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But I eventually found out that the vast majority of Asian first generation -- pardon me, Asian second generation, first generation Americans -- like most immigrant groups, had very little command of serious Japanese; they could talk to Grandma. Or in some cases their mothers, but more likely Grandma, and that's about it. But if they had to do anything serious, they were absolutely at sea. They might be able to do the family name in a sort of sloppy brush stroke, but not much more. So that was not inhibitive. But even so, even if I had... well, if I'd had Asian languages, I don't know what might have happened, but I didn't, and I thought that that wouldn't stop me from doing significant further work. Because I was really, in The Politics of Prejudice, not writing about the Japanese, but writing about the oppressors of the Japanese. And the same is true -- to a lesser degree -- of the Concentration Camps USA book. This is what was done to them, although they begin to take a role. And as my work has progressed more and more, I'm focusing on Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals.

And in the book I've just finished, for instance, which deals with the Japanese American cases, which I dealt with in Concentration Camps USA, but in this book, I'm dealing with them not from the point of view of the government, but from the point of view of four Japanese American plaintiffs whose names you all know. And in the book I'm contemplating, to be done with Barbara Takei, one of the things I'm doing right now is looking for particular individuals, both oppressed and oppressors, to hang things on. Because I want to write not about a system -- although I'll write about a system -- the book is about... not focuses on Tule Lake, will be about Tule Lake. I've got one page, a one-page outline for the book. It's all fairly clear in my head of what I want to find out, but I haven't found it all out yet. Barbara knows more about it, I think, than any single person today, and to get her to work with me on it was... and it'll be, like Daniels and Takano, it'll be Daniels and Takei. Always pick a name in the first of the alphabet when you're in the army. Some of us sat around and said, "We're going to change our names to Aab, A-A-B," so we'll be first.

TI: Or Z-Z-Z so you'll never get volunteered.

RD: No, but none of my friends would ever volunteer for anything. [Laughs]

TI: But is fair to characterize -- so your early works, Politics of Prejudice and Concentration [Camps] USA, was really focusing more on the government action. And you're saying your later works you are looking at it from both sides a little bit more. Is that kind of what you're... to summarize what you were just talking about?

RD: I think that's true. I wouldn't... I think of it still more personally, I think of it in terms of oppressors and the oppressed, perpetrators and victims, in that sort of way. Because you're talking about both sides, that sort of assumes a kind of parity, a kind of equilibrium, well this is etcetera, etcetera, Republicans and Democrats, no, it's not like that. This is another country altogether.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2013 Densho. All Rights Reserved.