<Begin Segment 11>

AI: Lori, I wanted to go back to your junior high school age, and around those years in the '60s there was quite a bit of social movement going on. The Civil Rights movement was in high gear. I wanted to ask you a little bit about your recollection of those times, those issues, and whether the Civil Rights movement had much of an impact on you or your family, had much discussion or activity around that?

LB: I don't recall that we really talked about it really specifically at home, but certainly that period of time had a huge impact on me. I was really very aware of issues, of racial unrest and segregation, treatment of blacks in the South. The Watts riots took place, and we, we could almost hear them. I lived really not too far away from Watts, and the realization at a young age that there would be this type of unrest and violence and protest over issues of race and inequity. So I started thinking at a fairly young age about those issues. Gardena is just south of South Central Los Angeles and the Watts area. So it was all very, very close to home. But I don't recall that we really talked about it or that it was an issue that was really put out there during my school years. I just recall being aware of it, and the school I went to was really very racially diverse. As I said, there was a large percentage of Japanese Americans, but there was a very large Hispanic and African American population as well. And certainly probably like most young people, trying to put all those pieces together, that I would be in school with black and Hispanics and Asian Americans, and that there was this tremendous racial struggle going on in the country, and trying to perhaps figure out how that fit in our school and how that fit in my life.

Certainly as I got older through junior high and high school, the Vietnam War was going on. There were massive protests. My brother was a draft counselor at the time. And there were a lot of things going on in the Asian American community as far as mobilizing around the Civil Rights movement. There were -- Yellow Brotherhood had, had come together. There was a lot going on in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. My brother was involved in some of those things. So I was aware of the, quote, "movement" going on, but being in junior high and high school and much more interested in social activities and things like that, I don't recall that I really got really involved in it at that particular time, getting involved in politics or demonstrations and things like that.

AI: For people who don't know, could you say a bit more about the Yellow Brotherhood and your brother's involvement?

LB: I don't think he was actually involved in the Yellow Brotherhood per se, but he was involved in certainly this period of time where young Asian Americans, particularly in my community -- Japanese Americans becoming very aware of their culture and aware of their identity. Certainly following along with the black power movement and what was going on during the '60s, struggles as far as the empowering of people and speaking out against oppression, and the Asian American community got involved in that as well, with young Sansei seeking to figure out who they are, figure out where they come from, understand more about the camp experience for the first time, in some ways demanding that their parents tell them what had happened, and really trying to figure out why it happened and why no one's done anything about it. A lot of it was the beginnings of Asian American Studies programs and demanding those Asian American Studies programs. The beginnings of EOP programs, trying to get more Asian Americans, blacks, Hispanics into colleges and universities, and giving them more voice in the colleges and universities. A lot of draft counseling activity, a lot of activity to try and resist the war, as a war against Asian peoples. I was really kind of just on the tail end of that, since I was coming up through junior high and high school at that point in time. It was a period of protest music, Bob Dylan, and anti-war demonstrations. So I recall all of that, the music and the demonstrations and the protests on the television, and Kennedy was president, and the Civil Rights Act had been passed in the '60s and tried to desegregate the schools, and the escorts of black students into formerly segregated institutions. So I very much have all of those images in my mind from my junior high and high school years, but again, not an active involvement, but very much an awareness that this was what was going on in the country at that time.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.