<Begin Segment 4>

AI: We're covering a number of issues today, and another issue I wanted to ask you about was really the, maybe returning to consciousness about the internment, decades after it actually occurred. And we were talking in another conversation about Farewell to Manzanar. First the book came out and then as a television program. It aired on television here in 1976. And that for many of the non-Japanese American community, that might have been the first time that some of them heard of it or saw something sympathetic more from the Japanese American point of view.

And also in, around that time in the 1970s, I understand you began going out to schools. You were getting requests from schools to go and speak about the internment. So I wanted to ask you to talk a little bit about that time. When you would go out to a school, what kind of response would you get? Were there some kids who had seen this television program, Farewell to Manzanar, or read the book, or did they know anything at all when you came to their classes?

TI: Well, some of the schools were very smart. They took the book as a class learning project. And so they were more ready and understanding as I came forward to speak. And these speaking opportunities provided me with a forum on which I spoke out, that I rarely spoke in the community about the fact that the internment was only a combination of past institutionalized racism by the federal government like Exclusion Act of 1924, where persons of Japanese ancestry were not allowed to come to this country, democracy. As a democracy although we honored land or owned property, was sacred, but not for us. And by looking back at history of these alien land laws, inspired primarily in the state of Oregon, Washington, and California, where the majority of Japanese Americans were residing, were not allowed to own property. And then found out later because there was, never talked about it, but our parents could not vote. They couldn't become citizens of this country, by federal law, which was ridiculous in a democracy.

I'll be speaking in a couple weeks again to another school -- I try to highlight those factors first and then speak about the internment experience. There are no other avenue where I could speak out, I became more comfortable and felt appropriate to speak. I have a (overhead) presentation I give. I (believe this was an opportunity) in which I could really clearly communicate my feelings about America and what it should stand for and practice. Otherwise, in the Japanese community or the church or anywhere else I'm involved in, that kind of opportunity to sound off -- [laughs] -- just wasn't provided for. As more and more speaking engagements became possible for me, I responded back more clearly about my feelings about America.

AI: And so it was really a process where, as you were explaining to these schoolchildren and classes what happened, it clarified for you in your own mind how you were, how you viewed the whole experience?

TI: Yeah. That really helped me. That was kind of an unusual situation, but that's how it came about.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.