<Begin Segment 39>

MN: Now I know you've also been very involved with Nisei Week?

YK: Well, yeah. Three years ago I decided to get away from Monterey Park, and I'd come back to Little Tokyo. And I was going to do a history of the redevelopment of Little Tokyo, and I was trying to work out a small contract with the CRA to give legitimacy to my study and so forth. And the things went round and round, and they said you had to tie it with a nonprofit, so I brought Bill Watanabe and the Little Tokyo Service Center and went around and around again, and then they were trying to tie us to another consultant. But anyway, in the end, because they were going to overcontrol what I was going to write, the interviews I was gonna do, write the questionnaire, and I said, "How dare they?" And so in the end I said, "Never mind, I don't want your grant." And also at that time, the Little Tokyo Historical Society I was with was doing a book on Little Tokyo. So I said, well, I'll help on that instead. I'm on the Little Tokyo (Community) Advisory Committee, which is a CRA committee, (and) Little Tokyo Community Council, which is all the businesses and organizations, and I'm on the Little Tokyo Historical Society, so I'm pretty active.

And then also three years ago they nominated me to be one of the pioneers, so I became a Nisei Pioneer. I told 'em, "No, I'm not old enough," and they said, oh, yeah, they had, from eighty, lowered it down to seventy. And it turned out one of my daughter's father-in-law also (who) used to be the Rinban at (Nishi Hongwanji). So our granddaughter had two grandfathers in the same parade. But anyway, that was another fifteen minutes of fame for me.

MN: How did it feel to be riding in the parade?

YK: Oh, well, yeah, it was kind of fun. Every time you see some people and (they) yell. It was kind of nice.

<End Segment 39> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.