<Begin Segment 20>

TI: [Looking at photographs] So Paul, earlier in the interview we talked about your family. And so tell me who is in this picture.

PT: This is my father and my mother, and that's my older sister and that's me.

TI: And so about how old are you right there?

PT: Looks like less than one. Probably five months or six months.

TI: So this would be in the Auburn area?

PT: 1923.

TI: I think you mentioned Auburn.

PT: It's at Auburn.

TI: It's a very elegant photograph. And then this next picture...

PT: You could see I'm sad and not very happy. I just left the University of Illinois, and this is in Chicago and I'm just about ready to leave for California.

TI: So this is right after that story where you dropped out because that one writing instructor... So next I want to talk about some of your current work. We talked a little bit about The Potato King and Mr. Shima. What you did was you actually went to the U.S. House of Representatives, they had hearings about the Japanese immigration.

PT: This is going to terminate all Japanese coming to this country.

TI: Right. So this led to the 1924 Immigration.

PT: '24 or '20?

TI: Well, this is 1920, but then 1924 was when the Immigration Act happened. And so this was kind of that story you told me, so this was at Congress, and they asked Mr. Shima about interracial marriage.

PT: They don't come right out and say "interracial marriage." They call it "assimilation."

TI: Well here Mr. Raker says, "From a racial point of view, you are opposed to the intermarriage of Japanese with Americans, are you not?" And then Mr. Shima says, "I?" and Mr. Raker said, "Yes." Mr. Shima says, "I don't care about." And then he keeps pushing him, and then whether or not it's a good or bad thing, and this where he brings up the metaphor about potatoes and how the better crops are the ones that get mixed. So for your current work, you're actually going back to the source documents, things happening in the '20s, and this sense of, in some ways, this fear of Japanese and Chinese mixing with the white race. Which brings up another article you showed me. This is about the intelligence tests.

PT: Intelligence tests in...

TI: Vancouver, British Columbia.

PT: Vancouver, yes.

TI: So this is dated 1926, and tell me, what did this article talk about?

PT: It came from educational psychology, but the point that's being made here is the Chinese and Japanese are smarter than white kids. And the commentary is very, very interesting, wouldn't you say?

TI: So I'll read it. So the final line of this article is: "The presence of so many clever, industrious, and frugal aliens constitutes a political and economic problem of the greatest importance."

PT: So this is a problem for white America. [Laughs] And this becomes an issue all the way. And I think that's the reason, when the war broke out, we were imprisoned. This goes on and on, even the Depression, it goes on. And then Stanford University has also studied the Japanese, and up and down the state, the Japanese are just as smart as white kids, if not smarter. That's the picture. Early on in the books they would say, "Nisei wants to go to college to become a doctor." And they would say, "Well, being a doctor is the same as becoming a farmer, so you should become a farmer instead."

TI: So these are like high school counselors?

PT: No, no, these are findings at the college level. This is a Stanford publication, and they are suggesting to college, high school advisors, that they should not even think about becoming a doctor. That you could do just as well at being a farmer.

TI: Even though they score really high on intelligence tests, the dexterity, all those things, they would point them away from some of these fields.

PT: Yes.

TI: Interesting. And this is all documented. This is all written papers.

PT: So the point I'm trying to make is that much of the books on what happened is a discussion of the military and a discussion of the governor and so forth, but this stuff is working way, way back. [Laughs]

TI: Well, I'm going to look forward to your work and your book. The last thing I wanted to finish up with is, I walk around the house, and in these little nooks and crannies, I see these little certificates and awards. I just wanted to have to explain some of these to me. This is from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 2007. So describe this. Where did this award come from, and what was this for?

PT: Well, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency deals with what the criminologists call delinquents. And then the person who was managing this thing was also a professor. And the real reason he gave it to me is because I lent him some money to buy his first house. [Laughs]

TI: [Laughs] And so criminology... another area that you've been recognized is Asian American Studies. During the interview we talked about how you had, in the '60s, pretty much helped start Asian American Studies.

PT: Well, it started out with one of my criminology students, Chinese guy, his name is Greg Mark. He himself has a very interesting history because they didn't come here like many of the Chinese came here. His father or his mother were in art. At that time they just act it out, there's no music or anything like that, you have to play with it.

TI: Oh, Chinese theater?

PT: Chinese theater, yes. So his family is highly looked upon in both San Francisco and Oakland. So when he first married, he invited all of his...

TI: Not tongs?

PT: No, I don't know what it is. Anyway, I'm sitting in the front with my wife and all these invited people. And these members of the group are all sitting back together, they're all single men, and very stoneish and just nodding their head and that's it. That's the first time I've ever attending a formal marriage like that. Anyway, because he was my student and because he got his doctorate, he's becoming a PhD? She laughed at him. She was an upper-class Chinese, and that didn't go anywhere. And then he married a half Filipino woman and had a child. That did not last because she was fucking some other guy. And now, believe it or not, he married a doctor. And this doctor has set aside her practice to be the mother of the two little kids. We just saw them very recently.

TI: Okay, there's one more thing I want to show, this is the last one. And I like this one, this is from the U.S. Congress, Congressional Recognition presented to you signed by Congressman Dellums. And what I'm guessing is you really sort of increased dialogue on some very controversial issues. You were the edge that kind of, your work, that got discussions about police violence and things like that. Tell me about this.

PT: The blacks were very concerned about the police killing so many blacks. And he's supposed to represent this area, and the case I had in mind was a police officer stopped a black guy who was some kind of science thing. It was about five or six o'clock in the winter, just before dinner, it's dark. He made the mistake of stepping out of the car, and the police came and shot and killed him. There's just too many of that, and nothing happens to the police officer. All he has to say is, "I thought he had a gun in his hand." And this guy knows it, so he gave me this.

TI: Because what you did is you helped shine a light on some of these issues.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.