Interviews

1. Need for Monetary Compensation

2. Driving Feelings

3. Erasing the Bitterness

4. Be True to Yourself

Kinoshita,Cherry

(1923–2008) One of the leaders behind the redress movement.

Driving Feelings

Then the Day of Remembrance at Puyallup was November of '78 and I didn't take a part in it except that I was asked to host some of the national JACL. So Cliff Uyeda, John Tateishi and I can't remember the name of the PC editor at that time. So I was sort of hosting that, those people and saw their reaction to this tremendous outpouring of over 2,000 people. That, that was so moving.

To get into... we all met at what used to be called Sick's Stadium there on Rainier. And then we got into these cars, and I can't remember if I was in the bus, but the sight of the stream of cars all with their headlights on moving down the freeway—just miles—and that was so inspiring to think all these people are out here to go to the Puyallup.

And then that, that I think was the first, very first outpouring of—no, I take that back, it was the bringing up of the feeling of the camp experience. Many people had either suppressed it or just put it aside and they didn't want to talk about it.

Date: September 26, 1997

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Becky Fukuda, Tracy Lai

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Cherry Kinoshita was born in 1923 in Seattle, WA. As a teen she was incarcerated at Puyallup Assembly Center in Washington and later Minidoka in Idaho. During her two and a half years behind barbed wire, she wrote for the camp newspaper, The Minidoka Irrigator.

In the ’70s she became active in the Seattle JACL movement for redress. One of Kinoshita’s many contributions was a grassroots lobbying effort to inform Washington State lawmakers on the injustice suffered by Japanese Americans during World War II. In dealing with politicians, Kinoshita’s secret weapons were persistence and patience. Notably, a congressman from the State of Washington introduced the first redress bill in 1979.

Kinoshita also organized a coalition of 16 major Japanese American organizations as redress supporters. At 60, in the midst of campaigning for redress, Kinoshita earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in sociology from the University of Washington. (April 15, 2008)