Book Project: The NCRR Story
By Richard Katsuda

 

For many years, we in NCRR have been talking about publishing a book about our grassroots work in the redress movement and other campaigns against injustice. NCRR has always kept itself grounded by activating members of the community to speak out for redress/reparations and against injustices that have arisen over the years. We have done this without fanfare but with great resolve that the grassroots community must ultimately exercise its voice and power.
    
However, we have come to realize that NCRR’s experiences and lessons learned must be shared with a larger audience:  those in our community who were not aware of our role but might be interested and even inspired to work with the community, and young people of all communities looking for examples of groups who have successfully worked with the grass roots.
    
Over this last period, we’ve talked about how to seek a book publisher and what kind of format we would use in our book. In this process, we were very fortunate to obtain the support of Dr. Art Hansen, professor emeritus at Cal State Fullerton and pioneering historian on the Japanese American incarceration, who generously took the time to meet with our book committee and gave us insightful recommendations. 
    
We are also pleased to announce that Dr. Lane Hirabayashi, UCLA’s Aratani Professor of the Japanese American Internment, Redress, and Community, has agreed to be the editor for our book. Dr. Hirabayashi fondly recalls his experiences with NCRR when he lived in Gardena in the early 1980s and has maintained a strong bond with us.
    
Over the last couple of months, the book committee has been collecting articles from people who have worked with NCRR over the years, and there has been a lot of excitement generated from the writings. Contributors have expressed the life-transforming power of their experiences working with NCRR.  The book project is finally on its way, and we hope to have it completed this year.