<Begin Segment 16>

BN: What do you... from where we are now, what Densho does, other organizations, like I said, What? Where would you like to see, you know, the way the history of the camps is being told? How would you like that? What direction would you like that go to in the years to come, especially as we get further and further away and the generation who has firsthand memories of, you know, is no longer living?

SH: You know, I think what you're doing is very important because you're collecting the data while all these people are still alive and recording it so that others will have access to it. That's extremely important. I'm a historian and I've always appreciated data. I've always thought you can't have enough data. I don't know about -- and you would know this because it's not my field. What kind of research and writing is being done? Who's publishing? I think -- this was over ten years ago -- I went to my last conference in Washington, D.C., and I noticed that, wow, Asian American Studies has become a big field. So I assume that there were a lot of people who were taking those courses, writing papers, writing articles and books, etc. There has to be a better excuse as to why Yale has only has two shelves. But I think more work is going to come out. I'm not sure in what direction. I'm still thinking that, as far as, you know, understanding the response to what's happened . And I'm not in any way minimizing the need for a good work . . . like the -- how do you pronounce her name, Connie Chang?

BN: Connie Chang, yeah.

SH: Nature Behind Barbed Wire. Okay, books like that. I think we need those books. But in terms of how we're going to understand what people were actually feeling, you have to go to novels, you have to go to (...) fiction, maybe film. But I'm getting increasingly cynical about film because I'm bored with talking-heads. And maybe enactments, but I don't know. I don't know about what kind of theater is being done. I know that George Takei put on a musical, but it sounded too mushy by half. I just couldn't get myself to go see it. So I'm hoping for rigorous scholarship that's read by people who are not necessarily interested in the field but might read it for interesting methodologies, or use of data -- how to present data. I'm waiting for someone to write that really terrific novel. I did read When the Emperor Was Divine, and I was appalled that some school district in Wisconsin has outlawed that book. It's ineffably sad, and, you know, it's the kind of book, unlike No-No Boy, which is just corrosive because it's so filled with anger. But that other novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, that's filled with a sense of irreparable loss and sadness and to me that's much more informative or knowing than somebody being really angry all the time because . . . . And I'm a very angry person. I know from my own my experience carrying around the weight that I do, the legacy of the camps, that I'm very angry. But I've learned to use that to be propulsive, you know, not just to adhere to a stereotype. But also as my mother was all her life, I'm very anxious and depressed. And I noticed that Japanese Americans carry that -- those qualities or those, you know, that kind of self-restraint and self-restrictiveness within them because they are depressed and angry. And generations pass that on. It doesn't disappear.

And one thing we haven't talked about is the outmarriage. There's so much outmarriage going on that I don't know if there's any Japanese American culture left. I regret very much that I don't know the language anymore. I sent for five workbooks and I'm trying to relearn but not . . . very successful. I try to stay in touch with my relatives in Japan, but I get so frustrated because I don't have enough vocabulary. But I think that the learning of the language is very important, and I'm hoping that that takes place in the various Asian American studies programs.

BN: That's an interesting point. Yeah. I feel like it, for various reasons, it hasn't and maybe it should.

SH: I think it should because it's the key to understanding the culture. Right? I remember going for a mammogram one year and this technician told me her husband was Japanese, but his parents raised him in such a way that he did not know any Japanese at all. He knew nothing about Japanese culture, he knew nothing about Japanese Americans. They thought that the best way to rear him was to totally sever him from his cultural identity. But I think these identity issues are related to language, and so I'm struggling with that in my old age. Why did I forget that language? Why can't I relearn it? It's like losing a part of yourself that's not there anymore.

BN: I totally agree. [Interruption] Okay, was there anything else you wanted to talk about? Or? I did want to ask you since, you know, you had mentioned trying to keep connection with relatives in Japan. Have you been able to maintain that connection?

SH: Well, I go through my nephew because he was in Japan and he knows better than I. I said, "Tell Mayumi this and that." The thing that really irritates me is that I use Translate and send her messages, but she doesn't know -- I thought all Japanese were geeky and techy -- but she doesn't know how to do Google Translate on her end and send me a message . . . . . You know, it's really very sad to me, but I met Mayumi for the very first time when she was -- she's about fifteen years younger than I so she must have been ten during my first visit. She's the only person in my mother's extended family that I just felt immediately drawn to. But I don't know the language and there's the continent and ocean . . . it's just another loss.

BN: Yeah, there are a lot of things I need to ask you about, but we'll continue that off camera.

SH: Okay.

BN: So, yeah, unless you have anything else, is there anything you want to close with?

SH: Not really except the business about the language and identity. Getting back to those issues because that's at the core of what has to be recovered in order to understand, you know, what it is about the past you want to preserve.

BN: Yeah, I feel like that's part of the legacy of the incarceration experience.

SH: Right, being divorced from who you are.

BN: Parents driving us to be so all-American and neglecting...

SH: Right, what's so good about being American? You just turn around and repress somebody else. You know -- I mean, I won't denigrate the opportunities, etc., and I realize that if I were in Japan, I'd probably be in a rice field. You know, so I'm not negating that, but I think that being an American is a really horrifying legacy, in some ways, because so many people of color have been slaughtered and imprisoned, etc.; it's not a very pretty history at all. In fact, interesting thing is I went online because I found out that the Sand Creek Massacre site was near Amache, and it was also being administered by the NPS. And I could not get over how sanitized that website was. I just thought, "Somebody needs to rewrite this and be more truthful and forthcoming." So I hope we're more truthful about Amache in our experience.

BN: Well, thank you very much.

SH: Thank you, it's an honor, thank you.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.