<Begin Segment 28>

TI: Okay. I'm at the end of my questions, so Tom, do you have...

Tom Izu: What role do you see San Jose Taiko playing in the future of the Japanese American community? There are so many questions that people are discussing. I know you're involved in the community outside of the taiko group, too, so what role do you see, as an organization, art organization, playing in the development of the Japanese community?

RH: Well, especially here in San Jose, we've, we always had a feel, and especially right now, that we're probably one of the key cultural institutions here that, that represent the Japantown, and we feel that's an important role for us to maintain and try to foster and increase. Because we're able to gain different kind of recognitions, luckily, so like, because with that we want to try to use that ability to try to make San Jose Japantown better known for what it is as a community, too. So even though we're traveling around or even outside the country about where we go, where we play and stuff, we're always talking about San Jose Japantown, even in our school shows. We may be in Midwest Iowa or Wisconsin, we'll ask, "Have you ever been to San Jose Japantown?" You know, this all white kids school program, they'll look at you, "What?" But so, "This is what Japantown's about," and we'll talk about that, and so they get an understanding that we as a Japanese community still have a community that we're connecting to, but we're Americans basically, and so what that means for being a person of color and how that's important and the music we're playing is part of that culture, but at the same time it's different than even what's being played in Japan. So we're trying to, it's hard to break down those barriers. People that never seen taiko, they immediately expect or assume we're from Japan, and we'll still get those questions, bizarre questions like, "Where in Japan is San Jose?" Or more typical ones, "Your English is very good," so those kind of typical questions always happen. It's really kind of unfortunate that people, the knowledge base still is very limited, unfortunately, and so we're still challenged to break down those myths and their images of what Japanese people are. And the fact that we can be in a very vibrant type of art form like what taiko's all about, and it's not just a classical musical form or tea ceremony or flower arranging, but there's other things happening in our communities. And I think for us it's important that San Jose Taiko, we're trying to bring all those things, especially back to here, back home.

TI: Good. Well, we're out of time. It's almost eleven o'clock, so Roy, thank you so much. Usually we take breaks in between, but I wanted to get everything, so we made you stay there for almost three hours. [Laughs] So thank you so much for the, it was a great interview. Thank you.

RH: Oh, thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity. I hope it's, you got something out of it. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, we got really good stuff.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.