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TI: Okay. So today is January 26, 2011, we're in San Jose at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. And helping me with the interview is Steve Fugita, and on camera is Dana Hoshide, and my name is Tom Ikeda. And so, so today we're here with Jimi Yamaichi. And so Jimi, this is a follow-up interview. A little more than twelve years ago, Alice Ito interviewed you during the Tule Lake pilgrimage, and she did about an hour's worth.

And today what I want to do is to follow up by really looking at two major, I guess, achievements or things that you've been working on, the pilgrimage and the San Jose museum, and to use that as kind of a framework to kind of talk about your life and things that are important. So an example, let me start off. So earlier, or towards the end of last year, the museum opened up. And when I looked at the press releases, not only did they open up, but they celebrated your eighty-eighth birthday. So they wanted to celebrate your eighty-eighth birthday because of the tremendous contribution you made in the building of this new museum. And so I guess my first question is -- because I know you've put a lot of time and effort into the San Jose Museum here -- is why is this museum so important? Why is it important that people know the Japanese American story?

JY: Well, my belief, it's, the Japanese Museum is very important to me as well as to the Japanese community of San Jose. How we operated, why we all pulled together, do things together, I've been, shortest time I've spent on voluntary program is this museum because it came late, it was 1987 when we started. And I've been involved with the community on a volunteer basis for the last fifty, sixty years. And some organizations I've been with thirty-five years, thirty years, there's a lot of... but I felt that if I give my time, I like to give my time to the Japanese American community. See if we can help 'em along, work together, create a, more or less, community. That was my only... what would you say? Purpose of volunteering. 'Cause after you volunteer yourself, you volunteer to do things, and I enjoy it. Sure, sometimes there's a real low spot, like anything else, it gets really dragged down. But then again, you've got to pick yourself back up again and then move along.

TI: But when you think about your volunteering time, so you choose where you want to volunteer. And the museum is about remembering the past, something that happened. And when I go through the exhibits, there are, like, two main themes I see. One is what happened during World War II, but also the farming kind of side of the Japanese American community, Japanese community before the war. I guess the question is, why is it important to remember the past?

JY: I think as a whole, I have real fond memories. Sure, there's a lot of struggles during the Depression years, and a lot of hard work as a youngster. But then again, it was a challenge, I guess, for me to see what I can do to help the community gel together better. Because before the war, we were not gelling that well. I thought, as I was growing up there, in my younger years, my dad didn't drive too much. He drank so much that he didn't want to drive. So I used to take him around, since I was fourteen years old, I was driving the car for him as a chauffeur to go different places. He was with the church group, the Japanese Association, the sports program and so forth. And I go there and sit hours on end and hear them talk about this and that, but collecting money, it's always about money. And the outcome of the whole thing that really kind of turned me off was at the time, is when the San Jose Zebras was gonna go on a barnstorming tour up to Seattle area, Salt Lake and Denver, and they want to collect two thousand dollars to buy uniforms for the boys to travel. And that's in 1939 and 1940. I mean, two thousand dollars, you could have bought a Cadillac car, right? And today it's fifty thousand dollars as far as money's worth, concerned. And yet, there's only twenty guys, we collected two thousand dollars for twenty guys to put a full uniform on the guys. And what happened to other guys? Us farmers, we couldn't come into town to practice because we had to work on the farm. And there was only, the picture still hangs on the wall someplace, there's only two farmer's sons that's on the team out of twenty, the rest of 'em were all city boys.

TI: So do you think this was a divisive thing then? I mean...

JY: Yeah. To me, that was divisive. So I came back after the war, I said, "Let's see if we can change that." And I think the biggest thing that changed the whole thing, and I really worked on it, I was not on the ground floor, but when it was started, when I heard it was started, the CYS, they called it, Community Youth Service, San Jose Japanese American Community Youth Services, we called ourselves CYS. Everybody plays basketball, baseball, at the time we had all different sports we were playing, regardless which church, which organization, where you come from, come from the farm, come from the city, everybody has equal time to play. And then I really worked, I was with the group for about thirty-five years, helping them in different ways. So that kind of turned San Jose around where everybody was equal, regardless of where you come from. Like we have, say, a certain age group, we had four teams. Now, "You're a coach," "you're a coach," and so forth down the line, cannot say, "I want him, him, him." No. "One, two, three, four," "One, two, three, four," "One, two, three, four." You're number four one, you get the number four kids every time it go around, turn. So everybody gets equal kids, right?

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