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TI: So Peggy, we spent the first hour talking about growing up all the way through your undergraduate, to Vassar. And we had just talked about post-Vassar, and you had left off talking about accepting this job in Japan?

PN: Oh, yeah.

TI: So why don't we start from there.

PN: I said before that I make these decisions, I don't think about 'em much, and then I get there and think, "What the heck am I doing here?" And that was another one of those decisions. Like I decided to go to Japan, I thought it was interesting and important to do. And then I got there and thought, "What am I doing here? Oh my god, I'm in Tokyo and teaching English to the Tokyo YMCA English language school, teaching English to nineteen and twenty year old girls, and I took some private clients. So just a couple incidents from Japan. One, what was incredible was for the first time, I looked like everybody else, and I'd never had that experience before. And as long as I didn't open my mouth or walk, then people would assume I was Japanese. As soon as I did either of those two things, they knew I was a gaijin. So that's one thing. The other thing is that when I grew up, people asked me, "What are you?" And I would say, "Japanese." I went over there and the Japanese nationals asked me, "What are you?" And I would go, oh, that's what I used to say. [Laughs] Now what do I say? So it really did help my identity because I realized then that I'm a minority in the U.S., and I come to Japan, and while I have an affinity for the culture, for the food -- not the language, unfortunately -- I still am not a Japanese national. I still am considered a gaijin, a non-Japanese. And that numerically, I will always be in the minority no matter where I am in the world. And I can either choose to feel good about that or bad about that, it's my choice. And that really did crystallize, "Who am I in this world?" It was very helpful. So I studied for the LSAT in Japan, and took the LSAT in Japan and applied to law school from Japan. And then came back and went to law school with a pretty strong sense of, I am a Japanese American, both of those things are important, and that numerically I would be in the minority. And I remember, at the time I came back, the national JACL convention was going to be in Portland, and my father was the president of the Gresham-Troutdale chapter, and then there was a Portland chapter. I remember writing this article about, every Sansei ought to go to Japan because of the impact on our identity of being in Japan. And I thought to myself when I was in Japan, "No wonder why people feel so powerful. I would, too, if I looked like everybody else." You know, everybody in power and everybody in fashion and every looked like me. Except for they did have European mannequins, which I thought was very strange. But nonetheless, that was a really very powerful and positive experience for me.

TI: And you think, or do you still think that if Sanseis and Yonseis went to Japan, that that would be a good thing?

PN: I do. I think seeing that, but also that Asian Studies, Asian American Studies programs, I didn't go to college when they had Asian American Studies programs. But I do think that identity is still an issue, still a question. It's still very important to talk about, like, who am I, and to be proud of that.

TI: And what I think I heard was, and the reason is, if they went, they would see people who looked like them in power, as mainstream, and that would be a powerful, empowering thing for these individuals?

PN: Yes, it would be. And yet, now, there are just many more Asian Americans and Japanese Americans in positions of power in this country. When I grew up, on TV, there were no Asian actors, there were no movie stars, there were no people in Congress, there was no one in the state legislature. So now, especially in a place like maybe Seattle or other places, there's a much stronger sense of an Asian identity, Asian community. And so it may not be the same thing to them as it was for me, and yet, I think it's very important to know, kind of, our roots and where we come from. See, I grew up being ashamed of that. So it was very helpful to go back and see how proud the Japanese are and how... and I realized, in Japan, that if they took away all the material things, they would still have a Japanese culture. I realized, in the U.S., our culture was our material things. And that really had an impact. The other impact on me was that when I was at Oregon State, there would be Japanese students from Japan, and I would be ashamed of them, I didn't want people to think I was one of them, I was born in the U.S., I'm an American, all that stuff. When I went to Japan, I realized how incredibly hard it was for them to come to the U.S., be in a different culture, go to college and succeed. And I realized that if I was at Tokyo University, I'd flunk out in a week. So I had a much greater appreciation and respect for their ability to come to a different culture.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.