<Begin Segment 21>

TI: So I'm curious, when you finished your book, what were your expectations? When it was all finished and it's off to be published, what did you think the reaction would be?

JO: I really didn't, I had no idea. I mean, I thought it would just be sort of quietly, respectfully received, but I had no idea that it would be received the way that it has been received. I mean, everything that's happened with the book has been wonderful and a complete shock and surprise.

TI: And what part really surprises you? When you say it's shock and surprise, what surprised you?

JO: Well, I think... you know, I don't think -- I was just writing the book for very personal reasons. I didn't write the book to make a political statement, I don't feel like, 'cause you heard about how it came about. I mean, it was, it's not that I thought, "Oh, this is an untold story that must be told, I must tell the story." I think it is an untold story that hasn't been told enough, and I'm sure that there are many other takes on the same experience that we haven't heard yet. But I just don't think I realized how, how important the story actually is, and that people would be -- I didn't expect there to be much interest in it. I mean, who wants to read about a bunch of Japanese people wasting away in the desert during World War II? It just didn't seem like very sexy material to me. It wasn't like what my classmates were writing.

TI: So why do you think people are, are interested in this story?

JO: Well, I think part of the reason is because of September 11th and what's happened since then and what's going on now with Muslims and Arabs and the parallels that can be drawn between then and now. Just, things seem to be coming around again, civil liberties-wise. And maybe we have enough distance from World War II to be able to talk about it now, maybe it's just time. I mean, I think it takes a while to be able to look at something. Maybe it takes two generations before the people who can even begin to tell the story can speak, and maybe that's how long it takes the people who can maybe listen to the story, maybe that's how long it takes them to be able to hear it. I don't really know. I don't think that there would have been a very receptive audience to the book ten or twenty years after the, after the end of the war.

TI: So are you sort of anticipating or surprised that there aren't more books written by... whether it's Japanese Americans or younger people --

JO: Yes, about that experience.

TI: -- about, about the experience?

JO: Yes. I thought, while I was writing the book, "Better hurry up and finish this book quickly, because there are probably dozens of other people like myself who are the sons and daughters of former internees who are writing this exact same story." And yet I finished my book and I don't know where they are. I wonder, are they, are they not writing this story? Are they just not writing? Is it a demographic thing, there aren't a lot of us left at this point? I mean, the Chinese Americans started writing in the '70s: Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, they were, they were out there from very early on, and I don't know why there aren't more Japanese American fiction writers. It's sort of, I mean, do you have any ideas? I'm actually sort of baffled.

TI: No, I, I'm curious, too. That's why I'm asking.

JO: Are they out there and writing and we just don't see them, or are they, they're not out there?

TI: See, I'm not aware. I really don't know of other projects going on like this.

JO: 'Cause this is, I mean, now it seems like anyone who's a Japanese American writer, it seems like it would be the obvious story to tell. But, so yeah, I don't know.

TI: Yeah, I don't either. It's, and that's why it's... and it was kind of, I was thinking about you because in some ways, you grew up on the West Coast and pretty close to the community, but then you're in New York, in some ways removed from the community and you're the one who writes the, the novel about it.

JO: I think it might have actually been a good thing that I wrote it out there, so pretty much in seclusion and isolation. I don't know what would have happened -- I mean, I don't know what would have happened if I had written it out here. And it's interesting to see where, it seems like there was a lot of interest in the book certainly in New York, but not, definitely not in Los Angeles, I don't think at all. I think it was given a short review in the LA Times a couple weeks before it came out, and that was it. And so I thought there'd be more interest on the West Coast because that's where most of the former internees live, but I think it's, seems like on the East Coast there's a lot of interest in it 'cause it's a new story for them; it's an unknown story, I think.

TI: Right. Because you mentioned how you've been to other cities, and most of the cities you've been to in terms of doing events and things have been more in the Midwest or East, and not as much on the West Coast. And that, again, surprises me, and that's why I'm just curious about why that is.

JO: Yeah, me too. I'm not, I don't know. Or maybe they've already heard a lot of stories about the internment or have seen, or it seems like there are more Japanese American theater groups, or maybe there's just more, maybe the story's more in the air and they don't need to hear other versions of it.

TI: But see, I'm not sure if that's true, because taking the, sort of example of Seattle, and Seattle has in the last month or so, we've really sort of taken hold of your book. I mean, Seattle Reads has adopted it, I know lots of colleges are reading it, and we, Seattle was probably the third largest Japanese American community before the war, so we were very much part of that story. Bainbridge Island was the very first community to be taken away, so, so of most communities, we are probably most tied to it. And I think when people read your story and they hear about it, it's really powerful. And so I'm --

JO: But it's not new, right?

TI: It's not new, but it's different. I mean, it's, and I'm not sure why it's not taken off more than it has. Or maybe it will; maybe it's just taking some time to sort of, sort of make its way up and down the West Coast. I'm curious, especially in places like the Bay Area and Los Angeles, why it hasn't taken off.

JO: When I was on the first book tour, I did a reading, I was scheduled to do a reading in Brentwood, and nobody came. So, and that was the only time, that was the only city that happened in was in L.A. So I don't, it's curious to me.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.