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TI: So were you surprised at the reaction of the Japanese American community to Concentration Camps USA? Because you didn't write about the community, you really were writing, earlier you said, the oppressors, the government.

RD: Well, I knew about community actions, I mean, I'd had this reaction. Remember, I'd been talking to all kinds of people. I had figured out, by the time Concentration Camps came out, I had talked to more than a thousand people who'd been incarcerated. I did not do oral history interviews, I usually didn't even take a note. But I just talked to people, and I'd go outside and I'd take a note or write it down, or write it down when I get home, or don't write it down at all and count on my memory to remember the details. I've got a very good memory. You know, liars and historians need good memories, and I have generally a very good memory. But the basic reactions of Japanese American people that I've been with and in contact with, have been overwhelmingly positive, and I'm treated with, given too much honor and credit. I got a certain amount of stick in the early days from white people. Even got nasty anonymous phone calls, and the occasional letter after I'd been quoted in the papers or had said something somewhere, and occasionally somebody would stand up and ask a question. And that's continued since I've been out here. I went back... some time since 2005, in other words, in this century, I talked at Green Bay where one of my students teaches, and there were a couple of old vets who tried to say that that was all right. I don't argue with them, I just say, "Look, I'm a historian, this is what I think," etcetera, etcetera. "And, yes, by the way, I served in the merchant marine in the Second World War and in Korea. Where were you?" Well, it turned out one of these guys had never left the United States, which is ad hominem stuff, but that sometimes works.

And you get asked crazy things. Craziest thing I was ever asked was at a speech in a liberal arts school, college in Michigan. First question, in a brightly lit room was, "Are you a Japanese American?" [Laughs] I was really taken aback. But the faculty people who sponsored me were really taken aback, they told me later. And I almost gave him a smart answer, and I thought, "This kid may not be playing with a full deck. I don't know what's going on here." So I simply said no, my parents were immigrants, my mother's people came from Hungary, and my father's people came from England. And he said, "Thank you," and sat down, and the rest of the questions were normal.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2013 Densho. All Rights Reserved.