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BN: So how, moving on to Gidra, how did that -- I mean, you knew Mike, but was he the one that kind of pulled you in?

DA: Well, I think it was a combination of Mike, and I later met a couple of other people that I roomed with, one being Duane Kubo. So Duane was another guy that I met, I can't exactly remember when, but we met that first year and we ended up living together for the next maybe four or five years with different guys. But Duane also was in the same boat as me, meaning that he didn't know a whole lot of people either, he's from San Jose. So he was in this, we were both meeting a lot of people, and he must have met Tracy Okita, and Tracy and Mike and some other guys, some other people were forming the Gidra at that time. And I was hearing bits and pieces about it during my first year there, but I think it was Duane that finally got me to start coming and helping out. I'm not sure why Mike wasn't instrumental, but it was mostly Duane, but that was probably because I was living with him. So something to do.

BN: And you were not living in the same place now with Duane, you're in a different apartment?

DA: Well, actually, the same complex. Just moved down the hallway into a two-bedroom that we shared with two other guys, actually. And so we were there for about two years. Then later on, Duane and I moved to the Crenshaw area where we rented an apartment there. Yeah, it had been going on for maybe about a year or so, Gidra.

BN: The first time I see you on the staff, listed in the staff box is in November of '70.

DA: That sounds about right.

BN: Which is about a year, little more than a year after it started. You were pretty much there the whole, for the entire run, subsequently?

DA: Yeah, that was something else.

BN: What drew you to it, or once you were there, what was the draw for you?

DA: Well, I think it was mostly like Mike had challenged me, the global outlook. Why are you going to college, why do you want to do what you want to do? What is it you want to do? What about these marginalized people? You've been marginalized. I have? Because I didn't feel that way. I felt we were, I never really felt that discriminated against, primarily just because I think the way we were raised, we were kind of protected against it. And my father made a decent enough living where we didn't have to worry about where our next meal was coming. So those kind of ideas of marginalized people and people having a hard time, I thought all JAs were fine. And I come to find out, well, no. [Laughs] So yeah, those kind of questions and those kind of identity issues back in those days is what kind of kept me going and kept me interested. It was a whole thing about trying to give back to the community, trying to treat people as you wanted them to treat you. And then you find out that there are communities that are just getting trounced on. I never really knew any people of, Black people, so I didn't know about their struggles really, other than what you read, and what you read is not the same, right? It's limited. And so those kind of questions and the search, and the process of where you think you want to go, I think became part of what I found important, the whole process. It's not so much... yeah, it's working together to try to get to another point, and that's what I felt these people were trying to do, that we had certain common beliefs. But we did have certain common goals, and we all tried to reach for it in our different ways. So I had my way, Mike had his, everyone had their own little different ways of expressing themselves. And that was also kind of part of it, too, realizing that there's a certain amount of freedom that you have and that you can control, and some of that you can't, obviously. But the stuff that you can control, then what are you going to do at that time?

So working with that group of people, which I thought was some of the most imaginative, intelligent people, I had never really been exposed to those kind of people per se. Because Boy Scouts and whatnot, right? So coming in contact with people like Mike and Tracy and Duane, a guy Steve Tatsukawa, just challenging the norms and seeing if it's something you should continue to believe in or throw aside and adopt something new. It was a really good experience to be a part of that kind of group of people, and I just, to this day, I still feel it was very special, that group, that all those people that went through those doors had something to offer.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.