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BN: So I also wanted to ask you about Buddhahead Trilogy. How did that come about, and obviously there's a lot of your own experiences in there. And, I guess, what made you decide to take that approach as opposed to writing a memoir or some other format?

NN: Well, if I wanted to make it interesting, just about me, that I would have to lie a lot, right? So when I put together a compilation about my experiences with people that I know, and combining that with their experiences into a single character or characters, that that's what this was about. So part of it is me, but the other part is lifetime relationships and lifetime experiences, and what more or less inspired me to write something, was that partially it was like, I remember having this conversation with Yuji Ishioka. And Yuji used to write historical books, well-documented, like in 1825, like, "Kichigaro, da-da-da." And then Yuji would always give me his books, right? And then one day, I said, "Yuji, why don't you write a story about just a person?" And then I remember Yuji said, "That's your job to do that, Nick." I remember him saying that a long time ago. And that kind of made sense to me in this context, that I've always learned a lot just be reading. I mean, more so than going to school, I used to read about people. Like I say, like as a kid, I used to read the Sports Illustrated or sports magazine, or read about these sports people, their lives and all that. And I've always, you get older, the Autobiography of Malcolm X, but there's always some interesting stuff out there. And whenever I would go to the bookstore to look for something, or even the library, you could find everything under the sun on African Americans. And there was a little smaller section on the Latinx community. There's even like a, probably like a whole bookshelf on the Indians, Native Americans, but when it came down to, at least during that time, about Asian Americans, that it was almost like we didn't exist.

So after seeing... I read Roots by Alex Haley. I said you know, what? I'm going to write something about the Great Japanese American Novel. So that's always been like a trip on my mind. And when my parents' health started to decline, or maybe a little bit before then, I started to, I guess my kids were grown, and then when my parents, especially my pop, because we never talked, I started asking him questions about, because his family was poor, like they were sharecroppers like in Central Cal. No running water kind of stuff, electricity, so I'm going to ask him questions. So he started sharing with me certain things. But I was learning, picking up and all that, and I think one day I just put pen on paper and then I just got this thing about... and I think through learning about our culture, talking to Isseis, learning about, being part of the Asian American Movement or participating in it, that I knew enough to actually put together the Issei experience, the Nisei thing, then especially our thing, the Sansei were no problem. And then I started to try to do everything like in a first-person perspective. And then when I started with this Issei thing, I got to a point where I can't do this, because there was no way that I could portray what they were feeling. So I did that kind of like in a third-person style, and a little bit on the Nisei thing, but when it came to the Sansei thing, I could make it more real. So it kind of changes.

But I was able to finish it really quick, I was able to finish it real quick, but it was on the shelf maybe a couple of years. Because like I told you, I got like twenty-nine on my writing skills, I'm terrible. But I have a friend who's great, and she actually, I turned Harry Manaka on to her, and also Warren. Her name is Candice Ota, she's the best. So she cleaned my thing up. And you know what? She did it out of the goodness of her heart. And then Candice gets it, so she didn't try to make it her story. And she always says, "Less is more," so she, you know, dotted the "I"s and got rid of all the extra language and everything. So when she finished, I said, "You know what? That's pretty good." So not only that, she did the cover. [Laughs]

BN: Are you going to do another one?

NN: No. [Laughs] Your turn.

BN: I've got some things in mind. What was the reaction? Because I bet a lot of people that you know probably saw themselves in it.

NN: Oh, yeah. Like people that I know that they would know that I'm talking about their thing, is that I gave them all at least copies of the chapters or whatever that they're in just to see what they say. I don't want no one gunning for me later. And everybody was cool with it.

BN: No, I really enjoyed reading it.

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