<Begin Segment 22>

GH: And in a peculiar sort of way, I'm still experiencing that sort of thing here in society. The high school invited me to come and speak.

BF: Auburn High?

GH: Yeah.

BF: Oh.

GH: This is in the '80s. And I made a big effort to go and to do well, because this is the grandchildren of the kids that pushed us out, and fought to keep us out after the war. I said to myself, "Boy, if those grandparents know what their grandkids are doing, they'd be turning in their graves." [Laughs] And so I went back with some kind of happiness. Things are changing. And they were. They were giving me honor for the court case, this and that. Actually we were blasting their parents' and grandparents' behavior. And then they were joining that. And recently, more recently, one of the graduating groups -- I think it was the '97 class, proposed and that idea was accepted, that they open up a hallway that didn't have any pictures or anything, as a hallway to honor the graduates. And for the first -- they called it a funny name, "Hall of Honor for Alumni Emeritus", or something. It was a duplicate kind of term, emeritus, alumni, or something. And in the first grouping -- and I haven't seen what else they've done now -- but, in the first grouping when they opened this thing, they had four names. One was the commander of the Challenger that blew up in space. He happened to be an Auburn graduate...

BF: Oh, I never knew that.

GH: ...of 1950s. Another one was, a, a woman who was a state senator. She was, I met her, she's still around and been active in school programs. The third one is well-known. She is one of, she was the leading spokesman for attorney generals in the cigarette case, and was main dynamo that carried that through.

BF: Gregoire?

GH: Yeah. So she was named. And then me. She, we were the first four, and I suppose they had anywhere from two to four named in other classes, if they did this thing on a continuous basis. I have to go and check and see. And, I, I told the university dean, who said that I was nominated as the, what's the term she used? Anyway, the alumnus to be honored for the year 2000 for arts and science, which is the core faculty of the university.

BF: Uh-huh. Distinguished alumnus? Is that it?

GH: Yeah, Distinguished Alumnus for the year 2000. For this year, they're gonna start announcing it after mid-May when the 1999 one is finished. He's a graduate of the 1960s. He's a Egyptologist. And he happens to be at the university where I taught in the '50s, in Cairo.

BF: Cairo. Yeah.

GH: American University in Cairo. And if you're Egyptologist, that's a perfect place to be. You got all the facilities and you're king of the roost there, and he's done well. And he's honored as the outstanding -- whoever's named is one that had some sponsor, who named him. And, and I mean you have to be somebody that, whose career can be forwarded, you know. But it could be any one of a thousand. You know, it's alumnus, alumni...

BF: Yeah.

GH: ...graduates of this university. And that's what I felt here. We have Frank Miyamoto and -- did you graduate here?

TI: Yeah. I graduated from...

GH: Well, see? You know, there's...

BF: [Laughs] Tom Ikeda.

GH: ...thousands, there's thousands of us. And somebody, somebody, in fact I was told how the nomination happened to come in. The, a professor who came from the East, but who's a professor of Japanese literature in Asian studies.

TI: Professor Treat.

GH: Yeah. He, he forwarded the name to the dean -- well, that's his dean too -- saying, "You're, this is long overdue. There's a guy that should be, should've been honored years ago." And he proposed my name. That's 'cause I'm in the legal cases and so on. It's not that I did the legal work. I mean that part was done by a group of pro bono lawyers. But there's a lot of circumstances. But the name was known, and it got to the Supreme Court, and it did this and that. So he, he said, "And also, you're showing your prejudice." He didn't say, the dean didn't tell me that, but I'm, I'm sure that what he's pointing out is, you're having a all white [Laughs] list of ones to honor. And, and Steve Sumida, who's coming in, must've been asked about that, 'cause he was visiting here. Well he just was appointed, I guess...

BF: Right.

GH: ... and was here part-time. And then, when I was here visiting beginning of the month, he was back in Michigan finishing up his last responsibilities. And then Gail was hired...

BF: His wife.

GH: ...Gail Nomura. She's coming in this summer, on staff. They were at Washington State, and they were always championing my activities. And they brought me out there. And Gail was, is a history prof. And history prof. was a key program to honor, at that time something for the centennial, state centennial -- 1889 to 1989, no 19... yeah '89.

TI: Yeah.

BF: Yeah.

GH: Yeah, '89, '89. That's right.

TI: 1889 to 1989.

GH: Yeah. So that was ten years ago. And they were there and they said, first thing Gail says, "You mean you're just honoring white guys that graduated there." Says, "No, it's the state. Anybody who contributed to the development of the state." Says, "Well don't you think other than white people contributed things to the state?" "Yeah, that's right, we'd, we better do something about that. So, are there any you know?" Says, "Well, there's one guy I know. He's mentioned in your Supreme Court case." "Gee, can we get him?" "Oh, I'm pretty sure you could get him if you invited him." So they invited, they asked if I could come to be the, special, this special lecture series. I've forgotten the name now. [Laughs] And that's the best honorarium I ever got. You know, they gave, just the honorarium was around five thousand for a week. And then, you're given all the expenses and so on. I visited all kinds of classes during that time. And then the lecture, had, was edited and expanded to fit the anthology they had selected from those lectures. And so I'm chapter two in that thing. The former governor and senator gave his experiences of the state. And that's appropriate 'cause he's giving a lot of the state's history through that experience. And then I came in as a first, sort of a -- as far as I know, maybe I'm the only non-white in there, still.

BF: So, just like at, when you were a kid joining the Y...

GH: Yeah, yeah.

BF: ...kind of a...

GH: Yeah...

BF: ...feeling of being the only one.

GH: Well, yeah but, see, see, but I'm trying to point out that somebody mentions it. They noticed that it's all... we have more variety than white [Laughs] in our color perspective, spectrum. And if somebody mentions it and they look at it, they say, "Well, that's right. We should do something about that." But, until somebody points it out -- and this one Treat, he hasn't even lived here, but he's noticed it coming here. And for him to be here at the University of Washington is like this Egyptologist to be located in Cairo. It's, this is the best place for him to be. And he's delighted to be here. It's the best department for his area. And is closest relation to Japan and so on. So he's delighted. But he's noticed -- from his perspective -- he's noticed that, "Gee, with, with all of this, they should've been honoring somebody from [Laughs] that area, you know.

BF: Right.

GH: So, it's just that I'm here now because some dean had responded to that. And then, just at that time, there comes two people that they're, they've been reviewing carefully. And they just happened to ask the question and they had gone through the same thing in Washington State noticing how white it is. And people don't realize they've been so white, 'cause that's been the norm, you see. And then when they look, there are other things that could be done. They just, if they look, they could see that. And so, when they, when they mentioned this, they just popped in, just spontaneously 'cause they'd done this before at the other institution. [Laughs]

BF: Do you think that culturally, Japanese, Asian Americans are partially to, responsible for that? That we don't promote ourselves enough? Or, we don't...?

GH: Yeah. We probably have a part in it. I think we do. We, we tend to over, overdo that. I don't know to what extent we become jealous of anyone who is mentioned, and don't want that. We, we'd rather have it kept anonymous rather than to have just somebody mentioned. I don't know. I haven't, I haven't looked into that. But I know that we don't do anything to, to break it. We don't do very much, that is.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.