<Begin Segment 29>

MN: Anything else you want to add on to your life?

RN: Huh?

MN: Anything else you want to add on to your life story?

RN: Nothing.

MN: I have one other question to ask you. We were talking the other day about how you felt about what we do.

RN: Huh?

MN: How you, how you felt about what we do about recording Japanese American history.

RN: Yeah, what about it?

MN: What do you think about what we do? Do you think we're just wasting our time recording life histories like this?

RN: No, you're not wasting your time because the third generation, their opportunities are open and they know it. All these different people I hear about and what the kids are doing, you'd be surprised all the different work that these third, people like your generation are doing. I got a guy living with me and he has two sons. One day I asked him, hey, what are your kids doin' now? 'Cause this was, say, forty years ago when the kids were small, same age as my son. He says, he told me what they were doing. They're very, very high technical jobs. I can't remember what it was, but I never heard of those jobs, but they're real technical jobs his two boys are workin', almost, to me sounded like they're the same field, but they're not. So people like you, there's job openings and they're finding different work to do. They're doing it on their own.

MN: But do you think it's important to record our Japanese American history?

RN: Well, to me they're interested in Japanese American history. People like you, your age, they're not interested in Japanese American history. Only people interested in Japanese American history is the third generation or so. Even me, second generation, don't care about Japanese American history, because you're, after all these intermarriages and everything, it don't mean nothin'.

MN: So should we just forget about it?

RN: [Laughs] I don't know what to say. I don't care what, you're gonna take care of yourself. My kids are all on their own. I don't know. And my daughter, she married a white guy. They got a, they got a ainoko kid and he's on his own now, pretty soon, and he has nothin' to do with Japanese. They got nothin' to do with Japanese. It's immaterial what you do 'cause they all blend in little by little.

MN: So you don't think somewhere along the line he might become interested?

RN: What?

MN: You don't think if, after he gets older he might become interested?

RN: Who?

MN: Your grandson.

RN: I don't think so. I don't think so. Like Mark, my son's boy, he's a hapa, right? What, what's he got to lookin' forward to? Nothin' but his own life, his own American life. He's got nothin' to do with Japanese life. Depends on who he marries, in the first place. I don't know. My sister, my daughter up in Seattle, she's got a hapa boy and he lives in an American neighborhood, everything. He's got nothin' to do with Japanese. He's got a hakujin girlfriend, and so I don't know what he's gonna do. He, with a Japanese background. I don't think he even cares about his background.

MN: Anything else you want to add, Roy?

RN: Huh?

MN: Anything else you want to add?

RN: No. That's why I, lot of Sansei, they, they're interested in your future, but I don't it makes any difference.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.