(Interviewer) So when did you begin to work on the evaluation of instructional material? When did you begin to take an active role in this?
It’s it was like it was a grassroots activity or there were a group of us who who saw that the there was a, uh, to do with, uh, Japanese American, which was not very complimentary to particularly various groups, uh, and oh, this book was a supplementary book and it was offered to, oh, adoption. And we investigated and discovered that there was a mechanism in place for adopting textbooks and in various grades and uh, a group of us assembled and approached the basically the, the way that books are adopted is, is a suggestion was made at the local level and this was taken to the, uh, to the state level, at the state level, uh.
(Interviewer) So just one thing, you met with Leo Ryan?
The assemblyman…oh, that's skipping ahead. It goes from, from the curriculum commission to the State Board of Education and the State Board of Education is under the egis of the state legislature and, uh, what we discovered at some point is this was after we had defeated the adoption of this book that did not reflect well on Buddhists and uh, a number of groups participated. I think you have a list of, of the various groups and the ultimately it was decided that we would have, uh, uh, uh, organization and volunteers who would evaluate textbooks for diversity.
We, uh, we pursued, uh, we pursued, uh, uh, legal means when we discovered at some point further on down the line that we were, were evaluating books against a standard which had not been established. And so the, it was at that point that we, we were first on in terms of who's in charge here. And, and it it became apparent that the the state legislature was in charge of what this and the state legislature is divided into two halves and the Assembly and the Senate. And so we went first to the the chairman of the of the Assembly who at that time, Leo Ryan. And we went to him with uh, uh, an education code that already existed. And at the time it was the only one that spoke to, uh, any kind of standard in terms of what was included in history and the only code we came across was one that was entitled Alcohol and Firearms. Firearms and Tobacco. And so it would be simple for for Leo Ryan to simply add, uh diversity language.
(Interviewer) And so when did you do this? Immediately?
During discussion and oh, Leo Ryan, uh, his administrative assistant, Randy Young, was busy with, with his pencil and paper, I think it was before computers. No, but, uh, so he, he formulate, he adapted, he altered or he amended the code to include, uh, a diversity, cultural diversity in and its standards in terms of what would be, uh, legal. And it was called the legal and factual analysis committee ultimately that's what and to be so the mandate to to the State Board of Education was to have a committee that would see that, that, uh, the standard of State Board of Education.
(Interviewer) What was the next step after Leo Ryan to get this piece of legislation passed?
The next step was to take it to George Mosconi, who was chair of the Education Committee of the State Senate in between the two. And then there was the governor involved. But I don't know who the governor was.
(Interviewer) Was it Pat Brown?
Oh [inaudible]. although I remember wandering the halls of the legislature and running across Ronald Reagan.
(Interviewer) Oh, Ronald Reagan, right. Of course. Yes. Because he was there. You know, there was Ronald Reagan during that period.
So there should be an education code that reflects alcohol, tobacco, firearms and and cultural diversity.