<Begin Segment 42>

LH: How do you personally feel about the redress?

FK: I think the apology is great, and I think the money had to be involved because it's real easy to say you're sorry. I don't think the money, the money is more symbolic, more than anything else. I mean there aren't very many people who'd want to trade 3 to 3 1/2 years of their life, for the price of a car... and that's getting harder to (say) every year, because cars are going up. But to put it in perspective, when Americans were held in Iran for almost a year, not (by) their own government, but Iran, Congress appropriated them $66 a day for being held by a foreign government. And that would equate out to $80,000 (per person for three years) and not, not even held by your own government. If you take the total amount of money given in reparations, it's comparable to the cost of two B-1 bombers. I mean when you put it in that perspective, it, you think it sounds like a lot of money, but maybe it isn't.

But it's important because -- I went to an 8th grade class and was giving my slide presentation here on the Island and I said to them, "Do you ever think this would be possible to happen again where a group of Americans is rounded up and put into concentration camp?" And most of the kids said no, they don't think it would be possible. And a few that said, well maybe it could happen. So I said, "Well how about during the Gulf War? Did you know that the FBI was gathering information on Iranian-Americans, and actually had kind of tentatively set aside a spot or a site to put them?" And, it was real quietly in there for awhile, and then this one kid said, "Well you know, that might not be a bad idea because you never know what terrorists are gonna' do." And I said, "Well, what if we went to war with Great Britain again? You know, do you think all the kids that are of British extraction should be rounded up and put aside and put into a concentration camp?" And he didn't hesitate a minute, he said, "No, of course not." And I said, "Why not?" And he said, "Well they're more like us."

LH: Interesting.

FK: Yeah, so I'm thinking, well you know, this is a costly thing that you... as long as people don't feel good about themselves, or feel like they need something to blame to make them explain what's happening, then they're always going to be looking for someone (to blame) that makes them feel better. Whether it's out of fear or whatever it is, it's, it's... that's what happens. And I remember hearing Harry Kitano once, the guy from UCLA, and he said, "You know, most of the Asian Americans that are coming to the United States now, are probably different from Japanese Americans." That they're more aggressive, they've been into business a long time and like in Southeast Asia and so forth. So he said you'll find that most of them, when they get over here, will probably economically get some place that's significant much more faster than we did as Japanese Americans.

But he said, "You know something? The Japanese Americans are the only group that has gone through the process that they've gone through as far as losing their civil rights and, and having to deal with being in America and being thought as not being American." But he said if you get down to where who's gonna help other Asians to know what it's like to be American and to know the humanistic aspects of caring (for) each other to, to become a part of this country. He said, "There's no one else in the United States that's better suited to do that, than Americans of Japanese descent." He says, if anything, that's our calling. And I agree with him. I think, and that's maybe one of the reasons why I feel this with a passion, that I need to talk to, to schools and make sure that kids feel okay about themselves and that they actually fit into this country.

LH: I see.

<End Segment 42> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.