<Begin Segment 25>

LH: So how did you come to this realization from thinking about maybe this experience or recalling a feeling about this experience with your mother. How did you come to terms with that and turn it into some response where -- or some realization that it's not just a feeling of anger and how did you turn that around into your current philosophy?

MN: It's being able to identify. See, when somebody says, "Jap," and spits on my mom, that hurts more than if they spit on me. That should never happen to my mom, never. And you hang on to the injustice of it all, and you try to say where does this come from? It does not come from white people. It comes from bigotry. It comes from ignorance. It comes from hate. It comes from stupidity. It comes from a lot of other things, but these bad, lousy traits are not color bound. They are not just white folks. Everybody... stupidity comes in all colors. Love comes in all colors. Let's pinpoint much more closely what the problem is. The problem is greed. The problem is fear. The problem is -- let's pinpoint that and then have the courage to say how much of that do I hold? We're all kind of vulnerable to having this thing. When somebody calls you ugly name, you call them back and you get into this kind of a deal. I think we have to look at it a little bit more openly. This person who has to feel superior by calling my mom a name like that and spitting on her probably got some problems, too. And we can hate, hate and bring ourselves down, or we can start saying where, we're all part of human race. How can we reduce this kind of thinking? How can we help each other so we can all live with more dignity and peace and pride. And I think we got to get beyond who to hate. If we just get more articulate on who to hate, we haven't solved the problem. We got to start reaching out and saying how to start... I tell folks, I think -- and I'm not so sure I can do this all the time -- I think the only real way to eliminate hate is to smother it with love. You know? I think that's true. I think that's true intellectually. Can I really be able to adapt that emotionally? That's my challenge. That's what I got to do. That's hard. It's easy for me to just point who the problem is, and I think though if we do that, we're really going to go down a very scary trail. The earth is shrinking and we have hate all over this world, whether you're talking about the Protestants and Irish, or the Arabs and the Jews, or Rwanda or Pakistan, it doesn't matter. It's all other the world we have this kind of hate going on.

LH: So how did you get from your mother, the incident with your mother, how did you... where in your life, in your childhood, where did you decide?

MN: You're a tough lady. [Laughs] I don't think it's a one thing incident. It just keeps coming very slowly. You keep thinking this over and over and over again, and you kind of come to different conclusions. What? How can I zero in a little bit more? You go to see little babies and look at their innocent eyes and their different color skin. Do they really think that? I mean, where does this hatred start from? Where does this intolerant hate and actually it's so easy to blame other folks, but you start looking at it and when you are fighting the enemy, fighting the enemy, you look in the mirror and the enemy finally is you. You can't fight the enemy without becoming the enemy, and so when you hear the same stories over and it keeps coming to the same conclusion, then you start getting closer and closer to the philosophy that says wow, those people you admire, whether the it's the teaching of Christ or Buddha or Gandhi or Sister Mary Theresa, I mean Mother Theresa, what are all of these people that are admirable people. What do they do, and they embrace humanity with lots of love and those are -- and I figure I can never be Gandhi or Mother Theresa, but I can in my small way try to emulate some of the teachings that they say, just do small things and do it with lots of love is what Mother Theresa says. I figure okay, I'll try. I'll try one more time.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.