Interviews

1. Importance of self-representation in legislation

2. The lawsuit set the standard for restoring people’s rights

3. Japanese American, not Japanese

4. Euphemisms

5. People have to believe in what they are doing in order to gain trust

6. Outhouses and showers at camp

7. Interned at age fifteen, I saw camp as an adventure

8. Going to camp with the Terminal Island people

9. Education in camp

10. Trying to get back into camp

Hohri,William

(1927-2010) Political Activist

People have to believe in what they are doing in order to gain trust

We really believed in the education we were receiving. And I think that makes a big difference in education. If you really believe in the education that you were receiving then you sort of participated in it. And it was just the opposite of what was happening in Manzanar. I think that’s the same thing that’s required when you have any kind of movement.

People have to believe in what you’re doing. It’s not up to the leaders, or anything. It’s just something that has to be there, and that the job is to make what you do credible. People have to trust you. One of the things that is important is that they have to trust you with their money, and we tried to be very open about that—very candid, always had our books open. We only asked for money when we needed it. We didn’t pay any rent, and we didn’t pay any salaries. So we tried to put people’s monies to the best use we could make it. And I think that resonates. But also it’s the ideas and everything else, the bylaws. People pick up on that and then the thing works.

But if you tell me how to make something work, I couldn’t tell you. (laughs) I could just tell you what we did. That’s all. And it seems to work. Why, I don’t know. But I think it’s something like that.

civil rights civil rights movement Redress movement

Date: June 12, 1998

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Darcie Iki, Mitchell Maki

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

Interviewee Bio

In 1927, William Hohri was born the youngest of six children in San Francisco, California. Following the outbreak of World War II, he and his family became incarcerated at Manzanar concentration camp in California. A week after his high school graduation, Hohri was released from camp to study at Wheaton College in Wisconsin. In March 1945, Hohri attempted to visit his father in Manzanar and was instead imprisoned for traveling without a permit. Hohri was given an individual exclusion order and forced at gunpoint to leave California by midnight that same day.

Later, Hohri became a member of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), but was disappointed with their disregard to the anti-war and Civil Rights movements. When JACL moved towards supporting a congressional commission to study the concentration camps, a group of Chicago and Seattle dissenters led by Hohri formed the National Council for Japanese American Redress in May 1979, seeking redress through direct individual payments. Initially, Hohri and NCJAR worked with Representative Mike Lowry (D-Washington), but when the resolution was defeated, Hohri and NCJAR redirected their efforts to seek redress through the courts. Hohri, along with twenty four other plaintiffs, filed a class-action lawsuit on March 16, 1983, against the government for twenty-seven billion dollars in damages.

He passed away on Nov. 12, 2010 at age 83. (November 2011)