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TI: So I'm curious; at this stage, you're really a young boy. You're what, about seven, eight, nine years old?

YN: Right.

TI: How did you feel about being Japanese American? Did, were you, were you ashamed of your, of being Japanese American?

YN: Again, I do not ever feel I was ashamed, because in my community where I lived, there was Chinese and Filipinos. But my understanding is even at that point of life, I knew for some reason they didn't like each other, because they were Chinese, Filipinos, and Japanese. But it's very interesting, I always equated it because of the language. They didn't -- so therefore I knew who was Chinese because their parents spoke Chinese, and for every group of that nature. But we all played together. When we played together, we were friends, but in our anger, we became divisive of our ethnicity, 'cause we didn't know any better. I equate it to, today, to that which is the Asian American. When you are put together as Asian Americans, you're no different than when Europeans are put together as white. Your ethnicity of your group is lost in the broad term. It is only when you are hyphenated as an American do you retain your ethnicity.

TI: So let me see if I can, I follow this. So, so growing up, you played with Filipinos...

YN: Chinese, whites.

TI: ...Chinese, in that case, you were all the same because you were playing on the playground. But, but you said earlier how there was some understanding that you weren't supposed to like the Chinese and the Filipinos.

YN: Right.

TI: And so can you elaborate a little bit more in terms of why, why you... how you came to that understanding that you weren't supposed to like them?

YN: If my parents -- and I don't ever recall them speaking in those terms -- but you must remember, you always were not in their community. I went to the Japanese Baptist nursery school as the whole community did years ago. It was not just Baptists. And that, they were my roots of my friends. And they were basically all of Japanese heritage. But all my teaching, of the leadership, initially, were all white. And then as the Nisei, older Nisei developed into becoming the lay-teachers and so forth, but there was only two groups. And so therefore, you don't know other (culture) -- furthermore, the existence of the Hispanics and the blacks and the Native Americans was never a part of my makeup. They didn't even enter into my mainstream, but definitely Chinese and Filipinos and whites, because I, that was my neighborhood. So when you say, how did I know we were not to like them, I wasn't sophisticated enough to understand they went to war in Asia, there were many brutalities of war that we all know (today). The same things I didn't understand when Pearl Harbor hit. But you again understood what you thought that was never said.

TI: So it goes back to what you said earlier in terms of the family and the community not really being direct, but there was some understanding --

YN: Undertones always there that you didn't take out of the closet. And this is typical American. We keep all those things in the closets of our mind or the closets of our homes. And that's why it's so difficult to know where one is at.

TI: But it's interesting, as a child, though, and you're playing with these, these children of other ethnicity, at some point you said there were some times, perhaps fights or something, and then probably racial terms were used?

YN: Absolutely. The child knows nothing else. It's a temperament; it's a loss of your cool, you see? And I would have never understood that 'til I spent the adult years of my life in the sports industry. Violence comes out of sports in many forms.

TI: And so how would you, how would you, how do you think about that? Here you are as children -- and you're just being, in some ways, very open and honest about some of this that has been sort of put in the closet, you mentioned earlier. What... I mean, I'm not sure what the question I'm asking here. I'm thinking, like the Chinese, for instance. You mentioned earlier that you didn't really know back then that the Chinese and Japanese were at war in Asia during this period. Did the Chinese ever bring that up, in terms of the relationship? Or the Filipinos, for that matter?

YN: I will put it that, that for each group, it was different. I think that my Chinese American friends were about as aware of we were not to like each other as I was, which was very unsophisticated. Because when you were together, we weren't fighting, no big deal. But with the Filipino American community, it was entirely a different understanding for me. They were Catholics, and they did things funny. And I couldn't be a part of the Catholic understanding, 'cause I wasn't Catholic.

TI: When you say the Catholics were "funny," what would be an example?

YN: Because they had to do things that would take 'em away from play. If they had to go mass, confession on Friday, or they had to go up to Maryknoll, or they went... they did things different. And so they were Catholics. That probably was more divisive in my mind than they were Filipinos. But the thing I'm trying to say to myself is: but Filipinos aren't all Catholic, you see. The Japanese Americans were not all Buddhists. But as a child, these are the reflections, and I have to say as I grew up, why did I have these hang-ups in me? That I wasn't to like people was probably I worked on intentionally to get over. 'Cause if I left it in my understanding, I would still have those same thoughts. But once I was able to articulate... and when I look back, and I look upon my history, the one group I could never tell the truth to were white American, because they were the empowerment.

TI: Hmm, that's interesting. You said you had to consciously work at this. When you think of your, sort of your peer Niseis, the Japanese Americans who were, that you sort of grew up with, do you think they went through that same sort of work to get to a bigger awareness? Or how, how do you think they're dealing with some of these same issues?

YN: I think... it's not an awareness. I think it becomes to, to equate what is right in the eyes of the Japanese American community. The perception I grew up with is that the majority -- and I will say white America, they set the standards for that which was right and wrong. And so until I was able to hear the stories of other than white America, I began to understand why my story as a Japanese American needed to be told. Many things we are praised for comes out of the understanding of Western Europeans. So we have met their understanding of that which is right. Again, I don't like to use one statement, but if their understanding of their culture is to be aggressive, and not passive, I understand, but that's not the only way of life in America. Number two, if there's only one understanding that this is a Christian nation, that is again Western European thinking. It's not that I'm saying it's wrong. America must hear the voices of that which is America, and that's why my internment story is not Japanese American. It belongs in the fabric of (American history). We must have the stories of all people so we can come to a common ground of understanding. And no one understanding is correct; there are many ways to come to an understanding that's in a different track.

TI: Good.

YN: Okay, and that's all I'm saying. My understanding as a Japanese, Japanese American, is what I learned out of my experiences with working with people, and that was in the sports field. And so I hope you could understand that.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.