<Begin Segment 5>

BY: So was Father Tibesar... do you know how to spell that?

TI: Yeah, T-I-B-E-S-A-R.

BY: T-I-B-E-S-A-R, okay. So was he the one who gave the commemorative flag to your parents?

TI: No, that's a good question.

BY: So this is something different. He was there?

TI: He was there. I mean, this was something that I have learned over the years, too. There's this photograph of my grandparents actually accepting the flag, it's a really powerful image because you can see this, it's outdoors, an outdoor memorial service. But the person who actually gave the flag was another Japanese immigrant, that there was no military officials there to give these flags, one of whom became a medal of honor winner. And I think about my grandparents, and I think about how immigrants are viewed today by many people. And you could not ask for -- and this is from kind of an American standpoint -- a hardworking, patriotic couple than my grandparents. I mean, my grandmother... so my uncle, he was at the University of Washington, ROTC student. And when he first was incarcerated at Puyallup and then at Minidoka, after several months of being at Minidoka, the government said, "Okay, we're going to allow Japanese American men to volunteer to the army." And so my uncle was one of the first ones to volunteer. But when he took his physical, he actually failed the physical, there was something going on with the kidneys, and my grandmother, sensing how sad my uncle was, gave him this herbal remedy, and with that he was able to pass the physical, knowing that her son wanted to very much be part of the military. So he joined the famed 442nd, actually the 100th Battalion, which in military service was the elite corps of the 442nd, and was a staff sergeant and was shot and killed.

BY: Excuse me, I don't have anywhere near your understanding, but I think it was one of their first forays, right, in Italy, north of Rome?

TI: Yes.

BY: Because I understand it was one of the first theaters of action, if you will. So, Tom, jumping around as well, when did you first see that photo of your grandparents?

TI: That was the other interesting thing. It might have been out there and I just didn't pay attention to it, but there was a point, and this was years after I had started Densho. And when I first started Densho, my parents were not in favor of me doing this. Again, I mentioned my technology background, I thought, oh, this new personal computer technology would be such a powerful way to capture and share these stories. And my dad actually sat me down and said, "I'm not sure if this is a good idea." And I said, "Dad, what do you mean? These stories are just so important." And he said, "You're going to," and I remember him saying, "you're going to bring up these really difficult stories that are better left untold. It's going to bring up bad memories, it's going to bring up a lot of memories of friction within the community." And my dad's right, I didn't really understand what I was getting into. I thought, I was thinking more like, oh, it's history, we have to collect these stories, we have to preserve them and make them available, we can learn from them. And my dad was really talking about it from the pain and how much people suffered, and didn't want people to suffer again. And so it was kind of with that context my parents were essentially saying, you just really have to be careful about this.

And so it was probably, I'm guessing, about eight or nine years after I had started Densho that my mother, it was just my mom and me at home, and I was just visiting. And she told me that she wanted to show me something, and I said sure, and so she brought out this photo album. And so I thought, oh, so she's sharing her life history, because it was kind of like her personal photo album. And in there was these pictures of her as a chubby little baby, the family, and I said, "Oh, these are wonderful. I've never seen these before." And I learned then that when she was young, like three or four, she went to Japan with her younger brother, and they were vising relatives. And then she told me a story that, at one point, I can't remember, I think it was my grandfather's brother, didn't have any children, and so there was some talk of leaving my mom and her younger brother in Japan with that family so that they would have children and come back. And I think, for some reason she told the story that my grandmother had already gone back to the United States, and my grandfather said, "Well, if I left the children here, I couldn't go back either." [Laughs] But she told me these little stories. And then as they got older, she got older, then there was this gap when the war started.

And there was this photograph of my grandparents or her parents accepting this flag in camp. And I knew what it was because every Memorial Day we would visit the cemetery to do flowers at my mom's brother's grave. And I remember, as a kid, going there, it was at Washelli. Because my parents brought lots of flowers, so it wasn't just for her brother. But she said, I mean, there were all these other Japanese names on these tombstones. There were tombstones for a lot of the men who were killed during World War II. So in some ways, as a kid, it became a game because we'd have this bucket of flowers, and it's like put flowers on the tombstones of other Japanese graves, that we would do that, and there were dozens of them. And so as a kid I kind of knew about this but I didn't really, totally understand. But when I saw that photograph, I knew what it was for. So I said, "Is this for Bako?" That's her brother's name. And she said yes. So, in some ways, I knew she was sharing something that was really important to her, that she had never, to this day, she really can't talk about. Because we have an oral history with my dad, he's a good storyteller, but my mom has always refused to do an oral history, and part of it is she knows that this story will come up. I've got snippets. She was, when her brother died...

BY: She was sixteen?

TI: I'm sorry, what's that?

BY: She was sixteen years old?

TI: Yeah, she was sixteen, and she was the only one with her parents at Minidoka when she found out. And I still don't know really what happened during that day, but I know that my grandparents were just crushed. And so she was there and had to really witness that.

BY: And this just reverberates through your life, because then we get to 2016 and the awful comments about Gold Star parents.

TI: I remember the last presidential election cycle, and it was at the Democratic National Convention, and I saw this speech by Khizr Khan, he's a Gold Star parent. So he and his wife were on the stage talking about their son who was killed in Iraq, and so Khizr Khan is an immigrant in the same way. And I remember seeing that and just thinking of my grandparents and what they had to go through. And so, surprisingly, I reached out to Mr. Khan and explained what happened to my grandparents and Japanese Americans, and just said that if there's anything I can do to help, especially in terms of the targeting of Muslims in America, and he responded right away, and we brought him to Seattle where we did an event at the Seattle Center. There were over a thousand people where he talked about his story, his son. I talked about my grandparents, and part of this, and I think it was important for people to hear, and I mentioned earlier, our country is made up of immigrants. And yet, we treat immigrants so poorly, especially immigrants of color. And they've made such huge sacrifices, and it was an opportunity for us to share that, and to share it in a way that we weren't trying to make people wrong, we just wanted for people to understand the sacrifices and what people have gone through after being treated so poorly. And so that was a very powerful experience. And my daughter is a filmmaker, and when Mr. Khan was in Seattle, she just followed us. So she was there when I picked up Khizr Khan at the airport, and I brought him to just meet my parents, so they could have this quiet moment. So that was really special. And you can tell that this story, it's kind of interesting in terms of the emotions I feel. And it's because you just more understand, as people share what happened, it just opens up all these feelings for me.

BY: Did Mr. Khan and your parents embrace and that kind of...

TI: Well, my parents are a little more formal, so I think they shook hands. But there was this moving moment, and it was for my mother. Because he knows he gets a lot of attention being a Gold Star parent, and in some ways, because of my position, telling the family story, my uncle's life gets attention, and my grandparents. And we were talking about this, and Khizr Khan looked at my mom and said, "No one wants to be a Gold Star parent." And I remember my mom just... tears, and it was really, I think, a powerful moment for her, because I think there was healing for her just to hear that. Because I think so much of her not able to talk about it is dealing with that, those feelings. So it was a really special moment, and I still stay in touch with Mr. Khan, and it's developed into relationships. I mean, when you're able to make these connections, and oftentimes from a place of suffering there's an understanding and compassion that comes from it. I think about the Fort Sill, I talked about earlier, the compassion I felt for this man's son and how much it hurt him, it compels you to recognize the suffering that's happening in detention facilities now, the families. And when you feel that, you're just compelled to do something.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2020 Densho. All Rights Reserved.