Interviews

1. Where did the Name Gidra Originate

2. Struggle and Activism

3. Gidra's Editorial Process

4. Gidra - Community Newspaper

5. Gidra Collaborations

6. Common Cause

7. Gidra's Contributors

8. Gidra's Content

9. Content Conflict

10. Camp Experiences

11. Cincip

12. Staff and Struggles

Mike Murase

Community activist

Camp Experiences

Yeah, we learned about the camp experience through books for example, “American’s Concentration Camps.” Learning about our own history for the first time in college was eye opening experience for many of us and it peaked our interested. We asked more questions. So we wanted to see, you know, we wanted to talk to the people who were in camps, so basically for most of us, our parents and grandparents. We wanted to see the places they went to so there were pilgrimages to Manzanar and other places, that that you know began happening in that period.

Within a few years, a lot of us were teaching ethnic studies to other people I mean. We didn’t have credentials. We didn’t have degrees. We didn’t have books. But we would, you know we would, accumulate whatever information we could. We would invite Niseis. We invited Filippino labor activists. We invited people from Chinatown, the old-timers to speak about their experiences. And that’s how we learned in the earlier period.

California concentration camps identity Manzanar concentration camp pilgrimages United States World War II camps

Date: September 29, 2011

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Kris Kuromitsu, John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Mike Murase--attorney, activist, administrator, writer and photographer--has been involved in human services, social change, education, government and politics for over 40 years. As an undergraduate at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), he was a co-founder of the Asian American Studies Center and later taught ethnic studies at UCLA, University of Southern California and California State University at Long Beach.

Mike’s roots in the Asian American communities are deep. He was a part of the core group who founded Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC), a social service and community economic development agency serving Little Tokyo and greater Japanese American community throughout Los Angeles. Mike served as the board president for first 5 years. He also advocated for members of Japanese Welfare Rights Organization, Little Tokyo People’s Rights Organization and National Coalition for Redress & Reparations (NCRR), and authored Little Tokyo: One Hundred Year History.

In 2006, Mike returned to LTSC to join its management team and currently is Director of Service Programs. (August 2012)