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TI: So what do you think is next for you? I mean, it feels like it's building, it's growing, this foundation, and many things that you're doing, because you are a leader, and the community is, I think the work you did in terms of sharing, and I see this ongoing now in terms of the community healing, standing up and doing this protest. What's the next thing? Not so much thinking you have to do this for the community, but I'm just curious where you see yourself going.

SI: Well, one thing is that I think this network that has been built up and strengthened through this specific protest is going to continue, and I want to be engaged in it, continuing the protest until this thing is brought to an end. For me, personally, I've been trying to make space to write my books. I have three books that I want to have published before I'm gone, and one is the Be Strong, Don't Cry, I don't know if the editor will finally accept that title or not, but that will include my parents' letters and then the narrative written by me about some of the things you and I have talked about today, my perspective on that. And then the other, there's a children's book called My Name is Not Sandy, it's really written for immigrant children whose acculturation process is violated trying to make them part of dominant culture rather than... keeping their names is such an important part.

TI: Where does "Sandy" come from?

SI: So when we left camp and went to Cincinnati, the schoolteachers told my parents, "If you want your children to be real Americans, they need to have real American names." This is one of the ways my parents had to turn their cheek, because my father was a poet, and a lot goes into choosing a name for a Japanese child anyway, but because he was a poet, it had a lot of meaning for him. But the teacher said, "Okay, Kiyoshi, you're going to be Kenny, and Satsuki, you're going to be Sandy." So I was Sandy 'til I was thirty-five. And I had seen my birth certificate, it didn't dawn on me, but at some point I looked at that and it said... I thought Sandy was my nickname and Sandra was my real name, and that Satsuki was a little middle name. But I looked at that birth certificate...

TI: And there was no "Sandy."

SI: There's no "Sandy, Sandra" on it at all. And so I told my parents, "I want to start using my real name." And my mother said, "Don't do that. Bad things will happen." That was her phrase. So she called me Sandy until she died, and when we went to Japan together she would stumble over my name as she was introducing me to the relatives. So that's the second book, and the third book is the collection of my father's beautiful haiku, and that's already been translated and together, I just have to find an editor, publisher.

TI: Is there anything... so I've gone through all my questions, is there anything else that you think is important that we should talk about?

SI: I think you covered most of it. I think this what we didn't do, was preserve our history. So capturing it through Densho Project...

TI: Well, I have a question, then, about that. Because this is something we're figuring out now, how important is it for Densho to collect the stories of the Sanseis and the impact of camp in their lives?

SI: I think it's crucial, because I think the Sansei generation is going to be the last generation that has any direct connection to camp, to the whole experience. And the Sanseis are the ones -- this is a weird way of putting it -- they're also the ones that can free the next generation to really be out of camp, to learn so much and to be so conscious now about the fact that we were held captive against our rights. And I think I'm seeing that in these fourth generation Nikkei, many of them are hapa who are outraged in ways that we couldn't. And I think we need to feed that and we need to give them the information, the stories, that they can carry forward in maybe a less burdened way, or less confusing way, that the Sanseis have had to hold it. So crucial, critical. Once we're gone, it's only our stories that will help the subsequent generations to keep the story coherent.

TI: And as we do that and think about that, were there any benefits for us as Sanseis in terms of what our community went through, and that because of that history, and I think about how we maybe are connected with other communities to take a stand there, but is there anything that is maybe unique about the community's experience, that there's something there? And I don't know the answer to this, but I'm just wondering.

SI: Yeah. I think about, it's hard to differentiate how much Japanese culture is still a part of who we are, but I think it's there. And I think there's a great benefit to the values that have been passed on to us, as long as we don't bind them with the trauma. I don't know how else to explain that except to say that values of integrity and respect and grace, respect for elders, these values, I feel like are things that we have to now, more consciously, pass on to the next generation, because it's not all around us, that they just absorb it.

TI: I love that, actually. But then don't bind it with the trauma.

SI: Don't bind it with the trauma.

TI: Which we do so much on the West Coast.

SI: Right, yes. And then I think...

TI: Because we make it kind of a "should" to protect or something.

SI: Exactly, yeah. And I think it'll be up to the next generation to sort that out, but up to us to transmit the part of the culture that the Isseis brought with them, that I think we still have, that are really unique in this country, and can really be a benefit to the next generation in terms of influencing America as a whole, spreading that attitude, those values, in ways that could make our country better, really.

TI: Well, thank you. You truly are a treasure.

SI: [Laughs]

TI: You really are. You are such an amazing person for our community, and so I'm so glad we did this.

SI: Thank you.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.