<Begin Segment 17>

TI: Anything else that we should talk about while I have you here? I'm sure I'm missing lots of things in terms of your career or other organizations I think I have the Heiwa Terrace as another activity, this I guess is a senior home?

KY: Senior residence, yes, and I've been involved with the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society as well.

TI: So tell me about that. How did that get started?

KY: Well, I think there's always been an interest in preserving the history of Japanese Americans here in the city. And also I think it's awfully hard to separate our whole experience of the internment and the evacuation and so I was one of the initial members that felt that it was important to preserve that and to continue to collect material to... so that's how, you know, an archives.

TI: And the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society started... I just went on the website was looking around doing some research. You're also involved with the JSC, and the JSC has something called the Legacy Center so why two different organizations? Why didn't this come out of the Legacy Center at JSC?

KY: It's again this whole issue of maintaining your own identity, and there's been a hope that we could combine all of this together but it's not been possible. And so I don't know eventually if that will come but the Service Committee felt it was important for us to establish a legacy center and so it's doing... there's overlap.

TI: Overlap and from your perspective maybe a hope in the future that they might work together more.

KY: Yeah, that there can be one organization that would. And by doing that I think that you mobilize support and finance and maybe... see, our dream has been to have a building sometime but that takes a lot of money. That we could have like a museum here in Chicago.

TI: Yeah, I think it would be interesting because again I think that would be very different than a West Coast museum about the Japanese American experience because in Chicago it is very different than say a San Jose experience or a Los Angeles or San Francisco or Seattle. Good, okay, so I'm at the end of my questions. Is there anything that you want to mention or talk about that we haven't covered yet?

KY: Oh, let's see, I can't think of anything.

TI: Okay. Well, so, Kiyo, thank you so much for doing this interview. I've learned a lot, yeah, it just fascinates me as I go to different communities and what's coming clearer to me is how the experience of starting something new in Chicago is a very different experience than returning to a place like Seattle and in some ways just restarting what was already there.

KY: Right.

TI: And I think it takes different types of skills and I think it probably even shapes who or how and what happens to the community because of that. That what I'm just starting to get my fingers around.

KY: Yes, because I really feel that... I had a thought here but that there... it is unique and I think that we... there are lots of stories that -- oh, I know what I was going to say. See, one of the things, yeah, this is what I was going to say, one of the things that is unique about Chicago is that we're scattered all over. There are people who are living in the suburbs, there are people who live in the city and it's very difficult to get people together. They want... for instance we had a activity at the Service Committee and it was a event that brought the community together. Well, to put on a program like that, it takes a lot of manpower and support. Well, we said, we don't have it so we'll discontinue it, and we did, and the people were very very upset. "You can't do that." But that what makes it whereas on the West Coast I think I get the feeling that people live in communities but we're so scattered that it's very, very difficult to keep the financial support and the participation support here in the city. That's what makes it difficult, I mean, all of us should be supporting an agency like the Japanese American Service Committee because it is for the Japanese community but it's very difficult to convince people of that.

TI: So looking in the future what will happen to the JSC and the Japanese American community?

KY: Well, that's a good question. I think this is the struggle of the agency to begin to define what they need to be doing. I think just taking the Legacy Program, this is something that all of us need to be invested in because this is going to tell our story but it's very difficult to get people to see this vision and the need for it.

TI: Okay, well, I think this is a good place to stop the interview so, Kiyo, thank you so much.

KY: Okay, well I hope it was helpful.

TI: Oh, it was very helpful, thank you.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.