Densho Digital Repository - Douglas L. Aihara Interview (Densho ID: ddr-densho-522-17)

<Begin Segment 17>

BN: So were there any particularly memorable articles or issues in your mind, looking back?

DA: Well, I think I like the one with Steve. I think he did one on his... I forget what the, I was trying to find it. It was kind of a story about going to Las Vegas, and it was a made up story, but illustrated some of the craziness of the times.

BN: This is Steve Tatsukawa?

DA: Steve Tatsukawa. And one of the most imaginable... his imagination was the greatest one for me. And met him at UCLA, and he was actually instrumental, I think, and helped Mike with getting the Asian American Studies Central up and running. He was taken to the hospital when the first riot happened at UCLA on Janss Steps. And apparently he had some pebbles in his pocket and was seen kind of throwing it and so that a bunch of police just converged on him and beat the heck out of him. And nobody knew who he was. Everybody found out afterwards, because yeah, he was bleeding. I know a lot of us were going, "Who is that? Who is that?" We'd later find out, and then yeah, he became very active, obviously. It was essential, not only in Gidra, but also in the establishment of Visual Communications. He was a high ranking VP over at KP...

BN: The radio station?

DA: The radio station.

BN: Not KPCC.

DA: Not the community, not NPR, but the...

BN: Oh, commercial station.

DA: Commercial. And, what, thirty-four, thirty-five years old? Senior vice president of programming. The thing was, he'd kind of hang out. When I got to know him, he's such a crazy guy, very well spoken. But you read his papers, they read like an academia book. I'm going, "You wrote this?" [Laughs] You sure you wrote this? Because the writing did not fit the person. It's totally like wow, Steve, how is that possible? That was, again, it's just one of those, yeah, he's just another one of those guys in that group around Gidra that I just thought was just so extraordinary. And yeah, women, too. First time I'd met women like that, you know? I mean, up until then, I didn't know any women that would curse. But yeah, some of these women, they had no problems. [Laughs] No problem at all. I thought, far out. So yeah, so again, I was being exposed to an environment that I never knew existed.