<Begin Segment 18>

RN: Well, this is kind of how I ended up getting involved in the Asian American movement. So you have to remember I'm, with my experiences right after the war, and not really, like a lot of people of color especially who aren't part of a community, like if I grew up in Gardena, maybe it would be a totally different story. But I felt very disenchanted... I felt very good at Eames because that was another world. But I knew once I left... I didn't know, but once I left and we started the studio, and my partner dealt with art directors a lot, did the business part, but there was still a lot of schmoozing he had to do and interact with a lot of people that didn't have the same values that I did. So I was beginning to dislike that, and I began to dislike living here.

SY: "Living here," you mean...

RN: In the U.S.

SY: Oh, the United States.

RN: And a lot of us say that, you don't feel, you're not quote, "white American" or are you totally Asian? And that sounds old now, but to me, it was new, you know. I didn't articulate it, but I'm just not comfortable here. I'm not relaxed, especially in the business I was in. So I decided, to hell with it, I'm going to move to Japan and become an expatriate, I'm going to live there. Had these great ideas of blending into the crowd and feeling more at home. So I made an arrangement with a fashion photographer in Tokyo and then went to visit. We had done this all on the phone and he had come here. And so I visited, went to Tokyo and visited his studio and all this. And then it's like a lot of other, I'm sure, JAs, you go over there and find out you're really gaijin, more so than here. So I came back. I'd say, well, that's it. And then I got hold of, I think, the second issue of Gidra somewhere and I don't remember where. And I read it, paged all the way through and I said, "Wow, this is exactly what I feel," that I'm not really part of this society and all that.

SY: Can you back up and tell me, like, roughly how long were you in Japan?

RN: Oh, just a few weeks.

SY: You were planning to stay but you...

RN: Oh, yeah. This was a preliminary visit. And then I realized the first week, this is not going to work. I feel better in Spain, I think.

SY: And your Japanese was enough to get by?

RN: No. Well, I can understand it. I used to understand it pretty well, but my vocabulary and my pronunciation is probably, my vocabulary is about third grade, right? So that probably contributed, if I was fluent, maybe that would have been different.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.