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BY: So what connection, if any, does taiko have with the incarceration or the history of Japanese Americans in the U.S.?

SS: Well, because taiko is so central to a lot of cultural practices, including religious practices, we know that there were drums in the camps. They were able to bring in, or get shipped in, or maybe built themselves, I'm not sure. I just was at the Japanese American National Museum, JANM, a few weeks ago. And one of their displays there was a drum, hirado daiko was only about a foot and a half in diameter and only about eight inches deep. But it was inscribed with Buddhist sutras, and was used in ceremonies and services that the Buddhist priests were conducting inside the camps. So I think, too, as an essential part of maintaining the culture and heritage within the camps, taiko was a part of that. And we know that they did hold Obon within the camps, and usually there were drums. I'm not sure they were taiko drums, but generally there would be drums and music that was played.

BY: And so I guess what I'm getting at is the connection for how North American taiko came to be around the same time as the Civil Rights Movement and the sort of recognition of what had happened to Japanese Americans during the war, what's that connection?

SS: Okay. So the first taiko groups in North America were San Francisco Taiko Dojo, started in '68, Kinnara Taiko in L.A. in '69, San Jose Taiko in San Jose, California, in '73, those are kind of the first three, the primary groups. And all the early groups were started with, came out of Japanese American communities. And it was... towards the, it was in that period of the Civil Rights Movement, so the '60s, Black Power movements, which inspired Yellow Power movements and Chicano movements, so there were all these ethnic identity questions floating around. And for Japanese Americans, Asian Americans in general, but Japanese Americans in particular, taiko was seen as something that could help create a link to our heritage, which had been suppressed, and in any case was lost, like a lot of Japantowns were just totally wiped out by the war. But it was a link to our cultural heritage, and it also defied what was then becoming what was then known as the "model minority" myth, where Asians and Japanese Americans specifically were known as quiet, cooperative, some might say subservient or submissive. "Don't rock the boat" type people who worked hard and didn't make a lot of noise. So when we played taiko, we're up making a lot of noise, and we're jumping around on stage and we're acting kind of crazy sometimes. And in a way it really broke a lot of the stereotypes people had of Japanese, because even their picture of Japanese culture was more sedate. Ikebana, arrange flowers, tea ceremony, which is very quiet and small movements, very significant and beautiful movements, but generally small and reserved is how you would characterize it. Whereas taiko was not that way at all. Taiko was loud and really out there. So I think it was a way to, for Sansei to reclaim some of the cultural heritage that had been lost or severely damaged by the war, to express pride in that heritage and establish an identity that was in many ways at odds with what the dominant society, white society, wanted or expected of us. So in that sense, it was kind of a revolutionary undertaking.

BY: Okay, great.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.