<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So I want to go back to the book. So tell me about the reaction to the book, when the Stanley Hayami book came out.

JO: Well, it hasn't had a great circulation because I could not find a publisher that wanted to take it up. [Interruption] So I decided that perhaps if there was a film, that that would bring young audiences to a book, because getting them to a longer story, I had hoped would be done by the film. But the film has -- although I helped to write the film, I wrote a good part of the film, and the film is based on my research -- the film has a different title than the book, and there is no connection. Well, there's a line that goes by very quickly, but the California Civil Liberties project gave me the funding for the book and then the funding for the film, or partially for the film. It was not enough, we had to raise funding elsewhere as well. So the film didn't quite do it for the book, and I think the book will go out of print very soon, as so many of these stories do, but it's there. I don't know what else to say.

TI: So here's a question in terms of your, how you're received in maybe the Japanese American community telling these stories. It sounds like you've received excellent cooperation with institutions like the Japanese American National Museum, and I'm just curious of how, what the reaction has been with the community in terms of your writing. In particular, I think the Dear Miss Breed, which has gotten a lot of publicity, it's a well-known book, and are people surprised that, one, you're not Japanese American, or you're on the East Coast, or what are some of the things that you've come across?

JO: Well, people want to know why, what brought me to it. And I think you can tell from my life story that there are a lot of connections, there are parallels. They are not the same, no, I was never in a camp, and there are people that said how could I be writing about this since I was never in a camp and my family was never in a camp. I think you don't have to have been in a camp to understand, or to be able to write about -- I'm not writing about me, I'm writing from the voices of people who were there. And true, people are telling me stories, some of the stories are coming as long distance memories, but Stanley's story was immediate. It was from an immediate time, and so were the Breed letters. They are keeping those stories alive. So how do people react to that?

TI: Maybe this is the question I'm asking or wondering about: do you bring maybe a different perspective? I mean, by not maybe being in the community, and either going through the experience or having a close friend or family member go through the experience, that you can see the experience in a different way that helps tell the story? Does that make sense? It seems like, again, your books perhaps tell the story in a different way.

JO: Well, I think that the problem has been that the story hasn't always been told, even within the community. Just as my grandfather didn't tell me all the horrors of his life and why he left in a hurry -- I learned that much later -- but I did not... and I think Ellen's father is not telling, telling them not to hearken to the past, that as a result, there's another generation that doesn't really know its story, or at least not everybody's. I'm sure there were people in the community who know the story who maybe don't want to share it, because they don't want their children burdened with that story. Just like there are Jews who don't want their children to know about the Holocaust. I mean, when is it appropriate to tell children about six million people being burned? I understand not being able to tell it, and I think that that's part of why it's so important to tell the story from various points of view, and that maybe being outside of it, I can write about it in a way that embraces the history, and I try to give as much factual history as well, maybe to the point of boredom to some, but not to wash over the anger, not to wash over or gloss over the pain. One of the things that struck me as people told me their story, was the courage of the Issei and how little we knew about the Issei. I think because of the way they were, everyone was portrayed, the Japanese were portrayed to us as young people, would not have expected the kind of families that Japanese American children experience, the kinds of fathers and mothers they had, the fathers and mothers who bought them uniforms, Scout uniforms in camp, who encouraged them to sell war stamps, stamps for the war bonds, and who encouraged them to be busy with Scouts. Those were the stories that need still to be told so people understand that life was different, but yes, they were warm and loving families here.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2013 Densho. All Rights Reserved.