<Begin Segment 11>

JH: But you know, when I was working at San Francisco State and I was... let me see, I think it was in the mid-'60s, I happened to latch onto a short-term research project in Guam. They had experienced a typhoon, and one of my students' older brother, an architect, his firm was hiring to make recommendations for the rebuilding process after this typhoon. They sent me to Guam to do research on, with people, to see what kind of housing they wanted. And, of course, after a typhoon, all they're interested in is typhoon-proof concrete houses and that kind of stuff. And much more, the problem was they couldn't afford to do that. And so what I did was I went there and I lived there. I took leave from State, and I lived with a family, and I started to find out the cultural patterns. So I got some ideas as to what they thought family life was like, just by staying there. And then I found out that they couldn't afford to build the kind of houses they wanted. But they had a mutual aid system, neighborhood system, so I did a lot of investigation there, and found out how the mutual aid system worked, with the relatives, with the neighborhood, and the kind of patterns that they had. And all this fell apart during the typhoon, because everybody needed work, help at the same time. And so I recommended that we build the houses and have it designed so that you just have the roof extended, and maybe the kitchen and that kind of thing that needs all the equipment, but leave the rest of it undone, and then to invoke the mutual aid system to help finish that. And then to stagger the program because everybody needing help at the same time, it would not work. So that these are the kinds of recommendations that are made during the short stay in Guam. I forgot exactly what your question was.

MA: Oh, we were just talking about the state of Ethnic Studies.

JH: Oh, that's what I had in mind. All right, now when I went to Guam to the capital city of Agana, I looked like everybody else. Guam, as a matter of fact, had been under Japan's control for a while. Anyway, and, you know, when I went into the stores and everything else, I got waited on in turn, nobody shunted me aside or anything. And I suddenly realized, after all these years, after teaching at a university, that I was saying, "Oh, this is what it feels like to be equal and free." Well, all during my life, and particularly during World War II, subjected to all kinds of subtle and overt racism. Kicked out of restaurants, I've been kicked out of public pools, and rocks thrown at me and stuff like that. And then all kinds of other sorts of subtle discrimination all along. And I sort of internalized all this, so I was sort of, wherever I went, I was expecting these kinds of, it's normal. Well, when I went to Guam -- well, when I was in Japan, of course, the language is different, and so I just didn't even think about things like that. But in Guam, it was English, and the signs were in... and then I get this, suddenly, I thought, "Oh, this is what it feels like to be equal." I'd just internalized all this. So that this is part of why I keep fighting for civil rights.

When the Iraq war started, we formed, at the Museum, we formed coalitions with the Arab American Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. And I've met with Arab American Studies, I think it was, maybe it was Michigan as well, in conferences and things like that. We need to go a long way. So conferences like this one here is very important. We keep pushing.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.