<Begin Segment 22>

TI: Well, what would your observations -- growing up in Hawaii, you mentioned earlier it was a pluralistic where perhaps there was no dominant race and people kind of got along with each other. Then you come to the mainland and you have sort of this white or dominant culture, you have the black culture, you have Japanese Americans, I mean, it's very different. As kind of an outsider seeing this, what were your thoughts about all this?

JN: One is I felt the mainland Japanese were too timid, that the Hawaii kids were more... because, as I said, because of how we were raised and how we grew up, we were a plurality, right? And so my feeling was that they had to get out of their timidity, they had to get out there and start asserting themselves, basically what I felt. In fact, that's the reason I brought my kids back to Hawaii. I didn't want the growing up to be members of a minute minority. I wanted them to grow up to be members of a plurality. And for that, I gave up on my partnership in a law firm to come back here, and it's the best thing I ever did. And my kids are... I don't want to brag, but I'm bragging. They're both doctors, one's a medical doctor, the other is a PhD from Yale and Stanford. [Laughs] Can you imagine? I can't believe it. Anyway...

TI: And part of that is it's hard to grow up on the mainland if you're a small minority group, that there's just more pressure or whatever, more discrimination or whatever, just makes it harder to succeed.

JN: I think it gives them, to me, I felt like they had to have a shield-like to protect themselves really from the... because I lived there for, like, ten, fifteen years, right, on the mainland itself. And I felt like I don't want to be in a position where I keep, I would have to keep asserting myself and protecting myself kind of thing. I wanted to come back here, relax, and be a member of a plurality. And I wanted them to grow up the same way. Same time, though, once they grew up in high school, I wanted them, I don't want them to become provincial, I wanted them out of the islands and stay on the mainland, and get to school on the mainland. And one of 'em never came back. [Laughs] She's in Hong Kong. But anyway, that's the main idea that I see.

My relationship to the -- I call them haoles, right? And then with it carries kind of a lot of imageries and feelings already that we looked down on the Caucasians here, we called them haoles. The word that went with the name haoles was "dumb." "Oh, the dumb haole," "Dumb haole, dumb haole." So we go to the mainland and we run into these haoles, and we think, "Gee, dumb haole, what is he talking about? What's he asking me about Hawaii, 'Do you do this in Hawaii?' What a dumb thing to ask," kind of a thing. That's kind of the attitude I took towards the haoles basically. The blacks, I guess I felt like they were, they were hard luck, basically. They couldn't get out from where they were. I didn't know how they can... I just felt helpless, frankly. They were stuck where they were. I just didn't know how else to get them out of there. I felt... like this guy Norm Hodges I knew. Even though he had, he could mingle among the haoles and everything, but he could never become less than what he was, I felt. He couldn't reach out and reach for the sky. Anyway...

TI: So it's interesting to hear you say this, because recently we had an African American become president, and he grew up in Hawaii. So it's kind of a different place, I mean, a whole different way of thinking. Versus growing up on the mainland, where if you're African American, you're more of an oppressed minority.

JN: I have no doubt that if Obama had grown up on the mainland, he would be president. To me, anyway. I mean, I don't have any illusions that he also had prejudice against him for being a black. But they're such a minute minority here, you don't see that. You don't get treated badly. You get treated like you're a funny guy, "who are you?" kind of thing. But you don't get treated discriminatorily, I don't think. But you don't get treated as part of the group. You will, ultimately, though, I think. But don't forget, Punahou also is basically, we always looked at it as a "white" school anyway, right? Although my two kids went there. [Laughs] It's a good school, but it's still not...

<End Segment 22> - Copyright ©2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.