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MN: Well, I know everybody's having a tough time economically right now, not just the Japanese American National Museum, but overall are you pleased with the direction the museum is going?

BK: Well, I don't look at the inside programs so much. I look at the health of the institution, whether it's staffed, whether people are coming and supporting us, and that we do have the ability to reach out and get more people to come in. We are in, I think at this particular time, in a very enviable position where the only thing we have is a mortgage debt. We don't have a bank loan. We have a mortgage, but the mortgage is something that can be reduced on an annual basis or accelerated with the help of the board, and the board is saying, "Let's get rid of the mortgage," so they're gonna work on that next. I think the kind of people that we've been able to get to, to do the necessary things has been amazing. You got people like our board members, they come from all over and we ask them to do something and they come, come through. I mean, it's hard to describe, hard to describe. We've got one family that's picked up five hundred thousand as a new project for them, and we sold the name for the forum for two million and that money's coming in on an annual basis, so that's gonna help us reduce the mortgage as well. And we have other commitments from new board members. I think in terms of a nonprofit we are, not only among the Japanese American, but as a nonprofit organization we're one of the very few, I think, that has a viable mission and a viable board to support it. And my tenure up to this point, twenty-five years, has been very satisfying to me, to see what (has been) accomplished... and I think it has yet to go. I'd like to see the mortgage gone, but it will be gone. I would like to see the 100th/442nd come, come up. They've had some very difficult times, but if it weren't for our museum and what we're saying in our community, it's brought our reputation as Japanese Americans back up where it should be, and Japan recognizes it as well and they know that we've been terribly mistreated and that we should be given a lot more credit for having done what we did for this country, as well as what we've done for them postwar. The Japanese Americans have really helped them get back on their feet. But anyway, overall I think life has been very busy (for us).

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.