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AI: You mentioned the term "institutionalized racism" and gave the examples of the laws and the legal discriminatory treatment of Asians and particularly Japanese, people of Japanese ancestry. When you talk about this, these forms of institutionalized racism to classes, what kind of response or reaction do you get from some of the students?

TI: Well, they're surprised that such acts, undemocratic acts were common practice. Of course, it shocked me too, when all of a sudden, I was put away. And that, that really just made me so angry because we were taught about democracy, and here the practice was anti-democratic. I don't know if I mentioned this, but during the World War II, "God Bless America" was the theme song. And I had a hard time singing that song and asking God's blessing on America for putting us away. That's how I felt. So it was hard. It's one thing to be angry. And I felt I didn't want to have that (institutionalized) racism to then control me. And I want to control that. And so any opportunity there was, I would say to pound away at housing issues, employment issues, and so on.

AI: So you took your feeling, and then you took, made some action, took some action and used the energy from your anger?

TI: Yes. And again, I want to state again that because of the unusual position I had and opportunities to be involved in different levels of the United States, that I was able to do this, whereas majority of other Japanese Americans weren't blessed the way I was blessed, by a particular work. I just say that I had the chance and the opportunity, and felt good that I could try to work on them.

AI: Right. Well, continuing on with some of your classroom speaking, I'm interested to know what kind of questions students come up with. What do they ask you about the experience of internment and about the related issues?

TI: Well, as high school students, they want to know what high school was in camp. And we didn't really have textbooks. I (didn't) know what we were doing in the laundry room as our science class, using the tub. But we learned to do without. And I try to communicate to the students how fortunate they are, and the resources they have. So even though you don't have resources or you do have resources, you can still function based on your attitude about that. And so I try to let them know about my anger on one side, but at the other, I work real hard not to have the anger control my behavior in my (daily interactions).

AI: Do the students ever ask you a question such as, "Why didn't you protest?" or, "Why didn't anyone protest being put into the camps?"

TI: No. That hasn't (happened). But I would have said that, why we didn't, why I didn't protest at that time was we were taught really to obey our leaders: our fathers and mothers and teachers. So that respect was ingrained in our culture, and we behaved. When the government said to go, we went willingly in a way. We didn't grumble, which was not the thing to do based on our cultural upbringing. So I'd say we were excellent internees in these concentration camps. We obeyed. We were good inmates. (Our) culture really helped us so that it didn't become part of our anger and not be able to function. But we took upon these deprivations and made good about it. So I feel very grateful I had a Japanese cultural background experience. It really helped me out a great deal.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.