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BN: And then to go back to UCLA and to California, one thing I was wondering about is if you got to know or were involved at all with what were now, what was a significant Japanese American population in California, either southern or northern during the time that you were there.

RD: Well, when I came back, one of the first things that happened was I went around to see the people I knew before, and to put it back, I got hired back as an assistant professor of history.

BN: Well, actually I meant when you first, from your grad student time.

RD: Well, I had no significant contact with Japanese Americans until I went up to San Francisco and started interviewing people I could discover who were community leaders and old enough to know some things. And the initial reception was, to say the least, cool. Not in its current sense, but cool as in frigid. And the breakthrough came when I went to see the elder Abiko at the Nichi Bei and he was quizzing me to see what I knew about Japanese American things. Asked me about the Gentlemen's Agreement and I knew about that. He knew some things that weren't true. And then he started talking about the 1924 business and I said, "Yes," and I talked about what I knew about Secretary of State Hughes and the Japanese ambassador Hanihara, and he said, "That's not his name, his name is such-and-such." I said, "No, Sir, I'm afraid it was Hanihara," and I spelled it. "No, no, no." And I said, "Yes." So he said, "I'll show you." He went over and he picked up a book, then he looked at another book, and I think he looked at a third book, and they all said, apparently, Hanihara. And he came back and was very apologetic and hollered out something. A few minutes later, somebody came in with tea. I figured I was in. And he gave me, he told me who to see, and he talked to them, and that helped a great deal.

I began to get a feel for Issei. I'd had some briefings from people. The historian of Japan there, Robert Wilson, who later collaborated on a book with Bill Hosokawa, had given me some things to say about dealing with community leaders. And I knew full well why they weren't necessarily thrilled to see me, and they were people that didn't want to talk about it. But most of the community people I talked to were... but there were no, there was one Japanese American graduate student. Matter of fact, we were fellow teaching assistants with Saloutos although he was a specialist in Japan. This was Masakazu Iwata who was a lifelong friend. And I don't know if you know anything about his background; he didn't like to talk about it. He was not a long-term Kibei, but he was trapped in Japan and wound up in the Japanese army. So he was very much an older person. And I don't know what he did, and he didn't want to talk about it. I suspect that he was involved in some kind of intelligence work in Tokyo, which meant if a bomb didn't fall on him he was reasonably safe and reasonably sheltered, and until very, very late in the war, reasonably fed. So if you had to be in Japan, I guess that would have been better to be, say, down south somewhere. But I don't know that any of this is true. It's clear he didn't want to talk about it, and I wasn't going to press him about it. He later developed this interest in Japanese agriculture. His family had been agricultural and wrote that two-volume history. But his major thesis, which was a published book from his doctoral dissertation, was a biography of Okubo, the man who's called the "Bismarck of Japan," a Meiji-era figure of some substance. I've read it. I have no qualifications to evaluate it, but it seems to be a substantial, well-respected work.

But I had very little contact with Japanese, and there weren't that many around. They were beginning to come. When I came back... let me make sure I'm right here. Academic '61, '62 and '63, I'm teaching in Platteville, Wisconsin. Then I come to UCLA, so I'm coming back to UCLA three years later, but four years since I've been in a classroom. And the Nisei presence is much, much greater at that time, although there'd always been Nisei at UCLA, many, many more so than Berkeley. And when we talk about teaching at UCLA if we do, I'll talk about experience with Japanese American students.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2013 Densho. All Rights Reserved.