<Begin Segment 12>

TI: So let me, let me play devil's advocate on this one. So here's civil rights, you have organizations like the NAACP, I mean, so it's an African American organization to advocate for civil rights, so wasn't there an argument that CINO, by being, organizing Japanese American collegiates that you could actually be a force in the Civil Rights Movement?

NA: Well we saw, at least those of us who got elected, saw this to be a whole lot more social than anything, and we thought that's fine. We can be straight up and be social, but under the bylaws that we are it's just being limited to nobody but JAs, and that we thought stood not in good standing for what we could be. And so it was real -- [laughs] I'm laughing because, oh my god, I never thought --

TI: So you, so you killed an organization. [Laughs]

NA: Not me, but our little group. We basically, well, but it was voted by everybody. It wasn't like, it wasn't like we killed it, but we brought it to the table, that in today's -- today being 1956, I guess, '57, I can't remember -- that what are we standing for? And that we can regroup and become, but as we were, then we should really consider that we should not exist...

TI: Right. So that's, I guess, a question, so was there a proposal to create a new organization --

NA: Yes.

TI: -- that was more focused on political...

NA: No. No, they wanted to be the same old CINO and so they tried to organize the next year, and they pulled together another conference the following year by another group of leadership, but then after that that's the end. You never heard about CINO after that.

TI: But the ones who wanted to end it because it was so exclusionary...

NA: It was very much against --

TI: But was there a, so okay, we can formulate a new organization that perhaps is more inclusive, that would do something? There was no -- again, here you are, you have the Nisei collegiates, sort of, in some ways people say the best and brightest of the community.

NA: They just wanted to have fun. I guess.

TI: [Laughs] Okay.

NA: I mean, there was some people thinking that way, but then already we were, not we, me, not meaning me necessarily, but there were people already now working with other civil rights multiethnic kind of activities, so it wasn't... I guess. That's the only thing I could think about, thinking about the president whose name I can't remember, but I know for sure he was, he got into law and he certainly was much more into a multi, mixed kind of activity.

TI: So for you was there some frustration? Here -- you talk about getting involved with multiethnic groups, looking at civil rights -- here you're part of another organization that is Japanese American. Were you frustrated there wasn't more discussions or time spent on some of these large political issues happening in the United States during that time period?

NA: It was my growing up time too, trying to understand that myself. I think if I'm really honest, when I'm there all these things are just poppin' out, right? I mean, it's, there I really start thinking about things, becoming, more and more expanding your understanding and appreciation. I remember one time listening on the radio, I mean, to the radio, and there was somebody talking, and I can't even remember what, but what impressed me was it was a Southern, American from the South and he's talking and saying, you know, I can't tell whether he's an African American or if he's white. I really can't tell. So what is this that we're thinking about? I didn't have answers, but that kind of stuff was going through my mind, like hmm, so we could all be colorblind and we couldn't tell and that thick accent could be coming from anybody. As much as one day I heard a dignitary from, this is a foreign dignitary talking a real thick -- what I thought was thick -- British accent, and it turned out he's from an African state and he's a South, I mean an Africana, or African who was educated in England and he was, I forget even the discussion. But it's that kind of thing, like saying, okay, and that starts to, you... well, it got planted in my head, anyway.

TI: Okay. So at this time your involvement with the civil rights -- I mean, it's still a little early. We're in the '50s.

NA: Yeah, it's still, still early.

TI: But just, you're just now, just seeing things, I guess, maybe.

NA: Yeah, or just beginning to kind of start thinking, reckoning some stuff that isn't necessarily on the table or in the discussion. Or you start thinking about, gee, you start thinking about things as you get exposure.

TI: Okay. Anything else about college we should cover? Any other, whether it's school or anything else, anything else that happened? Did you get, ever get in trouble during your...

NA: No. I guess in some ways there were times that I felt that I was very, maybe I was too young, and the feeling I got that is that it was so many -- as I explained earlier, that there were a lot of vets that had returned, so even in our discussion in the after lecture or whatever, you realize, oh, I don't even have one iota of what they're, have experienced. I mean, it was just way worldly, and so I thought okay, I got to learn a whole lot more of, however. But yeah, I think that was one thing that struck me. And then I wasn't quite sure if I was gonna go to med school because by that time I realized, hmm, for certain I know where my strengths are, but I didn't venture out of the science area. Maybe if I didn't eventually get married and... I would've maybe changed to a whole different major. I don't know. But that was a thing that I realized at one point.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.