Densho Digital Repository - Chisao Hata Interview

Densho Digital Repository
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Chisao Hata Interview
Narrator: Chisao Hata
Interviewer: Barbara Yasui
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: March 20, 2023
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-532-18

<Begin Segment 18>

BY: Okay. So I just want to ask some more reflective kinds of questions here. So thinking back on your life, what inspired your activism? What was it that motivated you or inspired you to get involved with these community activities, political, anti-nuclear, what was the inspiration for all that?

CH: Yeah, I've been trying to figure that out. It's like the same question I asked my mom, "Why didn't you sign me up for dance class?" I was always involved in... I can remember in high school, I was like, "I want to be in that group," because they were social service oriented and they were leadership-oriented. It was kind of an elite thing to do, and I got in it and I did it. So I think it's... I don't see things in separate parts. I feel like the world has made me be in separate parts because that's how the world is, but I don't want to do that. I want to be totally integrated in who I am and what I do. And so I don't think separately. Well, I just think in an integrated way, and so then the action comes out in an integrated way. How can I do that, or how can I connect that, who do I need to know to make that happen, or how can that have a greater impact or who am I educating, or who needs to know? It's always been a motivating factor.

BY: And so how important is your Japanese American identity to the work that you do? Say on a scale of one to ten.

CH: I think close to ten. Because I've come more into accepting and knowing my identity at this point in time, and it's not a separate, it's just a separate thing, it's part of who I am, and it's also part of what I continued to discover. And yet, I have this really strong belief that even though I don't speak Japanese -- and this happened in the buyo class -- even though I didn't grow up in the Japanese community, even though I didn't know my grandparents in that kind of way that a lot of people had, there is something in me that is just Japanese and connected to that very strongly, very strongly culturally connected to being Japanese and Japanese American. So I don't think I can do it as a separate thing.