Interviews

1. Japanese Language School

2. Mentality of Issei and Nisei

3. Treatment by Chinese students

4. Attempts to sign up for military service

5. Recruited for the National JACL Redress Committee

6. Criteria for who gets redress

7. Changing "reparations" to "redress"

8. Appointing John Tateishi as National JACL Redress Chair

9. Inouye’s strategy for educating the American public

10. JACL reaction to the idea of a commission

11. Redress clash between Senators Inouye and Hayakawa

12. Recalling President Carter’s signing of the Commission bill

13. Poignant story from the CWRIC hearing in San Francisco

14. John Tateishi plays a role in changing people's minds

15. The unheralded help from beyond the community

16. Legacy of redress

17. Different races have to live together and interact

Clifford Uyeda

(1917 - 2004) Political activist

John Tateishi plays a role in changing people's minds

I also give tremendous amount of credit to John Tateishi. I think he really was one person that was not given the credit that’s due him, because people just accepted some of the things that he did as if it’s the normal thing that he should do. He knew that it was something that he should do, but I think people forget how effective he was in turning, especially, the Nisei sentiment, those who were not for redress.

And I think his whole plan was to change the focus from monetary issue to constitutional issue, and he did this very well. When I saw many of these wealthy farmers who used to be anti-redress, come up to him, shake his hand and say, I now have changed my mind, I support [the] Redress Movement. That was the proof to me that John was effective in changing the Nisei idea of being afraid of redress.

I think he made them feel that, yes it might be difficult, but they were willing to stick out their neck now and fight for it. And I think it was John’s doing, so I think that John had a tremendous effect on the Redress Movement.

Redress movement

Date: July 1-2, 1998

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Mitchell Maki, Darcie Iki

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

Interviewee Bio

Clifford Uyeda was born on January 14, 1917, into a family of oyster farmers in Olympia, Washington. Uyeda studied at the University of Wisconsin and from 1941 to 1945 attended Tulane University Medical School in New Orleans, LA. Uyeda went on to become a medical doctor in San Francisco, CA.

Uyeda became involved in the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) in 1960 when he served as San Francisco Chapter chair of the Issei Oral History Project. He helped in establishing the School of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University and played an important role in restoring the U.S. citizenship and presidential pardon of Iva Toguri, also known as “Tokyo Rose.”

After retiring from medicine in 1975, Uyeda became a full-time activist. In 1977, Uyeda served as National JACL chair of the Japanese American Incarceration for Redress committee. He was elected to serve as president of National JACL from 1978 to 1980. Uyeda continued to serve the community in various roles until his death from cancer in 2004 at the age of 87. (April 11, 2008)