Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Nancy K. Araki Interview I
Narrator: Nancy K. Araki
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: September 3, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-anancy-01-0017

<Begin Segment 17>

TI: How about difficult memories? Anything that was difficult in terms of, like, an emotional level?

NA: I guess probably, well, "difficult" is an interesting word, because I ended up getting chosen to be the May Princess out of our school, grade school. We had two princesses and a queen, I guess it's a queen. I don't remember, but the whole camp May Day kind of celebration, and I remember how hard that was. I didn't like that.

TI: And what was it that you didn't like?

NA: Well I knew, I guess because, I mean, you got a pretty dress, you got this thing on your head, you got to be in front of other people and you knew other people wanted it and you didn't care, but so you, and I guess by that time you know enough about... part of, part of what I had gleaned on very early through the camp time, and I think it's because I hung around with adults, listening in on adults, and I think I've mentioned before of hearing the, the malicious gossip kind of thing. And the hurt that was, you can't imagine, or there was hurt because there were these kinds of things happening among people, and so even, I don't know if I'm as an adult thinking and giving you the words, but it's really that kind of sense of I don't want to be put into that kind of place of being the taunt or because of somebody else get some other feelings or something. It's along that line, and so it's, but being an obedient daughter, I wouldn't just go onto a protest and say, "No, darn it, I'm not gonna do it." That, so that kind of conflict, I think, I really felt early.

TI: Was it almost like, you hear this saying sometimes from community members, "the nail that sticks out gets, gets pounded," it's almost like whenever a person stands out in any way, whether good or bad, they're, they're noticed. Is that kind of the feeling?

NA: Yeah, that interpretation is kind of, has multiple ways to interpret that because you're taking it out of the context of Japan where it's the conformity everybody needs to have for survival, and in a way it's here, but in, in America it's kind of like, yeah, you need that for leadership vision, all the things that we kind of talk about, but at the same time, the ones that aren't doing it, you kind of fall back into a pattern of saying put, you get put down kind of thing, but yet you need it because you're in a different culture.

TI: Because even, in your case, sometimes when you take a leadership position, sometimes as a leader you sort of, you know people talk about you probably. Is that kind of the theme sometimes?

NA: That's why I don't take leadership roles. [Laughs]

TI: Or you're, or you're the princess --

NA: Well that, yeah, I don't know, that part I don't know. It was just an inside conflict that I was having. I can't tell you what they were really saying.

TI: That's why, when you paired it with the gossip, and that's why I was wondering if that was kind of so that somehow you were singled out as the princess --

NA: Yeah, but it wasn't just me. It was Miyoko Kaneko, the two of us were the princesses, right, so I mean, I know Miyoko's popularity and all that. And I was the, kind of the new kid, too, remember, coming in midway, but, and just sliding in. So you had the difference, the dynamics, but I was really conscious, I guess. Maybe that's all one could say is you become kind of conscious of, or at least I, I somehow became sensitive at a very early age of understanding human interactions and roles or, I don't know how I'm describing this, but it's just, it was more that emotional level. If I want to really do an analysis there might be other words I might use, but trying to keep it as how I was truly feeling, and perhaps all that other stuff is the actual going on, but as a kid it was just being really mindful of the environment and partly that I think comes in because I hung with my adult nurturers.

TI: Good.

NA: And the neat part is they also were responsive to inquiries I had, to the best that they could.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.