Densho Digital Repository - Tom Ikeda Interview (Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-484-11)

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BY: Question about Franklin, Tom, and the fact that it wasn't in the curriculum in school with so many Japanese American students. Do you happen to know what the curricula today has in it about World War II and the Japanese American experience?

TI: It's minor. I mean, I actually have done quite a bit of teacher training, so I remember when one of my sessions, it was a Franklin teacher there, social studies teacher, so I was curious. They said now it's still, maybe a paragraph or something, so it's minor. But today, teachers are using more and more online resources, so they can tailor their curriculum and get more, that was one of his reasons for being there at this teacher training. My sense, I've trained thousands of teachers, in places like Seattle and San Francisco and the major West Coast cities, teachers are fairly aware of what happened and have a sense of what's going on. But it's really interesting, when I move off the West Coast, even to places like Spokane or others, it gets spotty. There are always teachers who are very aware and understand the history, but there are some who are kind of clueless. Or worse than clueless, they actually have a, almost a World War II era perspective of what happened, "But weren't these like prisoner of war camps because they did something wrong?" And they thought the whole Japanese American incarceration was part of the war and that these were prisoners of war and they were fighting against the United States. So things like that, that there could be that kind of misinformation, and these are teachers.

BY: Right. Well, my own ignorance is kind of shocking, and I won like an American history award in high school. [Laughs] I mean, granted, it was, I think, up to the twentieth century, that I won the award for. But I got to this point in my life, a journalist, always interested in current events, and I just knew the experience as "internment," whatever that was. I mean, what is that, "internment?" It was like internships? So anyway, it really fascinates me.

TI: Well, and that's kind of what is exciting for me about Densho, because this one topic that we focus on, the World War II incarceration, and really understanding that, allows us to really, I think, more informed and intelligently make these connections. Whether it's the Muslim travel ban, and when the Supreme Court came out with their rulings, and just mentioned the Korematsu case from the Japanese American cases from World War II. We could actually understand what he was saying, but can dive in deeper in terms of, in some cases, we think Chief Justice Roberts got it wrong in some ways. But we could do it intelligently, like this is what Korematsu said, this is what you're saying, here are the similarities, you're actually not saying this correctly. But to be at that level because we know the topic so well we can add to the conversation about those things. That's the beauty of history, too, because we have the time and resources to actually study something more intently, to help bring more understanding to some of the things we grapple with today. I mean, it was interesting talking to a reporter from San Francisco yesterday, a radio, and California, today, announced that they're apologizing to what happened to Japanese Americans in California, and the reporter wanted to talk to me about this, but he didn't realize that, in 1988, Reagan signed another apology, so he thought this was a brand-new thing and we had waited. And so he asked me that question, so I had to... because I know the history well enough, I said, "Well, first, yes, it's great that California did this, but let me remind your listeners that back in 1988, Congress passed and Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988," and on and on. And the guy said, "I didn't know that." But it's important for people like me to really know the history so we can provide that context, so people have that information.

BY: It was very diplomatic of you, the way you did that.

TI: Yeah, how would you do that?

BY: But I could have been that reporter, easily.

TI: But then that's what we're trying to do. It's not a debate for us, I think of myself more as an educator. And if we can educate people so that they understand these things, so that they can start understanding so that we have issues that come up over and over again. I mean, Washington State, we had the issue last month about the border patrol stopping all people with Iranian backgrounds, even citizens, Iranian Americans, and doing similar things that were done to Japanese Americans. If people really understood what happened to Japanese Americans, and knew that was wrong, they could start making those kind of distinctions. Coronavirus, in terms of how Asian Americans are being targeted. If I go out to a crowded place and start coughing, people start looking at me, I'd say, "I've never been to China," or, "It's not me." It's really interesting how things like race and things play out constantly, and we're constantly trying to teach and learn about this.