<Begin Segment 19>

JD: Can we... can you think just a little bit about important lessons that you think people of the future or people of today could learn from this period in history? The experience of the Japanese American community, the particular way that Bainbridge Island related to that whole time, and then, and also about the relationship between the Japanese American and Filipino American communities.

FK: Well, I think there are a couple lessons that are important to me here. One is, one is that, that the opposite of caring for someone really isn't hate, but it really is fear. That when you become afraid for your own safety or afraid for your image or any, any fear for yourself makes it very hard sometimes to think of the other person, and what they're going through. You become so protective of yourself and your own safety that the welfare of someone else just completely leaves your mind. And, and you can say somethin' like the forced removal or the internment or whatever you want to call it, that you, that you didn't realize it was going on or that it was so difficult or that it was so bad, you can say those kind of things, but most of it is because you aren't willing to be aware of what's going on because you're so preoccupied with your own safety. The other thing, I think, is power. And I talked about this before, but power can be thought of as being two different things. One is external power, which is power that you get whether it's wealth or political position or being recognized, or whatever. And the other one is authentic power, which is the power you have within you or your soul. And, and the way you can measure the difference between the two is, is that external power is something that can be taken away from you. You can lose it. While authentic power, your soul, is not something that can be taken away from you. I mean, people can attack you or do anything they want to you, but if you've got that power within you to really believe what you're doing is, is out of caring and loving, it just can't be taken away from you. 'Cause you know what you're doing is, is correct. And, and I think external power, because when it becomes important, it leads to judging people and it leads to saying people have different classes and different levels. And, and it makes it harder for us to feel that everybody is valued because we're working so hard to, to have that external power. And while one of the measures again might be "I do good things, therefore I must be good." Or "You do good things because you are good." And there's a difference between the two things. And, and I think fear-mongering, all those things happen. And it's almost... automatically follows anybody who's geared towards protecting external power. And you almost always end up with a violent sort of war or any of those kinds of things.

And I think looking for our soul is, is really our purposes in life. And, and I, I'm hopeful that this memorial and this, the things we're doing, helps remind everybody that that's what that's for. It's not for criticizing people or to, to say this wrong thing has happened to us, but it's for the future of our children. Being able to see that the most important thing in life is your soul and how you care for other people and how you, how you feel about your own soul. And that's, and that helps people do that by seeing the things that are going on, and I think it's all worthwhile.

And as far as the Filipino community, I think everybody struggles with, with seeing everybody as equally valued or not seeing each other as one being better than the other, and so forth. And I think it's a struggle that both sides are making right now. And, and it could be something we never talk about and something we never even mention, but it's, it's a struggle that everybody goes through. And I think until everybody sees each other as being equally valued, that each of us is no better than the worst person in the world. We'll always have conflict and struggle for wanting external power instead of looking at our souls.

JD: Is this understanding that you now have of what is most important in life, do you connect this in any way to the experience that you and your family went through during the war and the internment and the struggles after that?

FK: Yeah, 'cause I see that as... well, that's my life. I mean, that's probably influenced my life more than anything else, is this, is being taken off to concentration camp because of the way I look, so on and so forth. But I also think it's the struggle that everyone goes through whether they've been off to concentration camp or not. It's... we're always searching for who we are and, and wanting to advance that goodness within us. And I think if we see that as really the purpose in life, and it is a purpose in life because I think if we die, we don't take any of that stuff with us, you know, you don't take your good looks, you don't take your wealth, you don't take all that stuff. But if we leave anything of us here on earth it's how we've affected other people and, and how we've helped them become more quote/quote, soulful. And I, and I, and if you believe in reincarnation, which I do, I think that's the constant struggle in life. When you come back in another life, you're actually coming back to work more on your, on your soul. And it's... karma is, is what happens to you because of the things you do. And if, we need to realize that if we don't treat other people as valued and, and care for them, that's gonna come back on us somehow and make it harder for us to work on our souls in this life or the next life that we come back to.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.