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TI: Well, and so from a community standpoint, when I think about, as you're talking and you know what happened to the community, you worked on redress, so we have this knowledge of history, of this injustice, going forward... this might be a tough one, what's our responsibility as a community? Knowing what happened to our community, knowing that it could have happened and it did happen, do we have a responsibility going forward?

RI: Yes. And it's probably, it's one of those things you don't define, but you kind of do. I remember when Right of Passage was first shown in Washington, D.C., in September two three, years ago, and I brought a guest, and the guest happened to be Korean American. And she sat through and watched the entire program. And when it was over she came to me and she said, "You know something? The Japanese American community has a common bond. Rightfully or wrongfully, that common bond happened to be the internment. Korean Americans do not have that common bond. We're out here trying to make a living and trying to do this American dream, but we don't have this bond. You will not see this in the Korean American community." You know, if there's a common bond in the Korean American community, it's probably anti-Japanese, if that's the case. But it's interesting because in America, especially with second and third generation Korean Americans, they don't share that same feeling that you would feel between Japan and Korea, Japan and Korea. And I think that's the beauty and strength of it, and then I think our responsibility in terms of redress is that it's hard for people to understand and recognize that this happened to Japanese Americans. When I go to the African American community in Gardena and other places, and we have talks, we often talk about -- and I never bring the whole issue of Japanese American internment. In other words, I'm not in a position to say, "This is what happened to us," and just throwing it out there. Instead, what I do is I always kind of share a story with them, and that story is that, "Do you know that racism is a learned trait?" You're not born racist, it's something that you learn over time.

And I say, the best example of that is that one of my friends, Victor Oh, had come from Japan, and this is in the mid, early '60s, and he comes to L.A., gets married to a Korean person, her name is Kim. So he wants to bring everything together, and so he changes the last name to Oh-Kim. So they get married, and about a year or two later, he gets a job in Washington, D.C. So he says, "Okay, I'm going to move to Washington, D.C., and take this job," and I said, "Oh, great." I said, "Okay, you're going to take the northern route through Chicago, or are you going to take the southern route through the South?" He goes, "Well, it's summertime, I think I'll go south. So after four days of driving, in that hot weather, he finally gets into Alabama at night. And once he's in Alabama, he goes, "I'm going to go wash my clothes." Goes into a Laundromat, walks in the Laundromat, no one's in there, sign that says, "Whites only." So Victor didn't know what to do, so you know what he did? He only washed his white clothes. He didn't wash his colored clothes. And I said this in front of a group for Martin Luther King in Gardena, and there's probably two hundred African Americans, my friends. And as soon as I said, "Whites only," I mean, you could hear a pin drop. I mean, it was, everyone goes, "What's Ron going to say next?" I mean, "whites only." You could feel the tension. And I said, "Yeah, he only washed his white clothes," Everyone's just rolling in the aisles, it was funny. And although it was funny, I think what is an example, is that with redress, you have to do, is that sometimes racism, in whatever form, overtakes common sense, our commonality.

I know there's certain people in the United States, do not like diversity, and earlier in January, my son was married, and he got married to a young Italian American, second generation from New Jersey, we got married in New York. And so I told, after my son proposed marriage, I had prepared a letter for Catherine, and I said, "Dear Catherine, if you are reading this letter, that means that you accepted my son's proposal to you." So I said, "Welcome to the family," and I said, "I never had a daughter, and, if it's okay, I'm going to treat you like my daughter, and don't call me Mr. Ikejiri, just call me Ron." And I said, "Now, number one, our family did not come over on the Mayflower. Our family came over on a boat from Japan, steerage class. And the story is not so romantic as in Titanic, but what it is a story of an immigrant group. So I want you to know, this is the family you're marrying into." And little did I know, in 1980, when I heard that 79 percent of the Japanese American Sansei married outside of the Japanese American community, in fact, I didn't have a son at that time, and probably now it's closer to 99 percent. And I think that's the strength and the beauty of this whole story.

And I believe with redress, it's not full circle, it's a continuing story, and I know certain people don't want to hear about redress anymore, and I think it's one of those issues that you don't have to thrust it in front of everybody, but just as though it was in the last two years with the recent President's statements about different groups and the rest, I think it's important to have that available, so people understand it and can move forward. I know that my African American friends, when they sit down and they talk about redress, they go, "I don't know how your parents endured it." And I said, "I don't know either, but it's something that they were able to overcome and go forward," so I think we all have to try our best." Look, I know how you look at it. If I were to pass away today, I'm very thankful, I had a very blessed life, very fortunate. At the same time, I just wish I could do more, and hopefully I can. If I could live a life... and if you take a look at the life of someone like Frank Sato, he's probably, my guess is ninety-nine percent of Americans do not know who Frank Sato is, who if they knew what Frank Sato has done, quietly, professionally, effectively, with the kindest heart, you're very thankful for this kid from the state of Washington. So that's a real plus.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.