<Begin Segment 25>

ME: Now you mentioned the peace movement, when did you first get involved as a peace activist?

AK: After I came back from camp, and after I came back -- oh, actually, I really got involved after I came back from college. So before I got married, and then I continued. And so I've been active with the American Friends Service Committee for many years.

ME: And so how often would you go on marches?

AK: Well, the marches weren't that often, maybe six months, maybe... you know, twice a year, once a year or whatever. But I was going to the meetings, you know, coalition with women about peace and children, and also I've always been anti-war and anti-nuclear weapons. So ever since, with Floyd when I always commemorated August the 6th, the bombing of Hiroshima will make a peace movement out of that.

[Interruption]

ME: Aki, how did your camp internment experience influence your work for peace?

AK: Well, because I realized what war can do and the injustices that occur for reason of the war. There is no justice when war takes place. And my folks emphasized the fact that this incarceration was due to war, this was an injustice due to war. And that we should always make sure that there is no more war, and we should work for peace. My father was a real strong pacifist. And he was a real peaceful man, and I just felt like, and my mother, too, and they were never critical of people. It was just amazing because my mother never gossiped and talked bad about people. And when we would do that, she would really frown on it; and wouldn't join in to cheer the -- sometimes it's, you think it's fun to hear all these negative things about people, and say, "Ooh," sensationalize it. And my mother discouraged that. And so, I'm very lucky to have those kind of role models. And then getting influence like, people like Floyd Schmoe and people in the peace movement. And peace empowers you. Peace empowers you so that it's such a satisfying thing because you could see the good that it does. And it's not what you're doing but it's -- but empowerment of peace makes such a difference for so many people. Made my teaching real exciting and fun. And you see the results, and you realize that it's the most positive thing that could happen.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.