<Begin Segment 1>

BY: Today is March 20, 2023, and I'm interviewing Chisao Hata. My name is Barbara Yasui, and our videographer is Dana Hoshide. And we are doing this interview in the Densho studio in Seattle, Washington. So we're going to go ahead and get started. Can you please tell me your full name, the name that you were given at birth? Let's start that way.

CH: The name that I was given at birth was Joyce Kathleen Hata.

BY: Okay, and I know that your name has changed. Can you please talk about that a little bit?

CH: Well, I think my search for identity and that whole journey led me to going to Japan, studying a lot of personal history, and I just really wanted a Japanese name, and I wasn't given one at birth. So when I went to Japan, I actually, it was part of my quest to find a new name, but none of the names people were, in the family were recommending, they didn't resonate with me. One day, it sort of dawned on me that I always felt this closeness to my grandmother's name, who I never knew, Chisao. So I think it was in '85, I had a ceremony and changed my name to Chisao.

BY: So now you are?

CH: Chisao Hata, I go by Chisao Hata for many years now.

BY: Okay. And when and where were you born?

CH: I was born in Des Moines, Iowa.

BY: And when?

CH: 1950, August 27, 1950.

BY: And what generation are you?

CH: I'm Sansei.

BY: Okay. So you said that you didn't know your grandmother Chisao. Can you tell me anything about her?

CH: So Chisao was my mother's mother. She was a "picture bride," settled in Hood River with my grandfather, Gunichi Tamiyasu. And she had my mother almost a year after she arrived here, and then she continued to have children every year and she died in childbirth with her ninth child when my mom was sixteen.

BY: And do you know much about her husband, your grandfather?

CH: I know a little bit, but not a lot, because I lived in Iowa and I didn't get a chance to really grow up in that community or know them. I met him maybe three times, I think, and so went to Hood River.

BY: And what about your grandparents on your father's side? Did you know them at all?

CH: No, because they had passed by the time I was born.

BY: Okay. And again, you were in Iowa.

CH: I was kind of far away.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

BY: So let's talk about your parents. What was your father's name?

CH: So my father was born Tadashi Hata, but he went by Ted. And my mom was Kesaye. And evidently she was born with the umbilical cord kind of around her chest, so they gave her a Buddhist name of Kesa, kesa is the cord, so it's Kesa, but she went by Kay. So it's Ted and Kay Hata.

BY: And when and where was your father born, do you know?

CH: My father was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.

BY: Okay, do you know when?

CH: 1905.

BY: 1905, okay. And where did he grow up?

CH: As far as I know, he grew up in Hawaii.

BY: Okay. At some point he came to the mainland, though? Do you know...

CH: He came to the mainland to go to school, and he ended up graduating from USC, I'm not sure what year.

BY: Okay. So he went from Hawaii to Los Angeles, it sounds like.

CH: Uh-huh, Los Angeles.

BY: Do you know... so he graduated from USC. Do you know much about his educational background or his occupation?

CH: Not in those years, but I have a great big trunk at home that I found that was open that has a lot of information about him. So I still have yet to discover a lot about him. But after camp, when my parents resettled in Des Moines, he became a refrigeration service and he did air conditioning.

BY: All right. And so kind of backing up a little, you referred to him, how they resettled in Iowa. But before that happened, so was he incarcerated?

CH: Yes, uh-huh. He went to Santa Anita, and I'm not sure what the order, but I think he ended up in Pomona Assembly Center, and then my mom, from her notes, said they had to go through a lot to get him transferred to Poston where my mother was. So he arrived in Poston in August, and they were married in September in Poston.

BY: Okay. And how did he end up in Des Moines, Iowa?

CH: Well, you had to have a job to get out, but my mom had one offer in Boulder, and so I believe she went to Boulder first.

BY: Boulder, Colorado?

CH: Boulder, Colorado. And then I guess she had a job offer in Chicago as well. She didn't like Chicago, so they kind of decided to go back west, but they ran out of gas in Des Moines, Iowa. And then my mom applied to Broadlawns Hospital and she got a job there. She was the first Japanese American nurse at Broadlawns.

BY: So they really ended up in Iowa because of your mom's job more than your dad's job.

CH: And running out of gas, yeah. [Laughs]

BY: Running out of... so serendipitous thing, I guess.

CH: Yeah, I think they took that as a sign because it was gas rationing.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

BY: Okay. Let's go back now and talk a little bit more about your mother. So what was her name?

CH: Kay Hata.

BY: Oh, right, you said that.

CH: Kesaye.

BY: Kesaye Hata, okay. And where and when was she born?

CH: So the records differ a bit, but she was born in Hood River, I think, Odell exactly, in 1916. Sometimes it's December 11th, sometimes it's December 12th.

BY: So she was quite a bit younger than your father then?

CH: Twelve years.

BY: Twelve years younger, okay. And did she grow up then in the Hood River Valley?

CH: Uh-huh.

BY: And tell me a little bit about her education and background. It sounds like she was a nurse, but can you talk about that a little?

CH: Well, she did go to Nihongakko in Hood River and she was active in the Christian church there. So we have some pictures, in fact, your dad sent me some pictures of the Christian church and all of the students, and she was one of them. And then after high school, because she was the oldest of eight that were still around on the farm, I guess when she was younger she was sickly, and so she spent a lot of time in the hospital. So all she ever wanted to do was be a nurse. And being the oldest of all of them, my grandfather took her to Nihonmachi in Portland and tried to find out, "How do I help my daughter become a nurse?" And she ended up going to Walla Walla, premed school. And then after a year, I think a year and half, she returned to Portland and was entered into the Seventh Day Adventist nursing school where she graduated in 1939.

BY: And you said that her mother died when she was sixteen, is that right? So it seems rather unusual that here she is the eldest daughter, and she has eight younger siblings, and yet her father was supportive in letting her go to a nursing school.

CH: I know, it's pretty miraculous, I think. I gave him so much credit because... but I guess that's all she ever wanted to do, so that's what she talked about, and he wanted to support her dream to do that. It's really commendable.

BY: Amazing. So do you know anything about who took care of the other eight kids then?

CH: I think the next daughter. [Laughs]

BY: The next daughter, oh, okay. All right, interesting. And so where was your mother during the war, or when Pearl Harbor happened? Do you know where she was?

CH: She was in Los Angeles. So she graduated from nursing school and then she went to L.A., I think, to meet up with my dad, because they had plans to get married.

BY: So how did they meet?

CH: In Walla Walla, in premed.

BY: Okay, so he had graduated from SC, and do you know why he was in Walla Walla?

CH: For premed.

BY: Oh, okay.

CH: That was the Seventh Day Adventist premed program. But after, I think, the first year -- I think she was only there a couple years -- but he decided he didn't like blood, so wasn't exactly going to be the right profession for him. So then he went back to Los Angeles and then was part of an internship at Weber Electric company in Los Angeles learning the latest technology called air conditioning.

BY: Interesting. So then he went back to L.A., she finished her education, and then went to L.A. And so they were both there when Pearl Harbor happened. But somehow it sounds like they were not together.

CH: So my mother, I'm not sure if she volunteered or she was recruited. Because she was an RN, she was sent to Mayer Assembly Center and then on to Poston to set up the hospital there in Poston.

BY: Okay. And so your father, was he, you think, either Santa Anita or Pomona, and then was able to get transferred to Poston?

CH: She said after a lot of letters, he was finally transferred.

BY: And then you said that they got married in Poston?

CH: They got married. He arrived, from her letters, in August, and they were married September 4th by Reverend Jitsuo Morikawa, who was the Reverend near Poston.

BY: Oh, that's a great story. Okay, do you have any siblings?

CH: No.

BY: Okay.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

BY: So it sounds like, after the war, your parents moved or ended up in Des Moines, Iowa. So did you grow up there, or where did you grow up?

CH: Oh, yes. They ran out of gas on Twenty-seventh and Forest, and then they found an apartment on Twenty-seventh. And then a few years later they found a home on Twenty-third, and that's where I was born, at Lutheran Hospital, and came back to that home in Des Moines.

BY: And I'm imagining that, at that time, there were not very many, if any, Japanese Americans living in Des Moines.

CH: There was a few. There were a few families, and so my parents knew, connected with people. The Takas, who were the Takayanagis but became the Takas. He was a watch repairman in Des Moines. The Yoshidas, the Izumis, there was a handful, the Unos, maybe about ten families.

BY: And did they live in the same neighborhood that you lived in?

CH: Oh, no.

BY: Okay. And what was the neighborhood that you grew up? What was your neighborhood like?

CH: So my neighborhood was very near Drake University. So I would walk to grade school, which was, now it's a part of the Drake University campus called Kirkwood Elementary, and then went to middle school further away, but I still walked, we still were doing that, and then to North High School in Des Moines.

BY: And so it sounds like your family had Japanese American friends, but in your neighborhood and your school, who were your friends?

CH: In my neighborhood, you know, kids used to play outside, so we'd play with the neighborhood kids, and Dad would whistle to come home. Sometimes I went into their house, but not usually. Usually we played outside. And then in grade school... I mean, I can remember it was kind of hard at times, because I got teased about my eyes or about different things. I had a Bluebird leader when I was, I think, in second grade, but got really angry and called me a "Jap" and said I should go home. That's kind of when I asked my mom, "What is a 'Jap'?" And she, a little embarrassingly, she tried to explain it to me. But yeah, that girl and I fought all through grade school, middle school. We went to different high schools, but it was a German family and they did not like us at all.

BY: So what was the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood that you grew up in then?

CH: There were a few African Americans, but mostly Caucasian.

BY: And no Asians except your family?

CH: Oh, zero, no. I think the only Asians that were in my school were Chinese. So all the other people that I knew were older than I. They were either in high school or college by then, and then the ones, there's just a few, maybe three that were my age that I would see when our families would visit, or one woman, Suzie Sakata was a seamstress and she would make all my, a junior high dress and fancy clothes, and she would hand sew them, hand design them.

BY: So it sounds like you had maybe two sets of friends then, your school friends in your, the Japanese American families?

CH: Yes, I had just really a couple friends that there was another nurse there in Des Moines that my mom became good friends with, and she had a daughter a little bit younger than me.

BY: Okay.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

BY: And so growing up as a Japanese American girl, teenager, in Des Moines, Iowa, did you have any Asian American role models?

CH: My mom.

BY: Okay.

CH: And my dad, but not, no teachers, no art teachers, theater people.

BY: And so you said that you sort of first became aware of your Japanese identity when you were in second grade, with the teacher calling you a "Jap."

CH: Yeah, that was my Bluebird leader. [Laughs]

BY: Oh, your Bluebird leader, oh my gosh, okay. And so how did you feel about being Japanese or Japanese American after that? Did you think about it at all?

CH: I don't think so. I think I always wanted to be like everybody else, you know. I always saw myself as being like everybody else.

BY: And by that do you mean white?

CH: White, I mean white, yeah. Like I didn't see myself as any different. My parents would say everyone is equal, everyone is the same, that's kind of how they raised me. But I wasn't really questioning my identity at that point, it wasn't until high school I started. But it came out in weird ways. You know, like I'd feel, try to do something about my eyes or I can remember one time I put shoe polish on my hair to try to change my hair color and things like that that definitely have to do with not feeling good about yourself.

BY: And you said that things changed in high school. How so?

CH: By the time I got to high school, I was one of the popular girls with the other girls in cheerleading and different things. But then I started to like African American, and I didn't see it as anything different. But then my friends taught me that it was very different.

BY: Your white friends?

CH: Yeah, uh-huh. And really cut off the friendships, and you know how high school students can be so mean.

BY: And so that was the kind of awakening for you at that point?

CH: Uh-huh, yeah. I never had a lot of, lot of friends, really had a few loyal friends that I felt were loyal. But then when some of those weren't, or they became not friends anymore, it was very confusing to me, very hurtful.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

BY: Okay. Did your parents ever talk to you about the incarceration?

CH: Not in the early years. It wasn't until I started talking, actually it was when I went to camp, like a Camp Fire girl camp, I think different people have had the same story. And they ask you, "How many of your mothers went to camp?" And I had heard the word camp, so I raised my hand, because I thought it was something that I should be proud about. And so I told my mom when I got home, "Oh, yes, they asked us if you were in camp," and I raised my hand, and that's when she said, "Oh, it wasn't the same kind of camp."

BY: So did she explain much about the camp to you, or not?

CH: Not a whole lot. Not a whole lot.

BY: Do you remember if she spoke about it in a positive or negative way?

CH: Definitely a negative, but more of an embarrassing way.

BY: How about your father? Did he ever talk about that?

CH: Oh, no. No, no, no. Never ever.

BY: Not at all, okay. So that's how you learned about it initially. How did you find out more about it? How and when did you find out about it?

CH: So the older I got, it was in college, actually, where I started studying more and took History of Japan and started asking my mother more questions. I was really searching for identity trying to figure out, "Who am I?" and that's when she really started talking a lot more about it. In fact, I think was about that time she started going to schools, too.

BY: Oh, really?

CH: Yeah. She started talking to schools about her experience, and then just kind opened up more and more.

BY: And this was in Des Moines, Iowa?

CH: Oh, yeah.

BY: So my guess is that nobody in Des Moines, Iowa, knew about the incarceration.

CH: Oh, no, no. East of the Mississippi, forget it. They didn't know.

BY: Yeah, interesting.

CH: Yeah, they didn't know. She was quite an educated person, though. When I was a senior in high school, she had an aneurism and I think she really maybe reevaluated her life, and that's when she started to get more and more involved. But up until then, she was an RN and then she taught [inaudible] school. But after her aneurysm she went back to college to get her master's in education. I think she wanted to convince herself that her mind was still okay after that. But then she got her master's in education and worked in a program called Home Start, so she'd go into people's homes and teach their kids about, teach the parents how to teach their kids, actually.

BY: So you've alluded a little bit to this, but did you ever feel like you were discriminated against or treated differently because of your ancestry, your ethnicity? And it could have been either in a positive or negative way, but the incident of your Bluebird leader, besides that, can you remember any other things that...

CH: There was a time when I went to L.A. and my auntie bought me a whole kimono, whole set of obis, everything. When I went back to Iowa, I think I might have been maybe about fifteen, there was a party at, I want to say it with the 4-H club, I might be wrong. And they had, like, all of us Japanese girls dressed in kimonos. I don't remember anything really negative about that, but it was kind of unusual that we all were able to dress in traditional Japanese attire. And then, so that was the one time that I wore a kimono. And then the greatest time in high school, when I was talking about being ostracized a bit, was because I dated an African American, but it was all in secret. Nobody interracially dated in public. Even the white girls, it was all secret. So then when people found out, I was treated differently, and that's when I really questioned, like what is going on? And that's when... it was actually my U.S. history teacher and my drama teacher and my boyfriend at the time who said, 'Well, there's this thing called racism that you should know about." But up until then, I had had some white friends, I had a couple really good Black friends in junior high, but never brought them home. I probably would have learned something else if I had brought them home, but at school.

BY: How did your parents feel about your relationship with...

CH: Oh, they did not know.

BY: They didn't know? So it was secret, okay.

CH: Totally secret. Totally secret from everybody. Yeah, it was during the late '60s, nobody in Des Moines, Iowa, really, they were dating interracially, but not publicly.

BY: Okay, interesting.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

BY: So I know that, I mean, you are very heavily involved in the arts. Can you tell me how that started? When did it start, how did it start, what kinds of things did you do as a child or a teenager in the arts?

CH: So I always asked my mom, "Why did you sign me up for dance class?" And she never really could answer. She's say, "I don't know." But from five, even in preschool, I was in dance class, and in a very creative environment in a nursery school. I can even remember finger painting and the first smell of paint. And then from then, I was just signed up for every class. I was in dance classes, I was in art school, I started theater at the Drake University where I was going to grade school across the street from second grade. So it was just a big part of my world, but a lot of it was not at school, I think it actually saved me from what I might have been dealing with at school.

BY: That you had the art?

CH: That I had that. That I had an art teacher, and I was taught by artists. So that was extremely influential in my life. My theater teacher was not somebody that was interested in theater. She was an artist. Portia Boynton, how can you not be an artist with that name? At the Drake University children's theater, and Rose Lorenz was my dance teacher that I went to. My art teacher, Mrs. Brooks, she referred me to the Des Moines Art Center. So every Saturday I was at the Des Moines Art Center from nine to noon. And I think, I wasn't that great of a student. Like if I had a teacher I didn't like, I wasn't... and some of them were pretty mean, I remember, in grade school. And then I had that young German girl that I fought with all the time, so I would get in trouble in school. They'd switch us from classes, but the arts were a huge part of my life, all my life.

BY: And so was your mother interested in the arts?

CH: You know, my mom was very intellectual. I mean, she read a lot, she went to college, she studied architecture, but she did play the piano and she sang very badly, but she loved to play the piano at Christmastime or Easter or whenever it was, she played the piano. But it wasn't until years later that I realized that she had been helping with the costumes in a local theater company. And I saw her name in these programs that were saved in our house, I had no idea. She used to sew all my doll clothes, like the little teeny clothes. So yeah, she definitely had a creative side, but her life was being a nurse, which was very technical.

BY: And probably long hours.

CH: Long hours, she'd always do private duty when I was growing up.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

BY: So, okay. We got up through high school, so what happened to you after high school?

CH: So I actually went away to drama school, a college in the Midwest that was focused on an excellent theater program. But shortly after that, like two or three months into it, I found out I was pregnant. And so I don't even know, I guess "abortion" was a word, but I don't remember anything like that.

BY: This is in the '60s, late '60s?

CH: The boyfriend in high school, he was a senior when I was a freshman, so he was three years older and then out of high school, and then I was still there. But we still saw each other, so yeah.

BY: And so what happened then?

CH: Life changing.

BY: You dropped out of school?

CH: I dropped out of Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska, in the theater department, and decided he wanted to get married. He met my dad two weeks before we were married.

BY: And this was the first time your dad had heard about the relationship? Wow, okay.

CH: My mom kind of knew, but she kept it secret.

BY: So you got married?

CH: So, yeah, he just showed up at our house one day and my dad answered the door. My dad looked at him said, "Oh, so you're in a hell of a mess." [Laughs] But he didn't reject me. I knew of people, not necessarily Asian, but I knew people whose parents had rejected them for believing in something or something that they did, or an embarrassment to the family. I was very grateful that my dad walked me down the aisle, we had a beautiful wedding, and all of our families came together. And then I left the day after I got married, I left Des Moines.

BY: Wow, okay. So what was your husband's name?

CH: Herb. Herbert Larone Cawthorn.

BY: Okay. And tell me a little bit about his background. Had he also grown up in Des Moines?

CH: He did not grow up solely in Des Moines. He went to grade school in Portland. His mother was one of the first African American librarians, and so her job took her different places. So Des Moines, she was born in Omaha, but then to Portland, then to D.C., so she traveled quite a bit following her job as one of the first Black librarians.

BY: Interesting. And so you dropped out of college, you got married, and then what happened?

CH: Then we came to Portland the next day.

BY: Okay, and why Portland?

CH: Because he had fond memories of grade school, Elliott grade school, and he still had some friends here. My mom didn't feel so bad because it was closer to Hood River where she grew up. So it was kind of like I was going to her home to Iowa.

BY: Did you connect or reconnect with your relatives in Hood River when you moved to Portland?

CH: No, no.

BY: So you kind of knew they were there, but you didn't really...

CH: Yeah.

BY: And how long were you in Portland?

CH: I've been in Portland ever since then. [Laughs]

BY: Oh, so did you stay in Portland?

CH: Well, we stayed for two years and then went to Eugene so my husband could go to college and then he ran a program there, so we lived in Eugene for eight years.

BY: So he went to University of Oregon?

CH: University of Oregon, yeah.

BY: Okay. And then so you're in Portland for a couple years, had a child.

CH: I had one child, I had a child.

BY: Okay, you had a child.

CH: My son, and then I had two more in Eugene.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

BY: Okay, then you moved to Eugene, your husband was going to school and then working. You had, then, three kids, young kids.

CH: Yes, indeed.

BY: So what did you do in Eugene?

CH: So this is where I got really involved, because there was the Asian American Student Union. And there was also a class that designed an Asian American Cultural Center organization. And the person that taught that class, John Beckwith, wanted to actually make an Asian American Cultural Center. So some people reached out to me because they had heard about me. Said, "Do you want to be involved with this?" and so I said yes. And so a handful of us really built this Asian American Cultural Center in Eugene, and that's where we were, you know, really exploring our identity even in a deeper way. We had reading groups, we had women's groups, we organized with the student union, all the student unions, in fact, at that time. They were African American, Native American, Hispanic, all there on the campus, all extremely active. And so our organization included people on campus and off campus. So then I got a chance to meet a lot more people, and a lot more Asian Americans from all different ethnicities, and my education just grew and grew during that period of time of activism and Asian American identity. I founded a program called Children's Day, and every Saturday we brought all of our kids down to this building near the university, and taught them what it meant to be Asian American. So really my children helped me. I was like, well, what am I going to teach them about their identity? Their identity is not my identity, but it's my identity and my husband's, so I need to know more about who I am.

BY: So the children sort of sparked this search for your own identity?

CH: Oh, definitely, yeah.

BY: And what was it like being a biracial family in Eugene in the late '60s, early '70s.

CH: Yeah. In Eugene, it didn't seem so strange, because everybody was kind of strange. [Laughs] But like I said, I met lifelong friends during that time of organizing this, all around Asian American, learning about ourselves, creating this organization, doing fundraisers together, doing event planning, all of this, I learned a lot during that period of time.

BY: And was your husband also involved in student activities and that kind of thing?

CH: Oh, yeah. He went down there to run a program that was to service African Americans first, and then he was -- I'm reaching way back now -- the director of, it's called the Studies Skills Program. So anyone that, particularly students of color that needed additional help or a place to go to ask questions about the university, he was in charge of that program.

BY: So it sounds like it was then a pretty supportive environment for your family, then.

CH: Oh, yes, I feel that it was, definitely.

BY: So quite a contrast to Des Moines, then.

CH: Uh-huh. And I was still taking some dance classes and taking art classes, and would get my kids involved in different kinds of arts that I was interested in, too. Took pottery and gymnastics and all kinds of classes.

BY: So you were able to integrate your arts interest in with your community activism and the activities with your children then. At that point, were you thinking about how do I meld these two things? Or were they kind of separate, or what was your thinking?

CH: Which two things?

BY: Arts and community activism.

CH: It just was always a part of everything that I did. I mean, even raising my kids, they had their art corner set up, and I'd have everything set up for them to draw and paint and sculpt and play in the water, whatever it was, it was just a part of what I did with them, and then being close to the university, I still studied some drama and took a sculpting class, sculpture class.

BY: Were you dancing at that point?

CH: I took dance classes. I took dance classes at U of O.

BY: Okay, great.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

BY: So let's see. So you were in Eugene for eight years, you said. And then what happened?

CH: Then we moved back to Portland.

BY: For...

CH: Well, he got a job, and actually, I don't remember what it was.

BY: Okay.

CH: But Portland State? Maybe it was at Portland State. Anyway, I don't remember what it was exactly, but we ended up back here. And because I had all of this rich environment of working with all different Asian Americans, I thought that's how it would be when I came to Portland. So I was looking, looking for the Asian American organizations, but there were none. There were Japanese and Chinese, Korean, everybody had their own organizations and their own communities. And so I was little bit disappointed, but I got involved in the Japanese American community, and I think that was also when I started studying Japanese dance in the late '70s.

BY: In the late '70s? Okay. And so which Japanese American organizations did you become involved with?

CH: I don't know if initially I was in an organization, but it was around the time that we were talking about redress, but we didn't call it redress then. But we were saying we need to, we're the generation that needs to talk about camp. Our parents didn't talk about it and look what we've experienced because of that. We need to do more about it, so there was a lot of talk on the West Coast in particular about holding media caravans or how are we going to hold space for our parents to talk about it, or our grandparents. So that's how I got involved really, and then the organizations that were involved were all the Japanese organizations, but primarily led by JACL.

BY: So was there a separate redress committee in Portland apart from JACL, or was it part of JACL, do you know, do you remember?

CH: I think it was, they were all kind of blending together. I think it was a separate community.

BY: And who was involved with that redress effort in Portland?

CH: Everybody. [Laughs] Well, first of all, what happened is Frank Chin and Frank Abe and Cathy Wong had organized the Puyallup gatherings.

BY: Day of Remembrance?

CH: Day of Remembrance. And then they came to Portland, and so they helped us organize community and the next Day of Remembrance.

BY: In Portland?

CH: In Portland, right. So that was really some of the first real organizing, but the people that I met, I just remember the Nikkei Jin Kai hall in Portland.

BY: Yes, down on Third?

CH: Yeah, it was a huge room, and it was just like tables, like big tables.

BY: I remember that room.

CH: And it was just everybody sitting around those tables. So the leaders of the Japanese community, your dad, mom, Homer Yasui and Miyuki, Dr. Tsujimura and Dr. Hara, George Hara, Bones Onishi, I could kind of go down the list, but Harold Onishi and probably anybody that was involved was sitting around that table. There weren't very many women and there weren't very many Sansei.

BY: Yeah, I was going to ask you about Sansei.

CH: And there weren't very many Sansei women. [Laughs]

BY: Yeah, who were the Sansei that were involved, do you remember?

CH: Peggy Nagae was there, Terry Yamada, he was a lawyer at the time as well, he was involved. There weren't that many Sansei, really they were mostly Nisei around the table.

BY: Which was interesting, I think, in many places. Certainly there were Nisei involved, but it was the Sansei who were kind of the instigators of redress.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

BY: And so you had Day of Remembrance, you're working on redress, and what kinds of things were you doing at the time?

CH: Well, the first Day of Remembrance was, I want to say, 1979. The first Day of Remembrance in Portland, so it was the second day nationally.

BY: The first one had been in Seattle.

CH: The first one in Puyallup, "Camp Harmony." And it was quite a cathartic event, planning it, organizing it, getting people there, talking to people who hadn't talked about camp until that point. But we had two thousand people attend what was then the Expo Center, still is the Expo Center, but the former Portland Assembly Center, the actual location where about four thousand people from Portland went. We asked people to bring their art that they had from camp, it was a huge exhibit, and they were bringing it up until that day. [Laughs] I was running around doing all the, trying to put the tags on all the artwork. And the governor spoke, the 442 were represented. I remember that the women cooked for everybody, two thousand people, they cooked for everybody.

BY: Wow, at the Expo Center?

CH: Yeah, they served lunch for everybody, and so it was quite amazing, quite inspiring.

BY: It sounds like quite a logistical effort, too, to get all of that organized, and media coverage, I'm imagining?

CH: Yeah, I was always the media person, and I was always in charge of the PR, and that's, I guess maybe a carryover from my Asian American Cultural Center days. But yeah, I don't remember all the details anymore, but it was quite a beautiful thing.

BY: So you were now heavily involved with the Japanese American community around Day of Remembrance and redress. Were you still doing art stuff during that time?

CH: Oh, yeah.

BY: And so what were you doing at the same time?

CH: Well, I was always teaching.

BY: Teaching what?

CH: Dance.

BY: Dance, okay.

CH: When I first came to Portland, the school that my husband went to, I, let's see, came in November, in June, May or June. Well, May, my son was born, but in June I started working at the school that he had gone to, and I decided to teach a dance class after school. So that's when I started, that was the first time that we were in Portland, the first time, yeah, we were in Portland. So I always studied, still studied dance. But started my own dance class, which was, when I think back on it, it was like, wow, I made my own flyer, I went around school kind of promoting my class, and I even would go to pick kids up, take them home, whatever I had to do to make the class work. I had talked to my teacher back in Iowa, she was still alive, and she was very encouraging for me to teach classes and carry on.

BY: So you must have been extremely busy at this point in your life. You had kids, you were involved in Japanese community activities, you were teaching dance, what was life like then for you?

CH: I don't remember all the details, I think I blocked it out. [Laughs] I think I've just always been busy. I mean, I don't think of it as busy, I just think of it as living. But I took classes at the art museum school, I always loved sculpture. And so I studied that at the U of O too, in high school. So when I got to college, that was the one class. I think it's because dance and theater were so amorphous to me, like I just wanted that tangibility of having a soapstone sculpture, you know, or a piece of wood that I could... even if it wasn't something grand, I would just put it on the shelf and look at it from time to time.

BY: And you also are a poet. So when did you start writing poetry?

CH: I think I always have. And I don't know if it's... I like to put words together, I guess is how I think about it. And then it was probably when I came back to Portland. It was... so during redress, we didn't know that's what we were doing. Because there were just all these different efforts, it wasn't just, let's get this bill passed and let's move it through, it's like, well, maybe we should go this way and maybe we should, Bill Hohri's in Chicago and he's doing litigation. There's all these different efforts. And so it wasn't until really the leadership in Congress said maybe this is the way we should go.

BY: The commission?

CH: Yeah, and then the commission was established, and we were still doing a lot of education, still holding workshops and getting people to talk. But with the commission hearing in the '80s, I guess, when it started, those workshops and taking people's stories and listening, helping them talk, but then preparing for the actual hearing which was in Seattle. So we had a series of workshops leading up to that for people who were willing to testify, and there were twenty-six of us that took a bus up to Seattle for that hearing.

BY: So I was asking about your poetry.

CH: Oh, I'm sorry, I don't know how I got to there.

BY: That's okay, I just want to know what the connection is there. Did you start writing poetry about it?

CH: You know, I can't really remember the first time. I just always liked to put words together. I think it was the rhythm of the words that...

BY: Well, there's something dance-like or artistic.

CH: It is very movement-oriented. It's like trying to find the essence of the feeling in a few words, it's not a lot of words.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

BY: Earlier you talked, you said something about going to Japan. When did that happen and how, what influence did that have on you?

CH: So I was at U of O.

BY: Okay, in Eugene?

CH: In Eugene.

BY: Okay.

CH: And it was around '76, and I had been studying History of Japan, and I can remember slamming the book down and running out of class because I was so angry. It's like, why didn't I learn Japanese? Why didn't my parents teach me Japanese? I wouldn't be going through all of this, all these questions. I read about a clan that came from China during the Shin Dynasty that was all given the name Hata. So I started writing my uncle, who held a lot of the history, and my dad's side got letters back and he said, "Oh, you're connected to this rich history," and a lot of samurai on that side of my family. I just wanted to go to Japan. And so also during this time of identity, I think that was the trip that I wanted to find a new name. And my dad said, he wouldn't even talk about it, like no, no, no. But my mom, who'd never been to Japan, said, "I'll go." So my mother and I went to Japan, leaving my three kids at home with their dad for a month, almost a month. And traveled, we had made contact with some family there, and the trip was all arranged. And we stayed with, it would be my mother's cousin from my mother's mother's side, and her daughters. So just these four women staying in Tokyo and getting to know each other, discovering Japan.

BY: Did you speak Japanese?

CH: No.

BY: How about your mom?

CH: Oh, yes.

BY: Okay.

CH: Probably really rough because she went to Nihongakko in Hood River.

BY: And then she'd been living in Des Moines, Iowa.

CH: And then she'd been living in Des Moines.

BY: Right.

CH: And that Japanese was older Japanese that they learned. But she could understand, so she roughly spoke.

BY: And so that was an important experience for you?

CH: Yes, it was definitely a life changing experience. And my mom was pretty funny because I guess right before that time, I'd always talk about identity, and she could see my struggle of the questions. Who am I and what are my roots? I remember one day in particular she said, "So I was walking down the street" -- this is my mother saying -- "and I saw an Asian woman coming in my direction and I crossed the street. Is that what you mean when you talk about denial?" I was like, "Yes." [Laughs] Like there's something, because I was talking about my identity so much that she thought about it. But when we went to Japan, it was kind of a curious thing. She had never worn a kimono, so in Japan our family dressed us and we went to some garden. The first thing she saw, a hakujin guy, she's like, "Well, hi, I'm from Iowa. Where are you from?" and I'm like, oh my gosh. [Laughs] But she was, didn't shy away from who she was, where she was from. She didn't try to pretend she was Japanese in Japan, she's knew who she was, she knew who she was.

BY: Interesting. And she had a, for a Nisei, I think, kind of an unusual experience growing up and living for so long in Iowa.

CH: Yeah, definitely. And she was wasn't the person to sit around. She went back to college, she became a docent at the art museum, she loved architecture, and she loved to fish.

BY: That must have been from her Hood River days.

CH: I think so. So when she was teaching little children in the Home Start program, she always took them fishing. She wanted to be sure that everybody knew how to put a worm on a hook. She didn't care if they kept the fish, she just wanted them to be able to put the worm on the hook. [Laughs]

BY: That's great. Okay, so then, so that was an important experience for you.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

BY: So meanwhile, now you're in Portland, you are heavily involved with the Japanese American community, redress, Day of Remembrance...

CH: Studying Japanese dance.

BY: Oh, studying Japanese dance. So talk about that a little bit.

CH: My first teacher was with the school Fujinami Kai, and the teacher came from Ontario every other month. She didn't live in Portland, and she only spoke Japanese. So I was learning Japanese dance in Japanese, but I didn't speak Japanese. [Laughs] So it was, I feel like I really had to access what that meant to move, and I had a fairly significant experience. I was dancing and she was teaching, but I did the movement before she taught it to me. So I did this whole sequence of movements, and it freaked me out. Because I was like, how did I know how to do that? Because I knew how to do that, and kind of rationalized, "Oh, because I've studied so much modern dance." And I'm like, no, I knew that. I knew what to do.

BY: Interesting. So were you then involved in a Japanese dance group, or you were just studying?

CH: I performed with Fujinami Kai.

BY: And so that was also in kimono, right?

CH: Oh, totally.

BY: It was traditional?

CH: With everything, yeah. Fans. All in Japanese. [Laughs]

BY: Wow, that's amazing. So you told me at one point that you decided to take a break from your involvement in community activities and devote yourself to your artwork. Can you talk a little bit about that decision and what you did?

CH: I have to tell you this one little part about the Japanese dance.

BY: Oh, okay.

CH: My children came to a performance I did at the Japanese gardens, and I was a young, the character was a young girl, so I had a really long ponytail and a lot of makeup, you know, white. And they came backstage and said, "Do you know where my mom is?" and I was right there. [Laughs] Yeah, they didn't recognize me. It was quite interesting.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

BY: About, that you decided to take a break and how you came to that decision and what you did.

CH: So after all the years of redress, the passage of the, you know, going to the hearings, the presidential hearings, the passage of the bill. It was in '88, August of '88. My father died in October of '88. All that time I had been teaching dance, raising my children. And I thought, you know, I don't think a lot of the people here, even though I went on to become JACL president, they don't know this other whole part of my life. And I really thought, do I want to be in meetings all the time and talking? What do I really, what is really important? And so said, I'm going to have to just focus on what I want to do as an artist. And so I just kind of stopped being involved in a lot of community work in the Japanese community, but I still stayed somewhat involved. Probably the last, biggest thing was called Celebration, because we were trying to do this Asian American organizing. This was way before APANO or other organizations that were combined in Asian American groups. And I think it was about that time that I also got a divorce. And I was dancing a lot. I had to get a job. Then I got a job with the city, which was a really stupid job, but still, I managed to get... what was it, I was an executive assistant or something, and I'd never worked before. But all of my volunteer work, starting a school in Eugene, teaching all these classes, being active in the cultural center, I just put that all down and I got hired as Executive for Public Works for the city. And I'm like, this is so bizarre. [Laughs] I'd leave at lunchtime and go to the dance studio and take classes or teach. So I'd be running back and forth, and my kids were in school. But then I started my own dance school with another woman, partnership. And did that for quite a few years, and that was really my focus, teaching and creating.

BY: So then you had stopped being involved in the Japanese community activities at that point?

CH: Yeah, I wasn't so involved at that point.

BY: And what brought you back?

CH: Well, Peggy Nagae, who was my friend back then in the early days of organizing, and then I worked on Min's case, I was his PR person all through coram nobis, all through that. And we were, she was beginning to work with Holly on getting a presidential medal for...

BY: This is 2015 or so, right?

CH: Uh-huh, for Min. She said, "I want you to come to this meeting." And I had thought in my mind when I left, I will go back one day, but I will bring the art part. So when I came back, I said, "Okay, Peggy, but I'm going to do the art part." And I did, I designed a program to educate people about Min, I worked with Holly on her play. So we put together a half an hour, forty-minute little presentation that then organized communities around listening to Min Yasui's words. "Do you know who he is? Do you know what he did? You should know about his work and how does his work then compare to what you're doing today? How is he inspiring your work if you didn't know about him?" And a lot of people hadn't heard about him.

BY: And who were you making these presentations to?

CH: So we took it to Ontario, Eastern Oregon, and performed it at the Four Rivers Cultural Center, Holly came out and joined me there, that rich history.

BY: Ontario.

CH: Eastern Oregon.

BY: Right.

CH: And then in Hood River at the Columbia Art Center. So all of the people in those areas helped me organize the communities in those areas, Latinx, whoever it was, predominate native communities of those areas, and then in Portland. So we did three of those performances and round table discussions about "Who Is Minoru Yasui?"

BY: So by "performance," was it spoken word, dance, or what was it?

CH: So we took a section of her play.

BY: Holly's play.

CH: Holly's play, we edited it together and got it down to what we thought would be the essence of some things that Min was saying. It was a reading, so I had six or seven actors so that you didn't have to memorize the lines, that they had that in front of them. I actually had the same cast of Portland pretty much in Hood River, but a totally different cast when we went to Ontario. So I auditioned, I auditioned people, and they came from Boise. But it was a totally unique cast to Ontario.

BY: And didn't you do it in Seattle as well? I feel like there was some kind of a...

CH: Well, we did, that was a different project. That was my friend who actually is more of a mentor, Nicki Nojima Lewis, she perfected the art of reader's theater. And so we did "Breaking the Silence," that was her play that she first wrote for Gordon Hirabayashi's coram nobis case when it first was introduced.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

BY: So this was around 2015 or so that all of this was happening? So at that point, how had you... what was your thinking about how to integrate the arts into community activism?

CH: Well, let's see. I guess from 1995, 1993 'til 2017, I actually... so I did a studio for about a decade, private studio, and then I went back to school to get a dance certificate. And they closed the dance department down. So I could never finish that, but the head of the department said, "There is a job, and there's only job like this in the city, and it should be yours." And so it was to help an art school, and they knew about the work that I'd been doing with children, because I had a hundred and twenty-five students at that point and we looked like crazy people. We'd do like twenty performances a year, all original work, all with the students, dance students in modern and contemporary. So I went to talk to the principal, and they had a dance teacher that had started at that school. And she just said, "Well, we want what you do. We want you know how to do," and I was being encouraged from the dance department to do this job. Because I'd never considered working in a school, in a public school. I mean, it was the only, there was Jefferson High School, so there was the dance program at Jefferson, but as far as an elementary school, there was no, this was the only dance program in Portland. And this was a school, K through 5, designed as an art school.

BY: Where was that?

CH: Buckman.

BY: Buckman, okay.

CH: Elementary art school in...

BY: Right across the street from my alma mater.

CH: Yeah, in Southeast Portland.

BY: Okay. So you did that, and then so how did that lead into your work in the arts and the community activism?

CH: So when I left, I said I can't... it's going to be really difficult for me to do creative work all the time when I'm either running a studio or now I've gone back and gotten a job full time. But I kept creating original work around Hiroshima Day, because I felt very passionate my anti-nuclear work which started in, about that time, 1988, I think. And so I had a former relationship with the Women's International Week for Peace and Freedom and also with the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility. So every summer, I would create a piece for Hiroshima Day, an original dance, theater, poetry piece. So that was kind of where I kept my artistic expression going. But then with the kids, I took what I had done in my studio creating original work and brought it into the school, and then created levels of training so that they could become more and more proficient if they were interested in doing so. So I had a program during the school and after school for quite a few years, but it was that original work, the original work that I did with children all those years in my own original work is what I did, I guess.

BY: So it sounds like you were able to integrate your political activism with your dance and theater, and was that a struggle for you or did that just come naturally to integrate those two things?

CH: I wouldn't call it a struggle for me personally to get it out and to think of the ideas. But within public education, sometimes it was. Because I felt children should learn, not only have their imagination protected because they come out so creative and ready to do who they are, who they come into the world to be. So I really felt like I wanted to protect that, but also I wanted to teach them. So there was never a separation from me, Chisao the dance teacher and Chisao Japanese American and activist, and it all kind of came together. And it came together in my teaching. I wasn't... I felt it important that children should know, whether they're kindergarten, I taught K through 5, so they were making dances about war and peace, they were making dances about and creating original performances about the Japanese American experience. Sometimes I got some pushback from parents who thought their children should not be learning these things or teachers who thought this is a bad history. Can we just wait until later, until they're older, to teach the bad history? Usually not administrators so much because they didn't know how I did what I did. [Laughs] They were just like, "Whatever you do, do that again." But they didn't kind of watch me on what is my curriculum. I didn't have the same... I had my standards, but I didn't have the same standards as a classroom teacher, but I had to really work with finding out who my allies were within the school, classroom teachers and other people outside of the school and bringing them in. So I think that was a really rich period of work. I never thought it as separate, I guess.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 16>

BY: So how did all of that experience with political community activism and the arts lead to your current position? What is your current position and how did it come to be?

CH: So my current position is as Creative Director of the Japanese American Museum of Oregon. And I think this started in... after I worked five years in the school, I'm like, "Can I really do this?" [Laughs] "Can I really make this work?" "Who am I in all this work? What is my work about?" And so I took a year off. I took a year of leave, non paid leave. I found out I could go back and my job would still be there after a year. And I just studied that whole year. I got very deeply involved in expressive arts training, went to meet Anna Halprin in Kent Fields, really trying to understand what expressive arts was about. So the nature of teaching the quality of arts without necessarily focusing on just technique or vocabulary. That process that we all have to learn if you studied any art form. And so it was kind of like finding out the importance of healing personal expression, helping people to guide them into that knowledge with children as well. So it was really through the expressive arts, and the different kinds of people I met and places I went and programs that I trained in, from Urban Bush Women 's summer institute, and then I got involved with the program in Washington, D.C., called the Dance Exchange, which I've been a partnering artist there since 2013.

BY: Ten years there. No, twenty years.

CH: And that was all going on, then, too. By the time I retired, I never used the word "retired." I made everybody not use the word. They'd go, "Oh, I hear you're moving on." [Laughs] I'm like, "I'm moving on." So they had a "moving on" party for me, and that summer, I was working with the dance exchange in North Carolina almost the entire summer, that was the summer of the solar eclipse. I got to perform with them in the Smoky Mountains during the solar eclipse with NASA. I just had some amazing, you know, performing at the Kennedy Center with them, at the 16th Avenue Church in Washington, D.C. around Hiroshima. I think that working with the Dance Exchange and bringing kind of my artistic interests in social change work and expressive arts, it really found a place there at the Dance Exchange. So by that time, I was pretty much spending half of my time in Portland and half of my time in D.C., Takoma Park, Maryland, which is right outside of D.C. So it really became a place of nurturing my artistic voice, too.

BY: So how did that lead to JAMO and your current position?

CH: Well, when I moved on from my job and I worked with the Dance Exchange and I was continuing to do workshops and involved with Minoru Yasui, and "Vision and Vigilance" was a program that I really went back in again, like, "What is important for me to do with this last part?" "What integrates all the things that I care about?" and, "Where could that land?" I've done my own programs, I've had my own studio, I've been in an institution. And I got more and more involved through the Yasui work. Then I thought, you know, maybe the Japanese American Museum, at that time it was the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, would be a good place, could I develop some programming, and what would I offer and how could it help? And where could I land kind of this integration of the importance of the arts to me, but I think the importance of what it should be in our world. And so at the time, the executive director, Lynn Fuchigami Parks and I have gotten to know each other pretty well. And I was just talking to her about what I would like to do and kind of my different ideas. And she said, "Yeah, you should do it." I was like, I mean, I thought about the program and I thought about the title. So it wasn't something that I was approached, "Will you do this?"

BY: You created it.

CH: I created it.

BY: Great.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 17>

BY: I realize that I forgot something that you were involved in that I didn't ask you about earlier. So talk about Portland Taiko.

CH: Oh, yeah, okay. That was happening then, too.

BY: I don't remember, when was that, around? Was it before or after redress?

CH: Oh, after. Definitely after.

BY: Okay, all right.

CH: Well, in Eugene, I had been exposed to taiko, and I had met Russell and Jeanne. Russell Baba and Jeanne Mercer had gone to Mt. Shasta. We had a small taiko group. I wasn't really involved with the taiko group, but my friends were in Eugene. And it just seemed like the right thing to do in Portland, and so I was kind of collecting names, and Ann Ishimaru and Zack moved into town, and so I said, "I think we should do a taiko group. I heard you do taiko, let's get it started," and so we were able to start. And at that time, too, I was really kind of struggling with buyo.

BY: Japanese dancing.

CH: Japanese dance. And I'd studied it for maybe ten, fifteen years, which is nothing. But I had gotten to the point where I could natori, and so I was in this anguished place of, should I natori?

BY: Explain what natori is.

CH: So if you're with a school, you would study that form that the school teaches. In this case it was first Fujinami Kai and then Tachibana. So when Sahomi came and she spoke English, I was able to perform with her quite a bit, but also just really loving the forms and the dances that I was learning. But kind of always had this... I just couldn't figure out how I could do that, how I could be a modern dance teacher and create things and do that. It's just not humanly possible. And so I went to her one day and said, "I just can't. I don't think I can do the natori." She said, "Oh, it's okay. You can take everything that you've learned and incorporate it into your modern dance." You just can't do the traditional, the very traditional aligned with the school, but any folk dance, traditional folk, I could definitely incorporate. So I wanted to land it somewhere. Of course if it's in me, I'm teaching that to the kids and I'm doing all that. But I thought taiko would be a great form. I hadn't really studied that form up until then. So I thought, well, if I studied taiko, get it in my body, then maybe that will be a way that I can incorporate some Japanese dance movements, or at least knowledge. Which I was able to start to do, but then it just kind of felt like, hmm, I'm really not a musician and I had to commit to being a musician. So I just found some other ways to...

BY: So how long did you play taiko then?

CH: Maybe about four or five years, the beginning of Portland Taiko.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<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.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 19>

BY: So I probably should have asked you this earlier, but I'm interested in your children's identity. So first of all, tell me maybe the names and birthdates or ages of your children.

CH: Oh, I don't even know all their ages. [Laughs]

BY: Okay, well, the names anyway, the names.

CH: John. John Edward Cawthorn because they all have their dad's last name. He is the dean of the Wayne State Library and Library School. He was strongly influenced by his grandmother who was a librarian.

BY: Oh, right.

CH: So he grew up with a lot of books, being read to, having those stories dramatized. He had books memorized by the time he was three. Couldn't read, but a lot of kids were able to do that. Then Elise Hata Marie, and so she has my maiden name in her name, just because it flowed better, Hata Marie than Marie Hata, I don't know. I did the yelling at them when you're mad test. [Laughs] "Elise Hata Marie!" And then Alina Odrine Cawthorn. Elise is in Portland, she runs a daycare and she's been through a lot of different... social service work, I think. She's a very caring, loving person. And then Alina Odrine, she went to Cal Arts and got her degree in dance. So I have one that kind of followed the footsteps. And then I had a fourth child, not with the same husband, who's Kaliya Tomiko. So that was my dad's youngest sister who died when she was real young.

BY: So how do they identify?

CH: I think they identified more as being Black. In America, if you're dark, darker skin, but I also know that they are proud of being Japanese American, they knew my mother and father very well. They had that and I didn't have that so much. Because my mom, even though she was in Iowa, she never missed any dance recital, any performance, any graduation, she was just always here, so they knew her quite well. I think it's expressed in different ways in all of them. But I don't feel that there's a denial, but I also don't, they don't say that, "I'm Asian American," they say, "I'm African American and Asian." But now, because I raised them being "Afro Asian," that was the terminology that I felt was important because that's powerful. You're part of Africa and you're part of Asia, and that's more than half the world. So that's the terms that they grew up with, and always accepted that, and their family always knew that and accepted that. So I feel like it's a part of them.

BY: So another question. You talked about your belief that it's important for children to know about things that are happening in the world today that affect them around race and politics and all of that. So what are your feelings about this movement now to suppress the teaching of race and the history, U.S. history in the schools? I'm sure you have an opinion about that, I'd love to know what it is.

CH: So sometimes it feels like we've gone a long way, we've progressed a lot, and then other times it feels like we have gone backwards. I tend to not want to put a lot of energy into that as a fight, but more as energy into what are we creating and what are we telling, and as a museum, we are responsible for telling those stories. So I think it's a sad commentary on the democracy, not only in America but around the world. I think that this next generation has a lot of challenges, but I also think, number one, they're the largest generation, the Z generation, since the baby boomers. They're very action oriented, and I think that I always kind of reflect on The Prophet, you know that book The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, this is how I raised my children. Your children are not your children, they belong to a world that you will never know. So we have to make the world the best we can while we're here. I can help with that, but they're going to carry on and they're going to make their choices So I have to live as fully in what I believe, and art is a choice, creative expression and healing and all the things that we need to be human, to be generous and compassionate, to be forgiving and to be really unconditional in our love for each other is what is important to me.

BY: Okay.

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<Begin Segment 20>

BY: A couple of other conceptual kinds of things. So even though Sansei did not live through the incarceration themselves, there are many people who believe in this idea of intergenerational trauma that gets on from generation to generation, and it can manifest itself in things like drug and alcohol abuse, violence, mental issues. So what do you think of that idea?

CH: Oh, totally am with it. Satsuki Ina's work for years in starting Tsuru for Solidarity, I signed up to be a healing facilitator and went through all the training to do that and actually will be leading for the "Past is Not the Present" that Densho is presenting, I'm one of the healing facilitators for that. I believe that it's genetic, it's in our DNA. Not only the brilliance and the creativity, but the hurt and the healing that needs to happen. It can't really separate it. Yeah, definitely believe in that, though.

BY: And what do you think of the "model minority myth"?

CH: Oh, I think it's a way to separate and not deal with the history of Asian Americans in America. It's another way to separate people of color in America from each other, from understanding each other. So I don't believe it. I think it's something somebody made up. [Laughs]

BY: Okay. And do you have any final thoughts that you would like to share about your career or your, what you hope gets passed on to your children and grandchildren, any other thoughts?

CH: When my mother passed away, she had moved to Portland eight days before.

BY: Wow.

CH: She had passed in the night, and the next day, I found her, and happened to be that my daughter was away, so it was just my mom and I. And I had an experience that has really shaped a lot of who I am and how I continue. I had an experience of being surrounded by love, and it just came to me in that moment that really, when it gets to everything, that love is all that matters. And it's an unconditional love, and so I realized at that moment that she loved me unconditionally. That this was, there may have been a lot of rules, but the bottom line is unconditional love for her child. And so it's a lesson that I try to do and keep in the work that I create or in the way that I exchange with my family that gets frustrating sometimes when the way the world is, it's not necessarily framed on unconditional love. It's an important way to go, important understanding. And the other thing that I learned, both of these from my mother, was when I didn't talk to her for about a year -- I didn't talk to my parents for about a year -- it was because I was so mad of not learning Japanese.

BY: About when was this?

CH: When I was at U of O. I'm like, "How could you? How could you not teach me? Why?" And she said, she said, "Well, I guess every generation just does the best they can, and I'm so sorry." And I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, the power of apology, the power of true honest apology." Because I was like, "It's okay." [Laughs] "It's okay if I don't speak Japanese." She could have said a lot of things. She could have defended herself, I mean, the fact that she said, "I'm sorry," and, "Every generation does the best they know how to do." I think it's pretty simple but it's pretty profound, too.

BY: That's really beautiful. Okay, thank you very much for doing the interview.

CH: Thank you.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.