<Begin Segment 27>

DG: What did it mean to be an American?

NS: Well, having spent that year in Japan, I knew I didn't want to go back to Japan or be -- well, I didn't want to be, go back to Japan and be a Japanese citizen -- that I was content to be back here in the United States and become an American citizen. So that was one hurdle already passed. And as long as I didn't feel that -- I don't think the American people that I meet characterize me as so very different anymore.

DG: What about your own feelings? Did you think of them as hakujin and yourself as Japanese?

NS: No. I just took people as people, and I hope that they did the same thing. And so the more you practice that, the more your feeling is one of community rather than a difference. And I always promoted that rather than differences.

DG: So what was Japan or where was it?

NS: Japan was a different, was a different country. 'Course, there were relatives there, but they had different life than I did and not the life that I wanted.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.