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KU: Can you talk about, that was under the Asian American Studies Central. Where did that name come from and who was involved in establishing that?

BS: Well, we got a grant from JACL, and so I asked Kenyon Chan and Ron Hirano to get involved in that. I think they came up with the title Asian American Studies Central, because they wanted to serve as a resource for all the developing Asian American Studies programs, not only at UCLA but at various other institutions including Long Beach. And, in fact, Agnes and I got very involved in developing one of the first courses in Asian American Studies at Pasadena City College. We were able to recruit many of the people involved in the Title II campaign to team teach that course at Pasadena City College. An African American friend of mine who was, I think he was some kind of dean there, he arranged for us to teach this class on Asian Americans, and it was probably one of the first classes in Asian American studies anywhere in the nation. But it was interesting because we all taught various sections of that course.

KU: Do you remember what year that was?

BS: I would say it was 1970... I can give you a more specific date, because I still have the transcript of that.  [Narr. note: Checked my records and can confirm that it was in 1970.]

KU: Oh, that would be terrific, we really appreciate that. Can you tell me a little bit more about that first class? I think that's significant that that might be one of the first classes in Asian American Studies. Can you talk a little bit about the topics and why you selected those topics, do you remember?

BS: Oh, we would talk about the immigration, we'd talk about the internment, we would talk about... what else? Various subjects that are pretty common in an Asian American Studies curriculum. Can't think of all the topics.

KU: Do you remember who else came and taught with you?

BS: Yeah, the people who were involved in the Title II campaign, Harry Kawahara was one of them. (Kawahara) was a counselor at Pasadena City College. Who else was involved? Oh, yeah, Bob and May Uchida were probably involved. There were about ten of us all together.

KU: So you were talking about the Asian American Studies Central provided resources for budding Asian American Studies classes. Can you recall what some of the main activities were?

BS: Say that again?

KU: Can you recall what some of the major activities were?

BS: I sure can't. They collected a lot of different information and made it available to the various programs, but I don't really remember exactly what they were.

KU: Was that exhibit part of the Asian American Studies Central, or was that a part of Visual Communications?

BS: It might have been, I don't know. Bob Nakamura would probably know better than I do.

KU: And you were doing this, all of this activity when you were an assistant professor?

BS: Right.

KU: Mechanical engineering?

BS: Aerospace engineering.

KU: And how were you juggling all of that?

BS: It was difficult. In fact, I reached a crisis point where I had to decide either to give up all these activities and focus on my research and teaching, or change to another field. I agonized over that, and finally decided that it would be difficult for me to give up all the social activism in order to focus on aerospace engineering. So I decided I would start looking into other possibilities, and I looked into a program at the Claremont graduate school, which had this program where they were looking for people with PhDs (in various fields who) wanted to change to education. I said, this is ideal for what I'm looking for. But in the meantime, I visited with some friends and colleagues from Caltech who had gone to join the school of education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. And when they found out what I was thinking about and they said, "You should come out to Amherst," and talk with some people out there, "because they might be interested in having you come out." And so I went out there for a visit, and I met with a number of people. I met the dean for lunch after I had visited, and he said, "How would you like to come to UMass Amherst and join the school of education?" I said, "I don't think so." I said I wanted to stay in California. He said, "Well, we can make it easier for you," he said, "I can give you two graduate assistants and you can stay here for a few years and then go back to California." And to make a long story short, when I came back, he had sweetened the deal so much that it was very hard to refuse. And in the meantime, we got a call from a person at Claremont graduate school saying that I was their number one pick for this program. And I said, "Well, it's too late, I've already accepted an offer from UMass Amherst," that's how I ended up going there.

KU: And what position did you hold?

BS: Associate professor. But I had only been there about two months when the dean called me, the new dean, Dwight Allen, who came from Stanford, (told me that) the assistant dean for administration had just resigned, and he was looking for a replacement. He said, "Bob, I think you can do this job. You have a degree in engineering so you know mathematics." Like that was going to be the qualification for the job. But he was very forceful about it and I finally decided I'd better take the job or he would hold it against me and make my life miserable. And so I decided to take the job as assistant dean for administration.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.