<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So engineer, marching band, you also mentioned the political scene, the anti war movement, so what other things were going on during, in college?

RH: I just started to just check out the whole political scene, so at that time there was an Asian American group called Progressive Asian American Coalition that was starting on campus, and it was sort of a, and they called it that because they were, they were sort of a offshoot of the AAPA, the Asian American Political Alliance, I believe it was called, which had a more, very heavy political context to it when that organization first started on some of the other campuses, so at San Jose State they kind of changed the name a little bit, although some of the thinking was still in the same way, naturally, just looking at what it meant to be Asian American, the Asian American-ness in the political context, what that meant as far as racism, and not only what was happening here but also happening in Southeast Asia or even in China and all these different things. So, it was, I decided to join this organization just to see what it was. And there was other, sort of more social organizations on campus at the time, but this was one, I thought it was kind of interesting because it was a little bit more on the political side.

TI: And so I'm curious, this, so you're at the, in some ways, forefront of this use of "Asian American." I mean, prior to that you'd have Japanese students, Chinese students, but this concept of Asian American and coming together, what kind of discussion was going on in terms of why an Asian American sort of concept?

RH: I guess for us at the time was coming together in the masses in order to, to work collectively to achieve what we wanted to achieve, knowing that in singular ethnic entities where there's just Japanese American, Filipino Americans, Chinese Americans or whatever -- those are three dominant ones in, at that time, that were on campus -- that we wouldn't be able to achieve a loud enough voice for what we wanted to do, so the Asian American concept was trying to unify people, the Asian American people at that time, or Asians at that time. So this is before the concept of Pacific Islander was involved, like you're saying, and so, and it was trying to, so it was like creating this more, larger umbrella type of organization and concept behind what we were trying to do, basically, and at the same time being conscious that we had, as specific ethnic groups, whether you're Japanese or Chinese or Filipino, that you really also needed to be able to have the opportunity to study and, or be part of that whole scene. All of that was kind of important for what we were trying to develop on camps at that same time, and, and what was interesting was, and I, when I came to San Jose I didn't know there was a Japantown here, and it, but when I got onto campus and then some of the people in the organization started talkin' about, "Well, we need to work within the community and we have a Japantown here, so we should start helping to organize and do things in Japantown," basically. So that's when I started to, came down here to take a look and see what it was.

Japantown at that time, this is late '60s, early '70s, was very different here. It was a very slow, very sleepy town basically, and I talk about, I can remember where I could probably walk down Fifth and Jackson in the middle of the street with a blindfold and not worry about a car hitting me at eight o'clock at night, because that's how dead it was here, in the community basically, because it was just a whole different kind of environment that was going on here at that time. So, but we wanted to really try to look at how we could connect what we were doing on campus and what it meant for us to be students, but also to be concerned what was happening in the community itself, and so I kind of got involved with that during that school year, so that was '69 and then 1970, and people were also, and that's when the Asian American studies program was, at San Jose State, was just first being put together in a way. On the other, I think it had just started at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley in 1969, and the actual classes to be offered at San Jose State was supposed to be launching in fall of 1970 and so the spring semester of 1970, or the second semester I was on campus, I started to work with some of the students who were actively involved in trying to organize that program that was gonna launch in the, in the following semester.

TI: Now, was there much resistance by the administration for the formation of Asian American studies and things like that?

RH: There was, but a lot of that struggle had happened just prior to when I got involved, and it was a group of people who really kind of helped try to push things through and get things going at that time, so they were able to kind of set it up. And because it's something the other programs had already established at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley, at least we had a model to say to the administration, "Well, this is already in place at these other campuses. This is important." And we were partnering also, because, and although at San Jose State there were three other, the other ethnic groups that were trying to implement was -- it's kind of interesting because the Mexican American program was actually a graduate studies program that started out in that same time, and the black studies was a B.A. program, which was probably the largest one in different ways. The MAGs program, the Mexican American grad program, actually was tied into the social, social welfare program also, MSW program. Then we had the Asian American studies program, which was being only allowed to come in as a minor program, and so that was a little bit of a sore point for us, because we said, "Well, black studies is coming in as a B.A. program, you got a graduate program for all the Latinos, Mexican American program. How come we only get a minor program? What's the deal on that?" Because everyone else was getting much more resources than we were, and then just being housed on campus as far as facilities, they were all getting, like their own little old renovated house, which was kind of cool and then they gave us a portion of what used to be these old army barracks. I says, well, that's like... [laughs] they're being put back in camps, basically. 'Cause that's what it looked like, it was literally an old army barrack that they had sitting in the middle of campus and they gave it as a part of that, those barracks to have our offices.

TI: And in terms of student population, what percentage were Asian Americans at San Jose State? I mean, was it, compared to, say, the Mexican and the black studies?

RH: Actually, I believe even at that time we were, it was almost equal, but I think we were just a little bit more in population than the other ethnic groups.

TI: So in terms of population you were on equal footing in terms of that?

RH: Right.

Tom Izu: African Americans had a pretty big presence, didn't they, 'cause this was, was it after the '68 Olympics?

RH: Tommy Smith, yeah.

Tom Izu: Just not that long after that, though, right?

TI: Was it '68?

RH: '68 is when that happened, and they were San Jose State guys, so yeah...

TI: Yeah, because that made world news. That was, that was huge. In fact, for me in Seattle, that put San Jose State on the map, in terms of the '68 Olympics. I remember that.

RH: Right.

TI: So it's, it's, kind of a, again, a turbulent time. Lots happening when you're at San Jose State.

RH: Yeah, because in the, in my second semester, the spring semester in 1970, that's when the real violent stuff started happening on campus. Basically San Jose State became sort of the central anti war movement campus, surprisingly. It was, like, considered the headquarters of all the activities that was happening nationally, and the students were able to actually close the school down for a period of time, where the faculty and students boycotted and just weren't doing classes. And so all of that was going on, and Kent State happened, actually, so that was, the killings there, or the massacre at Kent State, and so that really kind of fueled all the issues of what was going on, basically, and in different ways. And within the Asian American group that I was involved with, again, just looking at, well, how can we be more active not only on campus but also starting to look at, we need to organize within the community so that people understand why we're saying and doing what we're doing, and so it can't be just a campus issue.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.