<Begin Segment 17>

BN: Where were you when Martin Luther King was assassinated?

NN: What year was that?

BN: That would have been, it was '68. I don't remember the month now.

NN: You know what? Because I know when they had the Alabama bombings. Not the Alabama, where they killed like the three kids at the church.

BN: The church bombing.

NN: Right.

BN: That was earlier.

NN: I was at Sequoias, I was at junior college.

[Interruption]

BN: Did you remember the MLK assassination, Robert Kennedy?

NN: Do you remember the year of that?

BN: They were both '68.

NN: It was '68?

BN: I know Kennedy was assassinated in June. I don't remember when MLK was. I want to say, I think that was August.

NN: Then I was at Dorsey at the time. For Kennedy, I was at Dorsey. I think Kennedy was before '68, wasn't it?

BN: Well, no.

NN: You're talking about Robert?

BN: Yeah, Robert.

NN: Oh, I'm talking about JFK.

BN: Yeah, JFK, you would have been at Dorsey, yeah. Robert's like five years later. I'm just wondering, you're probably in the service at that point, so I was just wondering where you were when these happened? But if you don't, if it doesn't come to you right away, then that's fine.

NN: All I remember, though, was the Jets beat the Colts when I was overseas.

BN: Ah, the Super Bowl.

NN: Yeah, Joe Namath.

BN: Joe Namath, yeah.

NN: Because we get the Stars and Stripes, and they would talk about that kind of stuff, but they would talk about it. MLK.

BN: I think this is a good, probably right as you're getting out is a good place to end. One thing I wanted to ask you before we finish is, did you have any awareness of the whole 442nd story and the Nisei soldier story at this point, and did you have family members who were World War II vets?

NN: No. I had a friend whose father lost a leg, had a prosthesis, and he was a vet. But no one talked about it, and I think, to this day, that there's a group that talk about their patriotism, and what they have done for the community, and everything is really kind of like, more or less like a "model minority" proudness. I don't know how to put it. And from everything that I've seen or heard from the rank and file, the soldiers that, it's only like, to me, like the mucky-mucks talked that stuff, but they're the ones that have lived it, are still living it, like you know what, they're solid. And I kind of say that, too, because I had that experience where they opened up the Budokan. That Budokan should have been opened up like decades earlier, because we could have got First Street North for fucking free. But then I guess JANM and MOCA got into this thing where MOCA didn't want it there, because it's going to interfere with their ambiance. And then to swing the tide, they got some of the spokespeople of the 442 to come in to a community meeting and say, "We don't want a gym there because it's going to interfere with our monument." And no one even knows the monument's there, and to have a gym right next to that, they have the kids to walk by and honor that darn thing, but then that's when I kind of learned that, you know what, they don't really, to me, represent the heart and soul of the 442, and the heart and soul is what I respect. But to answer your question, that most of the 442 members of the Crenshaw area were not spokespeople. But they just kept it to themselves.

BN: Why don't we end here for today?

NN: Okay.

BN: It seems like a good place, and then there's plenty more to talk about later for the next time.

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