japanese American Citizens League
JACL Chicago chapter
HR40
National Nikkei Reparations Coalition
Tsuru for Solidarity
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
CWRIC hearings
Repair
Healing
Intergenerational trauma
Forced assimilation
9/11
Kansha Project
Nikkei Uprising
Mixed-race
Multiracial
OHMS Object Text
5.4 12/13/2022 Doi, Lisa (12/13/2022) 1:03:20 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection REDR Redress Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded, transcribed, and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Yonsei Japanese American Citizens League JACL Chicago chapter HR40 National Nikkei Reparations Coalition Tsuru for Solidarity Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians CWRIC hearings Repair Healing Intergenerational trauma Forced assimilation 9/11 Kansha Project Nikkei Uprising Mixed-race Multiracial Doi, Lisa Doi, Mary video 1:|11(1)|24(2)|36(7)|46(3)|61(12)|72(11)|84(8)|100(5)|111(9)|126(9)|138(9)|152(12)|167(1)|180(7)|192(12)|210(15)|221(4)|230(8)|241(1)|254(1)|265(6)|275(2)|287(1)|297(13)|309(4)|322(7)|334(5)|346(7)|357(2)|371(8)|382(4)|392(10)|405(8)|416(7)|427(9)|437(6)|448(16)|458(5)|469(1)|479(13)|489(6)|500(13)|510(15)|521(5)|530(12)|545(7)|556(5)|569(5)|579(1)|591(7)|603(3)|617(1)|627(9)|639(2)|650(10)|661(8)|671(7)|682(6)|695(4)|707(10)|724(10)|736(5) 0 https://vimeo.com/823381241 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/823381241?h=648ac02650" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; Lisa Doi, a Yonsei born and raised in Chicago, discusses the development of the Japanese American redress movement and the ongoing process of intergenerational healing and repair in the Japanese American community. She reflects on the importance of testifying, sharing stories, listening, participating in challenging conversations, and acts of protest as part of the reparative process. She discusses the efforts of organizations like Tsuru for Solidarity and the National Nikkei Reparations Coalition in support of Black reparations and HR 40 and shares her view of programs like the Kansha Project, Japanese American Confinement Sites grants, and Nikkei Uprising group as ongoing legacies of the redress movement. Mary Doi: Okay. Well, thank you for signing the release form. Now we' ; ll begin the interview process. Today is December 13th, 2022. This oral history is being recorded at the JACL Chicago office, located at 5415 North Clark Street in Chicago. The interviewer is Mary Doi, the interviewee is Lisa Doi, her daughter. 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. You can decline to answer any question without giving a reason. You can take breaks whenever you need them, and you can end the interview at any point. So is that all clear what your rights are? Okay. Please make sure your phone is silenced, and let' ; s begin. Why don' ; t you state your name and just give me a brief bio about what you do? Lisa Doi: Sure. My name is Lisa Doi, and I' ; m the president of the Chicago Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League. I also am one of the staff organizers at Tsuru for Solidarity and am on the curatorial team at the Japanese American National Museum and I' ; m also a doctoral candidate in American Studies at Indiana University. And my research there looks at Japanese American pilgrimages and memorial practices more broadly. Mary Doi: Yeah, so thank you, Lisa. I know that you wear many hats and have a broad exposure to topics in Japanese American history, which is great. This project focuses on the Japanese American redress movement from roughly the seventies to the 1990s, and its relevance to contemporary concerns. Please give a short background, short overview of the JA, Japanese American redress movement, including its beginning, the multiple strategies and how it' ; s relevant to today. Lisa Doi: Sure. I would say that, I think that, I would place the start of the redress movement into a broader pattern of changes around Japanese American understandings of the wartime incarceration. So I think that there were a few publications that came out right after the end of the war within the Japanese American community, outside the community. That was Citizen 13660, No-No Boy, Americans Betrayed. But then there was about a 20-year silence where there wasn' ; t a whole lot of new research or writing about the incarceration broadly. And then I think a bunch of things happened in the mid to late sixties, one of which was the very early stages of the redress movement. So I would say there was the first pilgrimage to Manzanar in 1969. There were the first Day of Remembrance programs in 1970 and ' ; 71, and then there were also new books, so Years of Infamy by Michi Weglyn, that came out around that time that just tried to sort of show the way the different Japanese American individuals, organizations, collectives were coming back to understand this history. I think one of the ways that some people on early pilgrimages talked about them, it was largely Sansei who were not incarcerated, who were leading the pilgrimage efforts. And they might say they were looking for camp. And I think that' ; s both literal, actually, at that point, these sites were not national historic markers. So it literally meant going into the desert to figure out where Manzanar was, but also looking for camp in this more metaphorical way, of trying to understand what had happened to their parents and trying to make meaning of that. And so I think that in that milieu, the redress movement was one of those things that started to emerge. And I would place its origins with efforts from some people within the Japanese American Citizens League to start a national campaign for redress. So I think it was first introduced at the 1970 JACL Convention as a resolution. And I' ; m totally blanking on the name of the guy who introduced it, but he ended up passing away pretty within a decade, he didn' ; t make it to the commission hearings, but his sister testified in Chicago. Mary Doi: Is that Edison Uno? Lisa Doi: Yes, Edison Uno. So Edison Uno was really the early champion within the Japanese American Citizens League around this. And then from that first resolution in 1970, JACL nationally conducted a survey of members to try to understand where the community was on the issue. But then I think it was also a moment where... We were in a unique moment where there were four Japanese Americans in Congress, well five, including S.I. Hayakawa, who was a Japanese Canadian. There were four helpful Japanese Americans in Congress who could think through a legislative strategy for federal redress. And they pushed forward this commission process. And I' ; ll actually also say that I think one of the things that was important that happened before 1981, was a more state and local level redress efforts. So there was first apologies at the state and city level on the West Coast. So the City of Los Angeles apologized for firing all Japanese American workers at the start of the war, or state level apology, or state level actions, that I think helped to set the groundwork for this bigger federal effort. And then I think the sort of traditional way you might frame it is that there were three major efforts within the Japanese American community. So JACL took a legislative strategy, NCJAR, which was based out of Chicago, because William Hohri was here, who took a more judicial strategy of a lawsuit. Mary Doi: What is NCJAR? Is it the National Committee on Japanese American Redress? Is that NCJAR? Lisa Doi: Yes. Thanks. And so they took a strategy of filing a lawsuit, and then the third group was really a California based group, Nikkei for Civil... Well, that' ; s what they' ; re now, NCRR. At the time- Mary Doi: I believe that was the National Coalition of Redress and Reparations. Lisa Doi: Redress and Reparations. Mary Doi: Yeah. Lisa Doi: Yeah. Now they' ; re Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress. I think one of the things that, from a Midwestern perspective, I' ; ve always been curious. I think NCRR talks about themselves as the most grassroots organization, and I' ; ve been curious about what that means. And I had a really interesting conversation with Miya Iwatake recently about it, and she was involved in NCRR in the eighties, and their legislative visits. So both NCRR and JACL coordinated legislative visits with members of Congress. And I think that NCRR was very grassroots within a specific geography. And so I think that it' ; s interesting to hear her frame their grassroots efforts within a very California-based legislative approach, when I think JACL would say that their efforts were really to try to reach as many... Their strength was that they had Japanese American Citizens League chapters and members all across the country. And while NCRR really mobilized the grassroots of the community in California, JACL was able to find one person who lived in a particular congressional district in Florida who could get a meeting with their congressman, who could get that one vote, and who could flip that person. So it wasn' ; t as maybe broad based, but it was much more strategic, I think, in the picking of very specific places where there is not a large Japanese American community. I think this is something that JACL still says today, is how many members of Congress represent the 15 states of the Midwest District Council versus how many members of Congress represent California. We' ; ve got 30 senators in those 15 states. You' ; ve got two senators for the state of California. And so what does it mean legislatively when you' ; re trying to pass a bill to have just a few people, but they' ; re spread out, and they can really reach a wide number of members of Congress? So maybe I' ; ve digressed from your original question, but... Mary Doi: No, I think that' ; s fine. Can you tell me how the JACL decided to go the legislative route? You mentioned the five people in Congress. Was there any person that had this aha moment, that if we do it X way, this is going to happen, if we do it Y way, this is going to happen? Lisa Doi: Yeah, I think that' ; s a great question. I was not alive during the redress movement, so I don' ; t know. But from reading some of the writings of Japanese American Citizens League leaders, I think the directive for the commission study route really came from the members of Congress, and maybe particularly Senator Inouye. And I don' ; t think there was necessarily community support initially because I think members of the Japanese American community largely felt that they knew what happened to them. And I think there was an effort to convince Japanese Americans, and I think this happened in Chicago really strategically, that it was part of this process was also to educate the public. And so there was, I think, a very coordinated effort in Chicago and in Los Angeles, which are just the two that I am aware of, to really reach out to media. And so as the commission hearings were happening, to make sure they were being covered in the press, and to make sure that the nightly news in Chicago was running stories on the redress hearings that were happening as they were happening. We have a clipping from the Chicago Sun-Times in an article that came out the same week of the hearings, talking about the hearings. So I think there was this really strategic media outreach strategy as well. Mary Doi: I' ; ve heard that some of the early efforts were to go directly for individual payments. How does that fit into the narrative of the redress movement? Lisa Doi: Yeah, well, I think the commission strategy put the commission as the first step but not the last step. And so then the commission would come forward with a recommendation. I think there was some strategic thought that the commission would be seen as this more neutral or unbiased assembly of people who could make a recommendation. I think the individual payments question, I think, was always one that was controversial, not in a necessarily negative way, but just that there was a wide diversity of feeling. There were people who felt that money was the only thing, it wouldn' ; t be serious. It wouldn' ; t be a serious apology without money behind it. And there were other people who I think felt that no amount of money could compensate them for what they lost. And so it was demeaning or belittling of their experience to have to put a dollar amount to it. And then I think there were people in between, or people who just didn' ; t have strong opinions. So I think there were a lot of perspectives on the monetary payments. Mary Doi: You mentioned that the JACL approach was a legislative approach. Why do you think a legislative approach was taken, as opposed to direct appropriation of an amount of money? Lisa Doi: I think that there was some consensus that an apology was essential. And so I think having both Congress and the president, through a bill, acknowledge that this deserved federal recognition. I think that is, to me, the overall strategy of both JACL and NCRR, of getting a legislative apology, is to say that these multiple branches of government have acknowledged the wrong that was done. Mary Doi: And you also mentioned Senator Inouye. Did he play an especially important role in going the commission route? Did he bring any kind of knowledge to the table, really, are you forcefully for that approach? Lisa Doi: Yeah, I think that' ; s beyond my knowledge, but I do think in analyses, particularly Mitch Maki' ; s sort of political science retrospective analysis of how this happened, he points to the fact that there were these four members of Congress who were really influential in speaking to their experiences, because two of them were incarcerated themselves. And I think also the significance of having veterans be really behind it, both a veteran like Senator Inouye, but also every day Japanese American veterans who could talk to members of Congress, many of whom, at that time, were also World War II veterans, was really influential. So I don' ; t know, I don' ; t think I can speak much to if Senator Inouye had particular influence, but I think the four, two senators and two congressmen were very significant. Mary Doi: Well, what I' ; ve read is that one thing that Senator Inouye brought to the table was a really strong sense of how something becomes a bill and then how the bill becomes the law. And it seems like, to me, that was part of the strategy, the commission strategy that Dan Inouye lays out. And so it may have taken longer than appropriations, direct appropriations, but I think ultimately it was a much surer bet because he did say the general public has to know about this. It' ; s our community secret. But why would a senator advocate for redress and reparations for Japanese Americans without knowing what he can tell his or her constituents? Does that sound about right to you? Lisa Doi: Sure. Mary Doi: Okay. Lisa Doi: Sorry, I don' ; t really know much more about Senator Inouye, but that seems very reasonable. Mary Doi: Moving to today. How has the Japanese American Redress Movement served as a model for other communities fighting for redress and reparations? And then, why do you think it' ; s important for Japanese Americans to support current reparations movements in other communities? Lisa Doi: Yeah, I think that one of the things that' ; s hard, in terms of the question of a model, is that I think it' ; s a very particular set of circumstances that shaped the success of the Japanese American redress movement. And I think there are large ways in which those successes are not replicable. So I mentioned having these four Congress people. I also think that it was a time in which Japanese Americans who were incarcerated were still alive and who could still talk about their own experiences. But I would also say, I think one of the pieces, one of the things I' ; ve heard about this legislation is, for example, in terms of the individual payments, you had to be alive when the bill was signed to be eligible for payment. And I think one of the pieces that' ; s important about that is it preempted the possibility of a legislative precedent for communities where there are older histories of racial violence, where there are not living people who could still directly petition for individual compensation in the same way. So I think when you think about contemporary movements, like around H.R. 40, which is a piece of legislation that' ; s been introduced every year since 1988 for a similar commission study around the legacy of slavery in the United States. One of the things that H.R. 442 did is preempt the possibility of being used to support that work because there are not people who were enslaved who are still alive today. So I think that there are many things to learn, but I think that there are also ways in which the Japanese American experience is an imperfect model. And I think what' ; s more important is that Japanese Americans maybe think in the spirit of solidarity or approach humbly the idea that there is something to be learned from Japanese American history for others. I think there' ; s much to be learned for ourselves, but I' ; m cautious of the idea that it serves as a model for other communities. In terms of why, why should Japanese Americans support other communities efforts at reparations? I think there, to me, that becomes this bigger question of what is the legacy of the World War II incarceration experience more broadly? And how do we come to understand that legacy, especially 75 years later? And in a way that can encompass redress as part of this longer history. And there, I think to me, that' ; s a legacy of repair, and a legacy that asks both... It may ask, how does the federal government, what does the role of the federal government play in a process of repair? But more importantly, it considers how do communities like the Japanese American community begin an internal process of repair and an internal process of healing? And I think that that' ; s a long process. We' ; re sitting here 75 years later. We know it' ; s a long process. And that to me is sort of why. Why would we want to be part of this similar process for other communities? Mary Doi: You mentioned that you' ; re also a community organizer with Tsuru for Solidarity. Can you tell me whether Tsuru for Solidarity is working on reparations fronts for other groups, and what else it' ; s done to demonstrate solidarity? Lisa Doi: Yeah, so Tsuru for Solidarity was started in 2019, largely as an organization that was opposed to immigration detention facilities and still is. And so I think as Tsuru has grown over the years, we' ; ve had three primary focuses around child and family detention, broader issues of detention, incarceration and policing, and then redress and reparations. And I think one of the strategies, in terms of how do we approach each of these three lines of work, is around this question of healing. And so I think that something like protest, Tsuru often does direct actions at detention sites. We would say protest itself is an act of healing. And so what does it mean? What does solidarity mean to us? It means that we' ; re not doing this just because we oppose this detention site. That is one of the reasons, but also because we know that this kind of act of protest is also an act of intra-community healing and inter-community healing. So it helps to heal intergenerational trauma within the Japanese American community, and it helps to bring communities of color together within the U.S. context to work collaboratively towards a really just future. Particular to work around redress, Tsuru, probably since 2021, has been working on a range of issues around reparations, especially through support of H.R. 40, but also in other ways. So initially we were asked to solicit letters of support from the Japanese American community, largely from staff at the ACLU, for H.R. 40, as it moved to a House Judiciary Committee hearing in the summer of 2021. So I mentioned earlier that H.R. 40 has been introduced every year since 1989. In 2021, it made it farther in the house than ever before. So it made it to a committee hearing, which is the first or second step, I guess, in the legislative process. And we were able to solicit over 300 letters of support for H.R. 40. And these testimonies came from Japanese Americans all across the country, and were really moving expressions of support for this piece of legislation, and really moving testimonies to the significance of the redress movement on individual Japanese Americans. And I think in this age of internet petitions, 300 names maybe doesn' ; t sound like a lot, but this wasn' ; t just a sign-on letter, this was something where people really had to sit down and were asked to share personally what this piece of legislation meant to them. And we went for that strategy because we wanted people to be able -- much like the commission itself, the commission hearings themselves, which brought hundreds of Japanese American testimony from all across the country, we wanted to give people the opportunity to say in their own words the significance of this legislation and why they support it. So that was in 2021. In 2022, earlier this year, we started a new coalition called the National Nikkei Reparations Coalition, which tries to bring together a range of Japanese American communities in collective support for Black-led movements for reparations. So we' ; ve done a series of educational programming. We actually have one tonight. So that' ; s been our effort. We' ; re also about to send a letter to the White House. So at this exact moment in terms of a legislative strategy around H.R. 40. In the legislative calendar, a bill has two years or a full session of Congress, which is a two-year session, to move from a committee hearing to a full house vote. So the time for H.R. 40 to move out of committee and to a full vote on the floor is about to come up. It' ; s going to come up at the end of the year. And so we don' ; t think it' ; s going to happen. And even if it did pass the house, it doesn' ; t seem, at this moment, that it' ; s going to pass the Senate. So there' ; s likely not going to be legislative movement on H.R. 40 probably in the foreseeable future, but there is still an option to have, instead of a congressional committee, a presidential committee. So there is the option for an executive order that could advance this. And so we are, as the National Nikkei Reparations Coalition, going to send a letter to President Biden with the support of dozens of Japanese American organizations to say that we support this shift in strategy. Well, that' ; s not what the letter' ; s going to say. The letter' ; s going to say that we urge President Biden to pass this executive order, to sign this executive order, because it' ; s something we think he should do, and it' ; s something that' ; s very much within his executive power to do. So that' ; s the state of H.R. 40 specifically at the moment. Mary Doi: I have two questions prompted by what you said. You used the term intergenerational trauma. Can you explain that a little more? Lisa Doi: Sure. Intergenerational trauma, I think, was initially sort of the theorized by psychologists who study the impact of the Holocaust on second, third, fourth generation children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren of survivors. So people who did not experience the traumatic event themselves, but who are the children of those who survived. And it has expanded as a psychological theory beyond just that community of Holocaust survivors into a more broadly understood concept to speak to that experience, the idea that the traumatic consequences can continue beyond just the generation of people who were alive during the time. So in the Japanese American community, I think that the scholars who have studied this, who have used that language, I think are Donna Nagata at the University of Michigan, and Satsuki Ina, who' ; s one of the co-founders of Tsuru for Solidarity. So for example, Donna Nagata has done a multi-generational study of intergenerational trauma. So she did a Sansei study looking at the experiences among Sansei and she has just finished a study looking at the experiences of Yonsei, or fourth generation Japanese Americans to understand how they understand their experiences of intergenerational trauma. Mary Doi: My second question is, you mentioned that in some ways the letter writing was a kind of a hearing, and when we' ; ve talked to people about attending the commission hearings, they can talk about what it felt like to actually be in the room. So is that something that happened to you as you collected the letters? And what did you feel? Lisa Doi: Yeah, I guess one of the academic questions I think about often is this question of interiority, that there are very few forms or historical records that ask you to divulge how you feel about something. Often things are very factual. The U.S. government really likes to tabulate data. So when you look at the archival record of Japanese American incarceration history, you have a lot of, there' ; s a lot of statistical analysis. I recently came across this report that enumerates all kinds of things. The purpose of the report was to account for every single person who entered and every single person who exited a War Relocation Authority camp, and the means of entry and exit. But it also included all kinds of weird statistics. But that doesn' ; t capture how people felt. And so I think in listening to, I' ; ve listened to the commission hearings in Chicago, and in listening to those testimonies, yes, a lot of them are very factual, this happened, then this happened, then this happened. But I think more than many places, it also includes either direct statements, like, " ; This is how I felt about that," ; or such evocative statements, that you get a sense of feeling. And so I think similarly with the letters for H.R. 40, there was, again, a lot of people who said, this happened, then this happened, then this happened, but also the chance for people to say, and this is how it feels at this distance, at this temporal remove, that I think is not maybe how you generally get to encounter history. And I think that that' ; s one of the things that' ; s really powerful about testimony. And I think that' ; s one of the things that' ; s really powerful about the commission process, or that I' ; ve heard is really powerful about the commission process, is it gave everyday people the chance to express their feelings. And I think that whether that' ; s through a study commission, through H.R. 40, or just something that people do for each other, I think that kind of story sharing or that kind of listening or that kind of testimonial practice is something that I think was really essential to the Japanese American community, that I think can happen without the federal government being the facilitator, when you think about Black-led movements for reparations today, Mary Doi: You brought up this, the federal government. Was the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 the repair that we needed? Lisa Doi: I think the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was really essential in the process, but it was not the ending of the process. So I think when I talk about the Redress Movement, I am very careful not to say it ended, the movement did not end in 1988. The Civil Liberties Act was passed then, but there was so much more that continued to happen, but I think it' ; s very hard to understand the counterfactual in history, what would have happened if that bill did not pass? But I think regardless, there has been a lot of healing work that has happened at a community level subsequently. So I think maybe the most tangible example, and this is fairly tied to the bill, was, I was talking to, a few years ago, someone who worked at J-Sei, which is a Japanese American community center in the Bay Area that mostly works with older adults. And that' ; s also what they did in the late eighties and early nineties. And so as people got their checks in the mail, it provoked this emotional response that maybe was unanticipated. And so J-Sei, and I think I' ; ve heard similar things at Heiwa Terrace here in Chicago, started to have sort of group therapy sessions, essentially, to help Issei and older Nisei who were receiving these checks, process the emotional response they were having to these checks. And so I think that that' ; s just an example of what it meant beyond just the federal response. That was triggered by the federal response, but it then provoked this community-based response. And I think especially the more years after 1988 we get, the more that the response has become about what we as a community can do for each other, for ourselves. Although I do think it' ; s important to, I see the JACS grant, the Japanese American Confinement Sites grant, which this oral history is being funded through, as a very direct legacy of the redress movement and legislation. So it started out as the Civil Liberties Public Education trust fund, but once that appropriation expired, Japanese Americans have been able to lobby for continued appropriations, moved to the National Park Service and became a pool of grant money to do projects like this. And I think that that' ; s really also an essential way of understanding the legacy of the Redress Movement. Mary Doi: So maybe going back to how you felt. Were there, in two areas, any testimony at the Chicago hearings that stand out for you? And equally, when you read the letters, are there things that stood out? Lisa Doi: Yeah, I love this one testimony from the Chicago hearings, from Shizu Sue Lofton, where she has so many lines that I think are just deeply evocative of how she was feeling. So early on in her testimony, she describes herself and her husband, and also I' ; ll say, she and her husband got divorced, the husband she was married to when she was incarcerated, they got divorced after coming to Chicago. And she talks about how it was really the emotional burden of their experience. They couldn' ; t work through that together, and that really led to their divorce. But she describes them pre-war as simple, non-political Nisei who dreamed American dreams then, and this idea of what it meant to her to dream American dreams then and to put this temporal break between who she is now and who she was then. And then I think the second thing she talks at length about her experience through the eyes of her daughter, who was about two years old at the time, they were removed from their home. She sets up this whole story about her daughter and how concerned she was that her daughter would be taken away and what would happen to her daughter and wanting her daughter, whoever took her daughter to treat her kindly. And so she talked about making sure she was potty-trained and making sure she could spend time alone so that she wouldn' ; t be a burden to whoever took her. And then she talks about how they prepared for this journey by train from L.A. to Manzanar, and they get to Manzanar. She says on the train ride, she' ; s been able to keep her daughter happy and engaged and playing games through the whole train ride. But by the time they got to Manzanar, it was late and her daughter was tired, and her daughter looked at the barracks where they were going to sleep and said, " ; Let' ; s go home now, Mommy." ; And it was just such this... I could so empathize with her and her emotional experience, and what it means to center it through this daughter and her daughter' ; s experience. So I think that' ; s definitely the testimony that stands out the most to me in Chicago. I think in terms of the hearing the testimonies from last year, I think your testimony stands out where you write about your mom, who' ; s my grandmother, and how she was not somebody who testified during the 1981 commission hearings, but who was someone who you always felt was very angry. I think you used the phrase, " ; Pissed as hell," ; about what had happened to her, and how this anger was not necessarily something that is publicly acknowledged often within the Japanese American community, but that you, I think, wanted to express that anger on her behalf in some kind of recognizable way. And I think, again, in this direct articulation of an emotional response to say, " ; My mom was really angry about what happened to her," ; and to be able to put that forward as legitimate emotional response. To me, I think that' ; s what I hope testimony can do in terms of repair and the potential for repair. Mary Doi: Can you expand a little bit about what repair looks like, and how it' ; s being managed in our community now? Lisa Doi: Yeah, that' ; s a great question, in terms of what does repair look like in our community. And I' ; m not sure that I can fully answer it, but I think, for example, one thing that comes up often in Tsuru for Solidarity is this question of how do we have challenging conversations with each other? And in particular within Tsuru, sometimes it' ; s around maybe different generational approaches to ideas or to topics or to questions, and how do we have hard conversations in a way that centers staying in community with each other? And an example of this that I think is both at a Tsuru level, but then also I' ; ve seen happen locally, is this question around abolition, which is I think a very hot button issue today. But I think it ultimately asks about questions of safety, and how do we understand what safety means in a way that doesn' ; t rely on policing and prisons in a way that is an assumed common sense response. And so what does it mean to have a challenging conversation around abolition? I think that there are some folks in Chicago, especially JJ Ueunten and Anne Watanabe, who' ; ve really pushed forward that conversation, where, I guess just to get to of local example. A few years ago there was an elderly Japanese American woman in Chicago named Grace Watanabe who had had money taken from her by staff members at her nursing home, and she didn' ; t have any family, and she also had dementia. And so there were a lot of questions within the Japanese American community about what we could do to support her. And I think a lot of people' ; s initial response was really to focus on prosecuting the woman who took the money. And I think Anne and JJ, and some other folks, really facilitated a small conversation of -- intergenerational in the sense that it was a group of Yonsei women or women and non-binary people -- and a group of Sansei women who were having this small dinner conversation around, is this something that as a community we could talk about in terms of other responses to Grace Watanabe' ; s situation? Other responses, meaning responses that don' ; t rely on prosecuting the woman who took the money. And I think it was it not necessarily successful, it was successful that people were willing to do it, but it wasn' ; t necessarily successful in the sense that I don' ; t think we... there was not consensus, we were not able to come to consensus. But I think even just the idea that you would be willing to have that conversation, to me, is an example of a challenging conversation, because I think that there' ; s a lot of people who would' ; ve been afraid, myself included, to raise that question to older folks in the community because I would have been either embarrassed of what might happen or I think I would' ; ve been worried that I would have been seen as a disappointment to older folks, that somehow I wasn' ; t doing what I was supposed to do. I was causing too much of a ruckus that I wasn' ; t behaving the right way. And so I think that ultimately, this is a long-winded story, but I think one of the things that I' ; ve come to understand is really significant in terms of repair, is the idea that in spite of differences, or in the face of these challenging conversations, what we are ultimately agreeing to is ultimately agreeing to stay together in community. That to me is where repair can happen, is that when you no longer are afraid that starting those challenging conversations means losing people you love. And that, to me, is what I think is reparative and transformational. And I think for so many Japanese Americans of my generation, again, because it' ; s the thing that I best understand, there is this really, often an alienation from Japanese American identity. And again, tying that to my academic work on Japanese American resettlement. So how Japanese Americans came to Chicago, and not just Chicago, but cities across the country, including on the West Coast. There was this very concerted effort of forced assimilation. And so, to me, to say that what we' ; re trying to do is stay in community with each other is really unlearning the consequences of forced assimilation. And that' ; s, again, why I think it something that may seem very trivial in terms of having this dinner conversation about Grace Watanabe' ; s case, why I can see that as a reparative conversation, because it was trying to repair this idea that we need to keep our heads down and not rock the boat and just go along with what we' ; re supposed to do. And that we can have hard conversations in community, and that we can continue to prioritize, continuing to keep each other within that community. I think that it flies in the face of a lot of unsaid tendencies within the Japanese American community. Mary Doi: So it seems clear that for you, repair is an ongoing process. To me in a way, it' ; s like grief, that it' ; s an ongoing process that' ; s going to rear its ugly head when you maybe least expect it. And it' ; s not a straight line process, straight line to being no longer in grief. What are some of your final thoughts from this conversation? Lisa Doi: Yeah, I think one of the things, one of the ideas that I' ; m kicking around in my academic work is this idea of " ; irei" ; which I think to me comes from someone who studies Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Lisa Yoneyama. But it' ; s an idea... So it means " ; soul consoling." ; But I think it' ; s an idea that I see resonances of within Japanese American incarceration because " ; ireito" ; is what Issei clergy men named the monuments at Manzanar and Rohwer and it' ; s like " ; soul consoling tower." ; So there' ; s this idea of these monuments that care for the souls of the dead. And so I think about remembrance as a practice of caring for the souls of the dead. So when I think about what is the legacy of Japanese American incarceration history or the Redress Movement, I' ; m also thinking about how do we care for the souls of those who died, who were parts of these movements. And I think taking that memory into something actionable within our community or across communities, to me, is that soul consoling work, the work of healing, the work of repair. And then I think also about, there' ; s a professor at USC who' ; s also a Buddhist minister, named Duncan Williams, who often talks about healing America' ; s racial karma. And this idea that Japanese American incarceration history fits into this much broader history of racial violence, of incarceration within the United States. And so what does it mean to see that bigger history of racial violence, and to place Japanese American incarceration history into this broader conversation, and to be part of that much bigger project of racial repair and racial healing? I think it requires having a good intra-community foundation. But the ultimate form is in this inter-community process. So I think those are some things that I think about in my academic and organizer capacities. Katherine Nagasawa: Mary, do you mind if I just chime in real quick? Mary Doi: Right. Katherine Nagasawa: I just wanted to respond to some of those ideas, Lisa, because it reminds me of an interview I did with Kathy Biala yesterday. She used to be Kathy Nakamoto, and she helped prepare witnesses. She was the psychiatric nurse that helped with the practice workshops, helping with the drafting of the testimonies and whatnot. And there' ; s a couple things that you mentioned that remind me of what she was saying. So when you were talking about, to stay in community with each other is really unlearning the consequences of forced assimilation. And the idea that we' ; re not going to just stay silent or keep our heads down, we' ; re building that resiliency or ability to have these challenging conversations as a community. She also mentioned that as how she sees repair, that it' ; s not like the healing ever happens fully, but what repair means to her is strengthening the Japanese American voice to be able to speak in the future. So an exercise of voice and speaking. And then to your point about the healing America' ; s racial karma and seeing incarceration within a broader history of racial violence, it was interesting because she was part of the movement then, but didn' ; t totally see it as part of a broader injustice. And she was like, I think that myself and others in the movement maybe saw it as an injustice that we needed to rectify, but not connecting the dots. And now in her work today, she is seeing it in a broader sense or understanding racial injustice and racism and how our story fits into it. So anyways, just wanted to put that out there and see if you had responses to her. I also had a couple other questions about Kansha as a legacy of redress, Mary, I don' ; t know if you wanted to touch on that as well. Because that' ; s something we' ; ve been talking about, the two of us. Mary Doi: So was talking to Kat last night about Kansha. Can you explain what it is, where it started, what it does? Lisa Doi: Yeah, sorry. Maybe before I talk about Kansha if I could just quickly just. Oh, I think on what Kat had mentioned, I think one of the things about NCRR is that I think NCRR... My knowledge is coming from talking to people who were involved in NCRR afterwards. So in their description of themselves, I think one of the things that they would say is the NCRR, more than other Japanese American organizations, did try to make this bigger picture case, and that that' ; s why they talked about redress and reparations. And so I think that it totally makes sense, to me it makes sense that you first have to do the internal work, or the internal to the community work, before you' ; re then able to do the external work, to be able to situate it into something else. I think about my own understanding of Japanese American incarceration history as being deeply rooted in the work of previous generations, that I am not having to come to this for the first time. I' ; m able to more quickly metabolize what other people are saying. I think one way I might write about that is in this idea of " ; engi," ; the idea of I am the product of all that has come before me, and so I can more quickly metabolize an understanding because of all the work that has been done before that. So the Kansha project is a project of the- Katherine Nagasawa: Lisa, do you mind if I just ask a follow-up really quickly? I was just curious, for you personally, did you always [inaudible] as connected to other racial justice issues? And if not, when did that all start to crystallize for you? Was there an experience or something you read or I guess when did you start connecting those dots? Lisa Doi: Yeah, I think I did see Japanese American... In most of my cognizant lifetime, I do think I saw it as related to other issues because I think one of the first strong memories on my own, not on my own terms, it was still very much mediated by my parents. But I remember after 9/11 going to a protest, a solidarity protest. So I was in fifth grade at 9/11. I just think I was at an age where I could have some of my own understanding. Obviously, it was definitely a geopolitical issue that was way above my head in a lot of ways. But I think because that was such an early part of my understanding of Japanese American history, it did put it in conversation with other communities in a very direct way through more of my life. That I think if I had been 10 years older and maybe had my first... This is not 10 years prior to that. If I had been 10 years older and one of my first moments have been getting people getting redress checks, what would that have done differently? If my first memories were from 1991 instead of 2001, how would that have differently shaped my understanding? But I think because a lot of my understanding of Japanese American history was in the aftermath of 9/11, I think there was this much more public narrative within the community about solidarity work. Katherine Nagasawa: Was the protest organized by the JA community, or was it you as the JA and your family showed up to a broader protest? Lisa Doi: My recollection of it, and again, I was a fifth grader, was that it wasn' ; t necessarily organized by the Japanese American community, but there were Japanese American speakers, and I think maybe Bill Yoshino spoke and I think Sam Ozaki spoke. Bill Yoshino was a staff person with JACL National at the time and Sam Ozaki was a board member of the Chicago JACL chapter who also was incarcerated. So I don' ; t think it was necessarily organized by Japanese Americans, but we were not the only Japanese Americans there. And it was a community effort at acknowledging a sort of similarity, not just my family' ; s acknowledgement. Those are the things I remember. Katherine Nagasawa: Gotcha. And then moving into the Kansha, I think what we' ; re interested in is thinking about Kansha as one of the legacies of redress, and how it has activated Yonsei in the Midwest who otherwise might be dealing with the consequences of forced assimilation, and feel very disconnected from identity or community. So when you' ; re talking about what Kansha is, could you talk about it in terms of a legacy of redress and the work that was done then? Lisa Doi: Sure. So the Kansha Project is a program of JACL Chicago. It was started in 2012, and it' ; s a program that brings young, so 18-to-25-year-old Japanese Americans from the Midwest to Little Tokyo and Los Angeles, and then to the Japanese American National Museum. So I participated in the program in its first year in 2012. The name " ; Kansha" ; means gratitude. But we have this great definition that we did not make, but we borrowed from someone about the idea of gratitude as not being there' ; s a gift giver or someone in whom you are indebted and you have to give back to them. But this idea that you have this maybe sense of receiving something and then passing it forward, or pushing it out beyond yourself, but not just directly back to JACL Chicago, that you' ; re then taking it out into the world. And I think, again, it' ; s a question of what is the legacy of the Japanese American incarceration experience? Because this trip is very much centered on Japanese American incarceration history. What does it mean to teach this history to young people who are all Japanese Americans, but not everyone had family members who were incarcerated, whether their family was in Hawaii or people who are the children of more recent immigrants? But I think one thing that is fairly common, for folks growing up in the Midwest, although there is a fairly large Japanese American community in the Chicagoland area, I think a lot of people who are my generation grew up without really a strong sense of community. And so I think we' ; ve come to understand Kansha over time as much about community building as it is about teaching history, and seeing the idea of building a community of younger folks as essential to the project itself, and essential to the future of the Japanese American community. Mary Doi: How does Kansha help some people actually shape an identity, assume an identity? I think that Kansha, I said to Kat, is a liminal experience, that you are not only outside of Chicago in a new space, but you are learning new things, meeting new people, and it just seems to be this blank canvas that is painted in many different ways. So beyond community formation, how does it impact identity formation? Lisa Doi: Yeah, I think I was very lucky to grow up with a very strong sense of Japanese American identity and Japanese American community. And that it wasn' ; t just... Over time, I' ; ve seen it as a relationship to community institutions, a strong internal identity, and then also this familial traditions, that in all three areas, I had a very strong sense of being Japanese American. I think that' ; s very unusual. And I think there are many, not to say it' ; s only people who are multiracial or multi-ethnic, but I think that amongst my generation and myself, are multiracial or multi-ethnic. And so I think that is just a very simple example of how someone may have, over their lifetime, felt like they weren' ; t really Japanese American. And I think to have, at minimum, a place that says, " ; No, everyone here is Japanese American." ; And maybe you' ; ve never used chopsticks before, or maybe you can' ; t speak any Japanese. You don' ; t need to know any of that to be Japanese American. You don' ; t need to know anything about Japanese American incarceration history to be Japanese American. I feel like there' ; s something else I was going to say, but I can' ; t remember it anymore. So I think that, to me, is the identity piece, is having this affirming space around being Japanese American. Here' ; s what I was going to say. I sort of had this, an experience on a pilgrimage last summer. And this is not unique, but it' ; s not something I felt a lot in my own family, but someone, an older woman, a Nisei woman who' ; d been incarcerated, said to me, not about me, but we were having a conversation about her grandchildren who are all multiracial. And she said something like, " ; Oh, it' ; s so sad that there' ; s not going to be a future Japanese American community because everyone' ; s mixed." ; And my response to her was, " ; Well, what if it means that there' ; s an even bigger future community because you have all these other people who are now invested in Japanese American history, or you have this even larger Japanese American community?" ; But I think, what do her grandkids, how do her grandkids understand themselves as Japanese American? And not that this woman is malicious in any way, but to have a grandmother who' ; s like, " ; Oh, you' ; re not, well, you' ; re not Japanese American because you' ; re multiracial." ; What does it do to their sense of self or their sense of identity? And I think that maybe it' ; s not something we' ; ve necessarily talked about on Kasha, but I am curious, what happens when that' ; s something you hear in a small way in your own family? And I think that goes back to this issue of alienation that a lot of Japanese Americans have felt growing up, especially amongst Yonsei in terms of why challenging conversations are hard, because there isn' ; t this rootedness in community that exists already, that people are so excited to get a taste of it, and they' ; re afraid that they could lose it. And so I think that' ; s why there' ; s this fear about the possibility of being kicked out of this community. Mary Doi: And how do people that have participated in Kansha take their experience forward? Lisa Doi: Well, right now, three of them are working on this project. So I think that there are lots of ways that people have taken their experiences from Kansha in large and small ways. I think that there' ; s a lot of leadership within the JACL, within other Japanese American organizations, and even just students who are in college, writing a paper about it in college, and subsequently, I think that there are lots of ways that people have taken their Kansha experiences out into the world. Mary Doi: Well, that' ; s a lovely legacy of redress. And unless Kat has any more questions, I' ; m going to thank you for talking to us today. Lisa Doi: Yeah. Mary Doi: Kat? Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, I just had one quick follow up. I feel like, Lisa, you have a bird' ; s eye view on the Yonsei generation in Chicago and the Midwest, because you' ; ve been a leader and have seen people, and often been the person who' ; s invited them into the fold. So I' ; m just curious, beyond Kansha, are there other ways you' ; ve seen Yonsei become activated in either the history or other racial justice and reparations issues? If not that' ; s fine, but I was just curious if there' ; s anything else [inaudible] pilgrimage that you find gets people invested and activated? Lisa Doi: Yeah, I think that' ; s a great question. I think that' ; s one of the things that both I think Tsuru and Nikkei Uprising... Nikkei Uprising is another group of younger, but more explicitly progressive Nikkei in Chicago, have started. I have not been involved in Nikkei Uprising for about the last year, but was involved in its formation. And I think there, and with Tsuru, I think one of the things I' ; ve heard is that it presents a different way of being Japanese American, a way of being Japanese American that is maybe more political or more based in active dissent or... Active dissent that I think maybe counters this idea of " ; gaman" ; or " ; shikata ga nai" ; or ideas that some people might object to. And so I think seeing what I' ; ve heard there, seeing other people do this has been exciting, whether that' ; s on social media or in short films, that has been what draws people in. So I think, to me, Nikkei Uprising is another really great example locally in Chicago of newer formations within the Japanese American community. Mary Doi: Ty, do you have any questions? Ty Yamamoto: Oh. No, I don' ; t. Mary Doi: Okay. Ty Yamamoto: Thank you for asking. Mary Doi: Well, I think that that' ; s it. I think this is a wrap. Thank you so much for taking the time out to give this oral history, and thank you so much for bringing your own experience into what you talked about today. Lisa Doi: Thank you. Thank you all. Katherine Nagasawa: Yeah, thank you, Lisa. Lisa Doi: Yeah, thanks. Mary Doi: We are done. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Footage may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=DoiLisa20221213.xml DoiLisa20221213.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/4 https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/items/browse?tags=Series%3A+Redress
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Doi, Elizabeth
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Doi, Lisa (12/13/2022)
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Lisa Doi, a Yonsei born and raised in Chicago, discusses the development of the Japanese American redress movement and the ongoing process of intergenerational healing and repair in the Japanese American community. She reflects on the importance of testifying, sharing stories, listening, participating in challenging conversations, and acts of protest as part of the reparative process. She discusses the efforts of organizations like Tsuru for Solidarity and the National Nikkei Reparations Coalition in support of Black reparations and HR 40 and shares her view of programs like the Kansha Project, Japanese American Confinement Sites grants, and Nikkei Uprising group as ongoing legacies of the redress movement.
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2022-12-13
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video
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Series: Redress