<Begin Segment 24>

TI: So Yosh, I'm gonna end this interview. This is kind of the fun part for me because for the last three hours we've been talking about your life, and now I have a pretty good sense of the arc of your life, and one of the themes that comes up for me when I think about you is you don't let obstacles get in your way. I mean, you, I think, have a pretty optimistic or do something attitude about things. And I just wanted to ask you, so what is it about you that helps you do things like the things you've done? Like the judo, the medical laboratories, all pretty amazing accomplishments, what makes you different from other people?

YU: [Laughs] I don't think I'm any different except that I, one of the things that, when I was a kid, my mother used to say, "You go to get an education and you can do anything. You have to have this strength. You have to be strong, but you also have to lead a good life, clean life, so that people don't, can't throw anything at you." And I sort of felt that I did lead a clean life. When I see some of these politicians and they try something and all these things come up, fall out, but also for the, I've always felt that you try to help people that are in distress and need help, and the Japanese, I felt we needed help and so we pulled together and tried to get all, all the Japanese to pull together so we can get something accomplished. And in doing that, like getting Miraido Village built, we had, I ran into a lot of obstacles in the city hall and everything, but I got to know these people politically as well, and I went with them to Beijing, I went with them to Japan, and I pointed out the things of Japan, the good things, and I said, "This is the kind of things that we need in Japantown." When they ran for office, we supported them, so because they knew, because I personally know that they feel the same way, they want an area that's nice and clean and safe, and I said Japantown can be nice and clean and safe, but we have to clean out, we need some help from the redevelopment, and we need help from small business, and all of these things like other places in San Jose has received. We don't, we haven't received anything, and Japantown here used to be a mudflat. It used to, it used to always flood, and I said we can't, and people, real estate guy says, "Send 'em to the Jap town there. They can live down there." Something like if you don't have any, if you don't have enough money or something. "Get a home down that way." I said, because we live that way, they think that's the kind of way we're happy with, and I said we got to fight this out and get out of this. And so, like I sort of take a lot of pride in the variety of it because that used to be nothing but a junk warehouse, and we were able to clean it out and we put retail apartments on, just like you see in Japan, like in Kyoto or something. I had shown the mayors, these are the kind of places, I took redevelopment director there and I said, "This is the kind of thing we would like to see in Japantown in San Jose." And it did work out.

TI: So this spirit you're talking about, in terms of fighting through obstacles, working together to improve these things, I hear stories from Niseis who talk about the Isseis did this, the Niseis did this, when you think about the future of the Japanese American community, where do you think it's gonna go? Do you think that same spirit is still here and will keep growing, or where do you think it's going?

YU: I think one of the things that you have to do is let them, today we have many, like Yonseis and they are married to some other race, but at the same time, you have to teach them some pride that you have Japanese blood in you. And to, like we went down to Norm Mineta's dinner in L.A., I took a bunch of people, and my nephew's, nephew and niece and -- I guess it's a grandnephew, great nephew -- went down. Now, my nephew and niece, both are PhD, academically they are right at the top, they got good jobs, everything, they do not know anything about the Japanese. They're great, they're, my grandnephew, great nephew, he doesn't know anything. So when I took him down there he was amazed, and so were my nephew and niece. They were amazed 'cause they had never participated in anything like that. So now they start to see what the Japanese in the past have done and accomplished, and why they're there, in a good paying position.

TI: So in the future, how will the story stay alive? I mean --

YU: Well, I, the way I feel, you have to get in there and bring people in. Right now I'm working with San Jose State professors. We got a lot of Nikkei professors there, and they don't, they don't intermingle with Japantown. They're academic there. But I'm trying to bring 'em down here, let them get involved in Yu-Ai Kai, the Buddhist Church, JACL, everything, and start to learn a little bit about the Japanese. I told the JANM, the museum, same thing, you got to get more people in there. And they're doing that now, they're trying to do that, but you got to get 'em and give 'em responsibility. Most of 'em don't have any responsibility.

TI: So that's the key thing, just don't bring 'em in, but give 'em something to do.

YU: Something to do.

TI: That makes a difference, that's important.

YU: They're, the Sanseis have done well. The Nikkeis have suffered, worked hard, but the Isseis, of course, helped put the Niseis through, and the Niseis had to fight to get to where they are. Now the Sanseis are born, Sanseis, they go, they're probably the best educated group in America. They got everything, and they, financially they are well off. As citizens they are probably the top.

TI: So why don't you see more Sanseis more involved, then?

YU: I think we made a mistake in not bringing 'em in. The Sanseis, most of the Sansei, they want to be out there doing their own thing and they, we just let 'em do it. Then we find out that, god, we should, we need help. We need help to do this, we need help. We don't have anybody.

TI: But it's too late now. Or they're not, they're not connected.

YU: Yeah, so it might be too late, but I don't know, we're working on it. [Laughs]

TI: Interesting. No, thank you, that was good.

YU: I'm not sure that that's the whole answer, but it's a, I tell everybody, you got to get 'em in here. And we are a bunch of smart guys at San Jose State, all with PhD's, but I don't know where the heck they're hiding. [Laughs]

TI: Well, sometimes I think they're, they may be book smart but not street smart.

YU: No, they're, you're right. They're not street smart. [Laughs]

TI: Okay. So Yosh, thank you so much for doing this.

YU: You're welcome.

TI: This was really enjoyable for me. I learned a lot and it was just fun.

YU: I hope you got something from it. [Laughs]

TI: No, this was good, so thank you very much.

YU: Okay, yeah.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.