Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Kazumi Yoneyama Interview
Narrator: Kazumi Yoneyama
Interviewer: Martha Nakagawa
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: May 23, 2012
Densho ID: denshovh-ykazumi-01-0016

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MN: Now, volunteering has been a really big part of your life.

KY: Yes, it has.

MN: We're going to get into your second turning point. Can you share with us how you started volunteering at KCET, and what did you start volunteering?

KY: I started in probably August of 1988. At that time, KCET, which is a PBS television station, used to have pledge drives where volunteers would answer the phone, people would call in and say, "Okay, I pledge X number of dollars to support your station." And I was watching that on TV and I called KCET and I asked if they'd take individuals as people to answer the phone. And the lady said, "Yes, why don't you come down?" So I went down there, and I met the volunteer coordinator who was a very pleasant, welcoming lady. And so I worked Pledge Night, and I found out that they had volunteer opportunities during the day in the office. So I started working there during the day doing clerical work. Because at that time, they had a lot of mail that they needed to be collated, stuffed, envelopes labeled and all that kind of work that was mindless but necessary. And there were a lot of fellow volunteers who were very interesting and nice to be around, so I started doing that.

And then, oh, about six months later, I was talking to a JA friend of mine, and she asked if I would be interested in volunteering for the museum. And I said, well, not particularly, and she says, "Well, I have a friend who's trying to recruit volunteers for the Japanese American National Museum, so let me put you in touch with her." So I went for an interview and they were interested in picking my brains on how KCET treated their volunteers. And then Brian Niiya was the Assistant Collections Manager at the museum then, and he was looking for someone to do data entry and word processing for him. And I told him, "Well, if you're willing to teach me, I'm willing to learn." And he was willing to do that. And so I started working for the museum in February of 1989. And I owe a lot to Brian, because I knew no Japanese American history up to that time, my parents being Issei, never spoke about themselves. I never asked them, and through Brian and the museum, I found out that my parents couldn't become naturalized citizens, that they couldn't own land in the state of California, and I liked the people who were working on staff at the museum, and I thought I could learn JA history and perhaps give something back to the community. And so I started volunteering there, and I'm still there off and on now.

MN: Now while you were reading a lot of these books, learning about JA history at the museum, you shared about this one book that you couldn't, you had a strong reaction to, you couldn't finish it. Why couldn't you?

KY: Well, this was John Tateishi's book, I think it's called Equal Justice for All. And in it he interviews these Niseis, and their stories are so frustrating to me in the difficulties they faced, and the prejudice they faced, that it just made me too mad to continue reading. So I never did read his book. I guess probably my first book that I read was Years of Infamy, and I read Frank Chin's book The Big Aiiieeeee!, so I got a good capsule version of why we Japanese Americans were being treated the way we were, what led up to it, what the consequences of it were. And being a volunteer at the museum, I got to meet a lot of the pioneers or legends like Michi Weglyn, Gordon Hirabayashi, Frank Emi. And those people turned out to be my heroes. And so I guess I have Brian to thank for that.

MN: Now, what were some of the early volunteer work you did for Brian that required word processing?

KY: Well, in the Collections Department, people submit artifacts and documents that they want to donate to the museum. These documents and objects have to be evaluated to see if in fact we really want them, and that they meet the mission of the museum. So if the committee chooses to accept them, then we have to write a letter to the proposed donor saying, "Okay, we will be happy to accept whatever," and we describe whatever the item is. "And we would like you to sign this deed of trust," which transferred the ownership of this object or document to the museum. So that has to go on in a formal manner, and we have to follow up until, in fact, these people return it. If in fact we do not want to accept, we still have to send these people a letter saying, "Thank you for offering this item, but at this moment, we cannot accept it." So at least we give them the courtesy of formally rejecting their item. Now, at that time, we also had databases by the donor's name, by a unique number that he assigned to each artifact or document that we accepted, and also by the type of item this was, so that we can do a search to look for, say, passports. So there were three databases, and at that time, we didn't have an integrated system, so we had three separate databases. And it was very tedious but necessary. And having been an auditor, I was used to detail work, and so I was happy to do that and I think I was able to do that.

MN: So you, as a volunteer, you took care of overseeing the letters going out, once the committee made a decision, and then as a volunteer, you helped categorize these donated artifacts.

KY: Right.

MN: Can you share with us some of the steps that is required, you gave this example, but another example you gave last time was the shamisen.

KY: Okay. There's a book called Anglo-American Cataloging Rules Volume 2. And they have a uniform set of descriptions that can be used and is accepted by museums, at least in the United States if not over the world. So that if you classify a musical instrument, you can classify it as a wind instrument, or a string instrument, or a percussion, or something like that. So you have a base, and so there are some artifacts that are uniquely Japanese, and trying to classify them as you think other people would do is not as simple as it sounds. Hanafuda is a Japanese card game. Now, that's pretty easy to classify as a game, as a card game. But as far as a shamisen goes, it's a musical instrument, it's a string musical instrument, but is it a guitar? Is it a banjo? So that's kind of judgmental. Whereas I may think it's a guitar, you may think it's a banjo. And so we may have the same artifact in our respective files, and yet classify it differently. So that if you did a search using your criteria, you may not find that I had a similar type instrument. So that was kind of interesting most of the time, frustrating at other times. And it was, it was something that helped me learn more about Japanese American artifacts, because an artifact may have begun in Japan, but when it comes to this country, it changes.

MN: Now you did another very tedious but very important work in helping to organize and file newspaper and magazine articles? Can you share with us what went into this work?

KY: Well, at the time that I started, we had something called a "Subject File" where we had manila folders that covered a subject because there wasn't enough about that particular subject to have a separate file for it. And so we had a collection of theses and dissertations, we had magazine articles about Japanese Americans, Japanese American history, and so someone had to physically separate them and prepare manila folders and keep a database for that. And again, it was not something that required a lot of judgment or smarts, but it was something that required time and enough care to make it accurate. And so I did that for Brian, and we also started a bibliography of the books that we did have. And this eventually turned into the Hirasaki National... RC. So that was something that Brian started. And again, he allowed me to take home some of those books. And so I probably read most of the textbooks that you have to read to get an Asian American Studies Degree.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.