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IM: So you were trying to teach the young people how to... or at least in the case of the Agbayani Village, how to relate to farm workers. But I'm curious, how did you relate to some of these young people?

KM: How did we relate?

IM: Yeah.

KM: Well, we weren't that much older. I mean, I guess we were, so we were eight years older maybe, eight years older. You know, for me, it was the first time that I was really working with that age. I mean, kind of did it with the young people that were into drugs, but that was totally different. Sometimes it would be like somebody ran away, so we're looking for them. One young woman had run away. Actually, I think she was, under my watch, I think she ran away and was like, oh my god, we have to find her. We kind of knew where she was, and then she also had run away with, taken some of my sisters' clothes and my sister was really mad at me. So I had to find her, and so it was like, it was a little bit different in that relationship. So with these young people, they weren't into drugs, they were just, you know, young people with different problems and families and things like that, and they were all different. So part of it was just them accepting who we were, because we were probably very alien to their experience, people that were into politics, and trying to talk about Asian Americans and talk about Japanese Americans, and they hadn't heard about these things before and their parents were a little alarmed, actually, some of them, especially the ones that were from Japan, it's like, who were these people? So we had to kind of... after we did some very normal things like the car washes and sports programs, then they saw us as okay. We were a bit radical to them, I think.

IM: So there were, I guess, sort of conflicts between, I guess, you guys had done your ethnic studies education, you had read some of these theoretical texts, and then you tried to apply it or bring it in sort of digestible way to young people.

KM: Yeah. It was our first experience trying to do that, create some curriculum.

IM: Yeah. So maybe, I would love to hear more -- well, actually, first, so that the young people that you were working with, you mentioned some of them, they had parents who were from Japan. So were they mostly shin-Nisei?

KM: Just, I know Kazuko's family was from Japan, but yes, she was one of the more outspoken people, one of the leaders. I think that she was going to do whatever she was going to do. But there was a lot of Sansei, young Sansei people that were part of the group, and their parents, some of their parents were very supportive of us, especially because we had done the rice distribution, and they kind of saw us as people trying to just bring people together. We did have a conflict with one family that was part of the rice distribution and their daughter was in the group. There came a point where we wanted to do protests and they didn't want to. It was sort of like there was a cutting edge of, like, we negotiate, they were one of the leaders, one of the parents who were kind of one of the strong supporters of organizing. And so we had to listen to what they said, but we kind of had to split ways, part ways on that one.

IM: Do you remember the particular protests?

KM: It was, again, the rice distribution, it was the company. So we went down to the company because they weren't giving us our money back. And we said we have to get in their face a little more. So we had a big rally and demonstration at their company, I don't remember what it was, but it was a factory. And they were, I think they were opposed to that. We thought, no, we don't need to do that, we don't need to go that far, we said, "No, we do."

IM: The parents.

KM: The parents didn't want to do that.

IM: But the child didn't want to or was kind of neutral?

KM: I don't remember that part. I mean, I think there were two separate things. So we had done the rice distribution, and I can't remember simultaneously if Young Spirits was also forming.

IM: So before you went to Agbayani Village, before you would do all these sorts of things, you would have, you would try to do some education. Can you tell me a little bit more about what it took to build a curriculum for the community and for young people?

KM: Well, not for the community so much, but, I mean, we did a lot of programs in the community using different facilities, I think, which was really great. Like we used the Rafu Chuo Gakuen building. When we did the rice distribution, we were at Higashi, and they stored bad rice for us for a long time. And we did some things at Tenrikyo temple, and a lot of things at the, what is now the... it was Keiro, but it was called the Japanese retirement home when we were working. And they let us use their facility a lot for different programs. I think we did an Agbayani program there, but we did a program just on the history of Boyle Heights at the Rafu Chuo Gakuen and had June Kuramoto play the koto and did a slideshow about the history of Boyle Heights from people that had lived there. One of the... we actually did a tour of the Evergreen Cemetery, and it's part of that history of people that lived in Boyle Heights, because it's very graphic if you go in the cemetery, like the different ethnicities, and the long founders of Boyle Heights are in that cemetery. So that was kind of fun to do.

IM: So were they mostly presentations or discussions, how did they...

KM: They were programs, actual presentation programs. I don't know if we had discussions, I can't remember. They're more like programs, so slideshow presentation and some music, then refreshments and talking afterwards.

IM: Did you ever leave one of these discussions or did you just help plan?

KM: We always helped plan them. I don't really remember.

IM: That's fine, yeah. Okay, so you're leading Young Spirits -- oh, actually, I wanted to ask also about Agbayani Village and interactions you and, I guess, the young people had with some of the Manongs. Do you remember any of those?

KM: There weren't too many Manongs left. I think it's... was it Sylvester? Sebastian. Sebastian was one of the ones, he took a lot of pictures, but he was one of the few that, I think, was very friendly and talked to the young people. There were so many young people. I just remember the work brigades going up and down, and then we gathered afterwards. But I have to say that it's really from looking at the pictures that I kind of recall stuff, because we were all gathered together. Specific conversation, I think we just learned about their life, their life story, and them being really alone. It's why Agbayani Village was important, because they had no family. And when I think about that now, it's like too bad we didn't think about our own community of single men that never got married and worked in the fields.

IM: So you mean the Issei?

KM: Issei. Issei that died really, with no one remembering their story.

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