<Begin Segment 19>

BN: I just wanted to circle back now to Gidra. And as you know, Densho put it online a few years ago, it's been, if not the most, one of the most popular collections in terms of people downloading it. And all these articles written about it, we get all these college students and ethnic studies students who are fascinated by it. Because they didn't know anything like this existed all these years ago. So, yeah, I'm just wondering how you feel about now, literally fifty years later, that there's this real interest, fascination with it, especially by younger Asian Americans, this thing that was doing things that are meaningful to me today.

JF: Well, I hope they find it meaningful today. That's good. I don't know. I guess on the one hand, what I read about and see, they're like celebrations of recognition and it doesn't matter what their politics are. They could be the most racist whatever or reactionary, right-wing whatever, as long as they're Asian and they're in the media, and they're an actor or actress and stuff. It's like, okay, that counts, but that's not what... I hope that wasn't what Gidra was inspiring to promote. People that stood up for each other, yes, but not simply for their being a famous actress or because they got in this movie role. Yeah, it's a reason to celebrate, but let's not go nuts over it. [Laughs]

[Interruption]

JF: Yeah, I don't think that was the reason why Gidra existed. Yeah, we would probably have articles about it, and then like secretly Bruce Lee was probably a hero to a lot of us. In fact, when that series Kung Fu came out with David Carradine, who should have been Bruce Lee, a lot of us got background roles in there, including me. Because we just happened to be studying under Kam Yuen, who served as the technical advisor in the later series. So, yeah, it's not that we denigrate that kind of recognition, but that's not all there is, I think, for us "Gidra-istas." You can't celebrate on the one hand and then on the other, ignore the stuff that's happening today within the Black community. So if we don't actively support that, I think nearly a hundred percent of us are internally supporting that. Spiritually aligned, or whatever. We see the purpose behind those street demonstrations if we're not actively a part of them. And in that way, I could almost hear my dad talking that we support those kind of street actions. And I guess that's something that's always going to be there.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.