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Interviews

(1919-2014) Activist for civil rights and redress for World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Importance of education in achieving redress for incarceration

I feel that the major contribution has to do with the educational process, which is a major underpinning of the whole redress movement, because we were a people unknown to the rest of the country. And because what happened to the Japanese Americans was not in a textbook, nobody knew it happened. It's like it's a fable, 'You're making it up.' Or people's need to deny that their country is their mother -- 'mother'. 'Mother does nothing wrong.' It would be like the Holocaust, people say 'That never happened. Jews are making it up.' So, the same thing with our people.


Redress movement World War II

Date: August 28, 1998

Location:

Interviewer: Darcie Iki, Mitchell Maki

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

Interviewee Bio

Grayce Ritsu (Kaneda) Uyehara was born on the Fourth of July, 1919, in Stockton, California. During World War II, she and her family were incarcerated first at the Stockton Assembly Center, and then sent to a concentration camp in Rohwer, Arkansas. In the 1980s she worked tirelessly as an activist with the Japanese American Citizens League to organize efforts to secure redress from the United States government for Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war.

She passed away on June 22, 2014 at age 94.  (Jully 2014)

James Hirabayashi
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Life in camp as teenager

(1926 - 2012) Scholar and professor of anthropology. Leader in the establishment of ethnic studies as an academic discipline

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Yuri Kochiyama
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Didn't have rights that whites had

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

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Yuri Kochiyama
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Californians didn't know about evacuation

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

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Yuri Kochiyama
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Conditions of assembly centers

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

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Yuri Kochiyama
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Visit to assembly centers by E. Stanley Jones

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

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Yuri Kochiyama
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Hiding what happened in camp

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

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Yuri Kochiyama
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Issei are hard-working

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

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Yuri Kochiyama
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Arrest of father

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

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Yuri Kochiyama
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Camp as a positive thing

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

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Yukio Takeshita
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Involvement in JACL

(b.1935) American born Japanese. Retired businessman.

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Wakako Nakamura Yamauchi
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Her experience as a Japanese-American schoolchild in Oceanside, California, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor

(1924-2018) Artist and playwright.

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Roy H. Matsumoto
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Finding work in the assembly center

(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.

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Roy H. Matsumoto
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Train ride to Jerome Relocation Center

(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.

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Peggie Nishimura Bain
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Conditions at Pinedale Assembly Center

(b.1909) Nisei from Washington. Incarcerated at Tule Lake and Minidoka during WWII. Resettled in Chicago after WWII

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Peggie Nishimura Bain
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Making craft items from shells found at Tule Lake

(b.1909) Nisei from Washington. Incarcerated at Tule Lake and Minidoka during WWII. Resettled in Chicago after WWII

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